Work Text:
Ben’s hand rests firmly at the curve of her waist as she impatiently sits on his thigh, his fingers toying with the hem of her sweater in that deliberate, maddening way of his that always turns her mindless with anticipation and makes her heartbeat race in her chest.
Despite how much she aches for him to just touch her, his fingertips never dip beneath the fabric of her clothes, never brush against her skin, never grant her the relief she’s already so desperate for. Instead, he slowly, methodically riles her up – the promise of the phantom touch of his skin against hers, a barely noticeable shift of his thigh between her legs, a soft hum that escapes his lips, its vibration traveling to her core.
It’s devastating.
She’d hate him, if she didn’t like him so much.
He’s not looking at her, of course. Instead, his gaze is focused on the essay she’d presented him earlier, his eyes following the words she’d written last week with rapt attention, as if it were a crucial contract he needed to analyze in the most minute details and sign by the end of the night for the sake of his company.
Sometimes, it almost moves her to tears, the attention he gives to all the things she deems important – it would be so easy for him to brush this stupid essay aside and fuck her into the couch, all ragged breaths and desperate hands, groans muffled against her skin as he thrusts and thrusts and thrusts and turns her boneless underneath him.
Instead, he reads it with the solemnity he would reserve for something sacred, and she feels almost bashful as she sits on his thigh, pinned into place by the gentle hand resting at her waist. It would make her feel cherished , this kind of attention, if only she didn’t want him to throw her face down into the couch and absolutely rail her.
Still. She waits, as patiently as she can.
“Ah, that’s a good point you made here,” he tells her, his voice steady and even, as if completely unaffected by this whole situation. His hand caresses her hip, almost languidly. “Smart girl.”
She inhales at his praise and squirms a bit, searching for the relief she so desperately craves, just a bit–
“No, sweetheart,” he warns her, firmly but not unkindly. His hand comes to rest at her waist again, holding her in place and preventing her from moving, his long fingers spanning half of her ribcage. “Let me finish this.”
Tears of frustration well in her eyes. It would be so fucking easy – she’s already so worked up by his presence and his strong hands alone that it would only take a few rolls of her hips to make her come on his thigh like the desperate mess she is, leaving a stain of his tailored slacks. Her clit pulses and her breath comes in a short, needy pants, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t acknowledge her, doesn’t even tear his eyes off her essay.
The only thing that gives him away – that tells her that, no matter how unaffected he pretends to be, he isn’t immune to the way she’s squirming against him – is the bulge in his pants, tenting the rigid fabric there. Her hands itch from the need to unbuckle his belt and open his slacks, her fingers brushing against the head of his cock so softly, as if to drive him mad just like he’s doing with her – but she stays put because she knows he would scold her if she tried.
A soft whine escapes her lips all the same, despite her best efforts.
“Shhh, darling,” he murmurs, soothingly. “It’s okay, sweet girl. I’m almost done.”
The minutes tick by excruciatingly slowly, and if she didn’t know him better, she’d think he’s purposefully taking too long to rile her up even more. But no – he really is paying that much attention to every word, because, surprising as it is, he values her brain as much as he values her cunt. She knows, because he murmurs a few praises and hums under his breath a few times, and plants a soft kiss on her clothed shoulder at a particularly good point, as if to reward her for her hard work.
It makes her heart flutter in her chest, for reasons she doesn’t want to explore.
Then, he finally, finally reaches the last page. His eyes skim over the few final words and then he lets out a deep, appreciative hum.
“So good,” he tells her. His voice is low, almost a growl, and she can’t help but close her eyes and squirm a bit at the way it travels straight to her core. This time, he doesn’t scold her. “No wonder you got an A. That was amazing. I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.”
She doesn’t know what breaks her – if the way his voice sounds, dark and deep and raw, or the praises he lavishes her with. Maybe it’s the endearment. Maybe it’s him, this infuriating man that knows how to play her body as if it were an instrument he’s spent the better part of his life perfecting.
She only knows she lets out a pitiful whimper and breathes out, all eagerness and desperation, her words caught in a sob, “Please.”
A soft hum escapes his lips. “What, darling?” His mouth comes to press a gentle kiss to her pulse point and oh, it’s no more than a brush of lips against her skin, and yet she’s so on edge she can’t help the way her hips buckle against his thigh, desperately. “Tell me, sweetheart. I will give you anything you want. You deserve a reward, after all.”
She squirms again, searching for relief.
“Please. I need–” Her breath hitches on her lips when she feels his hand trail down, brushing against her hip and coming to rest on the top of her thigh. “I need–”
He plants another open mouthed kiss to her neck, then works up a bruise against her skin, eliciting a whimper from her. “What do you need, sweetheart?”
Everything. She needs his words and his hands and his tongue and his cock and God, she needs him, always – the way he can make her come with just a touch, the way he knows her body as if he’d learned it by heart, the way he holds her into his arms and makes the rest of the world disappear.
“You, Ben, I need–” She sobs, grinding down on his thigh. “I need you.”
“Oh, sweet girl,” he coos, softly, his voice low and ragged at the edges. “I’ve got you, darling. I’ve got you.”
And he does – in a matter of second, his hand slips underneath her skirt and between her parted thighs and comes to tease at the gusset of her panties, the silky fabric drenched by now. She whimpers, arching into his touch, begging him with her body, but he doesn’t give in just yet. Instead, he pets her slit above her underwear, slowly, as if to study her. As if he wanted to become the world’s leading expert on her cunt.
“You’re so wet, darling,” he murmurs, and from his lips it almost sounds like a praise. “Did you like it? Sitting here in your nice lingerie waiting for me to play with your sweet little cunt like a good girl?”
She clenches around nothing and sobs again, a fire spreading low in her body. She will die if he doesn’t touch her the way she needs him to, she thinks.
“Yes, yes, I did–” Her hand comes to fist his button up, fiercely. “Please, please, Ben. I’ve been so good–”
God, she can feel his smile against her throat, when he comes to nibble at the delicate skin there. She will have bruises for days but she doesn’t mind, because she likes the idea of looking into the mirror and finding a trace of him on her, marking her, lingering even after she’s left.
“You’re right. You’ve been so, so good.” His fingers stroke her above her panties, making her arch and sob and beg for his touch. “Writing that essay. Getting the highest grade. Waiting for me to read it. My sweet girl deserves everything she wants.”
Without another word, he brushes her underwear to the side and sinks two fingers into her cunt. She’s so wet he slips in so fucking easily , and she barely has the time to process it – passing from achingly empty to oh, so deliciously full, his fingers hitting that sweet spot inside her just right, yes, just like that, he’s so good to her, she wants to be stuffed full from his fingers everyday, please, Ben, please – before he starts to circle her clit with his thumb and she turns into a sobbing, panting mess into his arms.
“Ben–” She clutches at his shoulder, sinks her short nails into his back, claws at his shirt. Her hips automatically roll in time with the thrusts of his fingers, her body just a thing for him to play with and nothing more. “Ben– I–”
“So smart,” he murmurs, his teeth grazing her pulse point. “So hardworking. So sweet. I’m so, so proud of you, darling. You’re absolutely perfect.”
Tears pool in her eyes and start to stream down her face and she doesn’t know if it’s because of the sinful way his fingers are breaking her apart, the squelching sounds of it echoing in his living room, or if it’s because of his words.
She doesn’t think it matters.
“Look at you,” he tells her, his voice drenched into that special kind of tender intensity he always seems to slip into when he’s with her. “Taking my fingers so well into that beautiful cunt. You’re so good, aren’t you?”
Her reply is a breathless moan. Her fingers tighten their grip on his shirt, grasping it almost desperately.
“Yes, you are,” he coos, as he keeps littering her neck with love bites. “And you know what good girls get?” His thumb flickers against her clit, tearing a gasp out of her. “They get to come.”
She feels herself starting to spasm, her legs quivering, her toes curling, her breath coming in sharp exhales–
“Ben.” His name tastes like awe on her lips. “I’m going to–”
He doesn’t stop working his fingers into her. Instead, he thrusts a bit faster, curving his long, thick fingers against her front wall. She almost wails.
“That’s it. Good girl,” he tells her, tracing frantic circles around her clit. He sounds almost eager , as if her pleasure were his, too. “You deserve to come on my fingers. You deserve everything. I will give you everything you want, I promise you, you just need to come for me. Come for me, sweetheart. Let me see how beautiful you are.”
It’s inevitable – she shatters with a sharp cry, her body going rigid, her back arching, her legs kicking out and her walls clenching and spasming around his fingers. It feels like it goes on forever, as if he’d kept her suspended in this blissed out state of euphoria for a brief eternity before she comes back to herself and slumps, sated and limp and dizzy, against his familiar body.
“Good?” he asks, considerate as always, pressing a kiss to her temple and removing his fingers from her cunt.
Her breath is still ragged and her body feels as if it didn’t really belong to her anymore, so she only manages to nod.
“Yes,” she pants, then. Her chest rises and falls in quick waves, and her hand is still clutching at his shirt, wrinkling the expensive fabric between her fingers. She’s not particularly keen on letting him go. “Good. Very much so.”
A laughter slips past his lips, and when she finally opens her eyes to look at him, he’s – he’s devastating . Dark eyes hidden behind his glasses and full lips curved into a tender sort of smile, and that luscious hair of his, with a few gray strands at the temples and running through his dark mane – he’s the most wonderful sight she ever landed her eyes on. His shirt is wrinkled in the places where she’s been clawing at it, and he’d rolled his sleeves up to his forearms before, so she can now glimpse the full glory of his freckled skin.
She’s just come, and yet looking at him makes her already desperate for more .
For him.
“Good,” he murmurs, then he leans in to kiss her. It’s the first kiss he gives her tonight and she clings to him, greedy as ever, languidly licking into his mouth. He hums, then breaks away from her and flashes her another smile. “How’s school?”
Sometimes, she’s delighted and surprised by the attention he reserves for everything concerning her – the way he wants to know about her day, about her classes, her life on campus not just because he pays for all of it, but because he cares about all these inconsequential things.
Other times, she just wishes he would shut the fuck up and impale her on his cock.
“Ben,” she huffs out, impatiently, tugging at his shirt as if to make her point clear.
He brings his other hand to her wrist to stop her. His fingers curve easily around her arm and the sight of it – the sheer difference in sizes that always catches her by surprise even though she knows him by now – makes something pool low in her abdomen.
“I asked you a question, sweetheart.” He sounds firm, but not angry. He’s never angry, not with her – always treating her as if she were the brightest thing that ever happened to him, as if she were precious and dear, not just his sugar baby but something he wanted to cherish . “How’s school?”
She scoffs, then leans back into him, slumping against his shoulder and letting him envelope her into his embrace.
“Fine,” she replies, nuzzling her nose against his neck. He hums, happily. “I had a busy week, but I’m glad I’m here now. You always make me feel so good.”
He presses a kiss to her hairline, softly, almost tenderly. His hand comes to brush against her panties again.
“Oh, sweet girl,” he murmurs, as his fingers slip into her again, making her gasp. His thumb traces gentle circles against her sensitive clit as he adds, “We’ve only begun.”
✨
At first, it’s more of a drunken joke than anything else, or so she tells herself.
She comes home after being laid off from work again, drops her bag in her living room and marches right towards the fridge, where she finds the cheap bottle of wine she keeps stored there for emergencies.
Well, that’s emergency enough, she tells herself as she opens it and takes a big swing of it straight from the bottle. The wine tastes bitter and she doesn’t know if it’s because it’s gone sour or because she’s just not in the right state of mind to appreciate the cheap finery of it all, but she pays it no mind and lets it more or less pleasantly burn her throat on the way down.
Then, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, sets the wine on the counter and stares at the label without really seeing it, as if it could give her some answers. Tears start to pool in her eyes, but she stubbornly blinks them away, because she will not cry again.
Instead, she weighs her option.
Her bills are piling up on the kitchen counter. Rent is due in two weeks, and with her roommate suddenly moving out without any warning she barely has enough to cover her part of it, let alone the whole sum. She still has no idea of how to pay for the rest of her college tuition and all the jobs she applied for never got back to her. She’s just been sacked from her second job, too, because apparently she’s just that lucky lately. Even if – and that’s a big if – she managed to swallow her pride and ask for help, all her friends are just as broke as she is.
It seems like the only available option at the moment is to take another sip of wine, so that’s what she does. She doesn’t even bother to look for a glass – instead, curves her fingers against the bottle, her knuckles almost white from how tight she’s holding it, and brings it to her mouth. This time around, it doesn’t taste as bitter, maybe because she’s gotten used to it – or maybe because there are bigger problems swirling in her mind at the moment.
Her memory after that is fuzzy. She has no idea of how she ends up on her couch, pleasantly buzzed from all the alcohol and with her phone open on an app that promises to match her with a potential sugar daddy, but she’s not complaining.
Sober, she wouldn’t even dare to think about it – she’s not charming nor sophisticated enough to get a sugar daddy, she’s just Rey –, but at this point she’s too deep into her bottle and too desperate to make a fuss about it. All the objections that would rise up to her lips are lost somewhere between her brain and her mouth thanks to the alcohol and the only thing she can think at the moment is, This might as well happen.
That’s how she wakes up in the morning – at some point, the empty bottle of wine must have rolled onto the floor, and she must have passed out with her phone in her hand because she finds it on her chest when her lashes flutter open. A groan slips past her lips as soon as the morning light hits her eyes and a sudden flare of a migraine stabs her, making her regret all her life choices.
When she finally checks her phone after cursing herself for half an hour, through, she notices–
Ben: Hello.
Well. No point for originality, but after all that she’s been through, she thinks she can make this work.
She doesn’t remember sweeping right on him, probably because the alcohol had already started to blur the edges of her consciousness, so she checks his profile now and there he is – Ben, 47.
His profile picture shows only the lower half of his face and part of his shoulders, but oh, what a lower half – plush lips and a few strands of dark hair curling around his neck, a hint of laughter lines at the corners of his sinful mouth. His shoulders are broad and wide, trapped into a perfectly pressed suit jacket and he radiates a powerful kind of confidence that makes her stomach churn in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol she’s consumed.
Well, it could be worse. He seems relatively normal from his profile – he works in a prestigious firm, loves to read, doesn’t have other attachments. This is her perfect chance. She must not screw this up.
Rey: hi! i’m rey
Two seconds after hitting send, she already regrets it, and stares at her dumb, unoriginal reply while her stomach churns again, even if she doesn’t know if it’s from the hangover or the sheer cringe of this whole ordeal.
His reply comes almost instantly, though.
Ben: It’s a pleasure to meet you, Rey. I’m, quite obviously, Ben.
Ben: I hope you’ll forgive me for my lack of originality, but I must tell you. You look absolutely resplendent in your pictures.
Oh.
This is – new.
Contrary to popular belief, she’s not clueless – she’s had boyfriends and has dated, even though she hasn’t had much of a chance lately, while juggling two jobs and trying to get her degree without losing her mind. Still, guys her age have rarely paid her any compliment, let alone tell her she’s resplendent. She doesn’t know how to react – frankly, she’s not even sure she knows how to process it.
Rey: wow thank you
Rey: you don’t look so bad yourself, from what i can see
This time, Ben takes a bit more to reply which, to her slightly addled mind, feels like a small eternity.
Ben: Ha. Right.
Ben: So.
Ben: May I ask you what you’re looking for?
Rey: wait you’re serious about this? like, serious serious?
Ben: I am.
Ben: Are you?
Her heart jumps in her throat, as she types. She feels a fire, spreading low in her body, slowly consuming her, and it feels instinctive to reply.
Rey: i am.
✨
The days are getting longer now that the worst of winter is behind them, so the halls of Ben’s building are still bathed in a golden glow when the lift leaves her at his front door that night.
Humming under her breath, she slides the key Ben gave her after a few months of this arrangement – “So you can let yourself in and wait for me while I work, like the good girl you are,” he’d told her, as he pressed the key into her palm and kissed her knuckles one by one. “Will you be good for me, Rey? ” – into the lock, just like every Friday, and like every Friday she toes off her shoes in the entrance hall, before setting down her bag on the counter and stepping into his penthouse, looking for him.
Predictably, she finds him in his office.
He’s working away at his laptop with his usual determined focus, a slightly frown twisting his familiar features. The light of the sun filters through the windows and bathes him in perfect glory and for a minute she stands there, just looking at him – the breadth of his shoulders as he sits with his spine ramrod straight, the brush of his hair against his neck when he tilts his head, even those lines on his face that seem to fade in the tender light of the sunset.
He looks like a dream – as if someone had breathed life into an ancient statue – and yet she’s learned to know him, surprising as it sounds, and she can see the cracks in the perfect marble of his face – the black circles under his eyes barely hidden by his glasses, the twitch of his jaw, the tense set of his shoulders, the wrinkle between his eyebrows that only appears when he’s displeased about something, the slightly downward turn of that mouth she loves to kiss.
He’s nervous , she realizes, and then she wonders when she’s learned to know him so well to understand this secret language of him she’s sure he doesn’t share with anyone else.
Then, she decides that’s not a thought she wants to linger on, today.
“Hello,” she says, gently, instead, knocking against the doorframe as if to catch his attention.
Ben doesn’t jump – he never does, as if he could feel her somehow even when he can’t see her, as if his senses were attuned to her and she could never catch him by surprise – but turns slowly into her direction, his eyes widening a bit as he notices her there, on the threshold of his office.
There’s something weirdly awed on the lines of his face as he looks at her that makes her feel somewhat self-conscious. She twists her hands, wondering whether to step inside or to wait for him in the living room. Someone else – someone more sophisticated, someone who knows how to navigate this whole arrangement without making a mess of things – in her place would know what to do, but she’s only Rey, so she stands there, under his transfixed gaze, as if waiting for him to pass judgment.
“Oh,” he breathes out, then, blinking her in as if he couldn’t quite process her presence here. “Oh. Hello, sweetheart. Forgive me, I hadn’t heard you coming in. I didn’t realize it was already so late.”
Her lips curve into a tentative smile. “It’s alright. Do you want me to go strip and wait for you in the living room?”
This, at least, she knows how to do – she knows how to be good for him, patiently waiting, the way he’d trained her to, for him to fuck her. She knows how to please him, how to sit in his living room while he works away at his laptop, the fabric of her panties getting damp and soaked as she just stands there, her pleasure depending on his whims, even though he always makes good on his promises by the end of the night.
Ben looks at her again – in this light, his eyes are so unexpectedly warm , and he stares at her as if he were awestruck by her presence, as if she were a vision in the soft glow of the sunset.
“No,” he says in the end, quietly and yet firmly. He closes his laptop shut, then pats his thigh, gently. “Come here, sweetheart.”
It takes her no time to cross the distance between them, as if he were pulling her in even as he sits at his desk. For a second, she stands in front of him as he looks up at her, something palpable passing between them – a thing for which she has no words, a thing of rapid heartbeats and surprising warmth and infinite tenderness.
Then, she gingerly climbs into his lap, straddling him. Her hands come to rest on his shoulders and as soon as she’s sat down, Ben lets out a deep, shuddering exhale and collapses against her, wrapping his arms around her frame and burying his head into her shoulder.
For a heartbeat, she’s too surprised to react – she’s puzzled and almost frightened by this sudden, aching vulnerability he’s showing her by holding her like this, his grip on her almost too tight, his shoulders trembling beneath her touch. It’s a remarkable thing, the sight of this broad, muscular man – always so controlled and self-assured, as if the world were at his complete disposal – crashing into her, like a tower crumbling down in front of her eyes.
Then, something sparks within her chest, like a sudden warmth, and she envelopes him in her embrace, her hand running up and down his spine as if to soothe him, as he slowly breathes in and out, his fingers gripping her blouse as though he were trying to ground himself.
“I’m here,” she murmurs, softly, feeling quite useless. “I’m here.”
It seems to work, though, as if her words had soothed a deep, hidden, wounded part of him. His shoulders stop trembling and a soft, delicate hum escapes his lips.
He muffles it against her clothed shoulder, melting into her. “You smell so nice.”
She doesn’t stop tracing patterns on his back, her fingers light against the fabric of his jacket.
“That’s the perfume you bought me last month,” she tells him, eliciting a quiet chuckle from him that fills her heart with tenderness. “What was it? Something like Femme–”
“Féminin Pluriel,” he corrects her with no effort at all, the French words slipping with ease from his lips, which always makes her a bit silly. “But it’s not that. You always smell nice, like sunshine and–” He gulps, then lets out another breath. “You just smell nice.”
Her heart does a weird thing inside her chest – it flutters, wild and eager as if it were a scared little creature trapped in her ribcage.
Oh.
She doesn’t want to know what it means.
“Are you–” She swallows down the peculiar lump in her throat. “Are you alright?”
Ben nods. Her fingers come to card through his hair, pushing through those soft strands she usually grips, almost painfully, in the throes of her pleasure. His dark tresses flow like water between her fingers, and those gray strands running through his locks somehow make a burst of warmth blossom in her chest, like a flower. She likes it – she likes the rich, deep darkness of his hair, and yet she likes those silvery strands too.
She likes him , so much it scares her.
“Yes, sweet girl,” he says, in the end, his voice deep and low. He trails down a bit, his lips hovering right above her collarbone in a barely-there touch that makes her shiver. “I just had an awful day at work. Nothing to worry about.”
“Are you sure?”
She can feel his smile against her skin, when he lets out a soft laughter. “I’m sure, darling. It was just a bad day.”
A part of her wants to bat her eyelashes and coyly ask him, Can I make it better? Maybe she should sink to her knees and unbutton his slacks, taking him into her mouth and giving him the only comfort she’s capable of. She’s sure part of him at least would appreciate it.
Instead, she runs her hand through his hair and lets out a soft hum, as if to soothe him, even if she’s never known how to soothe anyone before.
“Do you want me to leave?” she asks him, softly. Her lips hover above his hairline, pressing a gentle kiss there. “It’s okay if you want to be on your own.”
His grip on her hips tightens and he brings her even closer, as if he wanted to merge their bodies together.
“No.” His reply is firm, sure, immediate – as if the mere idea of her leaving were inconceivable. He pulls away from her just enough to look her in the eyes, his gaze warm and somewhat fierce, dripping with a tender sort of need that takes her breath away. “No, sweetheart. I want you to stay here and be a good girl for me. Can you do that?”
Somehow, his words feel eerily meaningful, as if this were more than just sex . It makes her heart race in fear, because she doesn’t know how to do this, she’s never learned, and she can’t let herself hope–
Still, she nods. “Yes,” she replies, quickly, her breath coming into shallow exhales. “Yes, I can.”
His lips twitch into a smile that’s way too soft, and that makes her heart soar.
“Good,” he murmurs.
Then, he brings his hand to the back of her neck and draws her in into a slow, languid kiss that turns her insides into melted butter. He kisses her as if he wanted to savor her – as if the world around them had faded away and they were the only thing left in the universe, the only thing to make sense at all. It’s the first time he kisses her this week and it makes her head spin, the way he traces the seam of her mouth with his tongue, the way he takes her bottom lip between his and sucks on it, the way he gently bites into it and then soothes the ache he left with his tongue.
He kisses her as if he knew her – as if he’d spent his whole life learning her, and she’s never been kissed like this, so thoroughly and yet with such a single-minded focus, as if this kiss were for her. Most of her experiences have been with fumbling college boys – being kissed by Ben is like stepping into a five-stars restaurant after surviving her whole life on scrappy meals.
“You’re so sweet,” he rumbles against her mouth, unwilling to part from her as if he’d tasted the perfect nectar from her lips. He trails down a bit, pressing a kiss to the underside of her jaw. “My perfect girl. God, I’ve missed you. You make everything better.”
Her hands sink into his hair and she grips the strands between her fingers as he presses open-mouthed kisses down the column of her throat, his praises traveling straight to her core, his words heady like a fine wine. A whimper escapes her lips when he gently nibbles at her delicate skin, and her hips twitch against his without any awareness on her part.
He hums, approvingly. She can feel him hardening underneath her, the outline of his cock straining against his trousers, and she could rub herself against it until she doesn’t remember anything but this, him, the pleasure he gifts her – but it’s the way he grips her hips, eager and desperate at the same time, that makes her cry out for him.
“Ben–”
His fingers pluck at her blouse, the flimsy fabric disappearing into his grip.
“Can you take this off for me, sweetheart?” he asks, pressing another kiss to her throat. “Can you be a good girl and take this off?”
She nods, almost drunk on all the attention he’s granting her. Of course, a fervent stream of praises slips past his lips every time he lays her down on his couch and fucks her, but normally, he’d make her wait – he’d rile her up for hours with barely-there touches and tentative kisses and filthy, wonderful words. He’d let her sit on his knees and he’d make her beg for him, until her panties are completely soaked through and she’s a whining, sobbing mess.
Today, instead, he watches her with an awestruck gaze as she divests herself of her blouse, letting it fall down with a rustling sound. His eyes linger on her for a moment – as if he wanted to study her and take his fill of her, as if he wanted to memorize every inch of her, every freckle and every imperfection, the way the light filtering through the windows gives her skin a golden glow, the way a flush slowly spreads from her face to her neck, as pink as the sunset out there.
Then, his hand comes to brush against her black, lacy bralette, his fingers following the outline of her breasts with the utmost care, as though she were something precious.
“Did you get this for me, sweetheart?” he asks, as he toys with the strap of her bralette, pulling it slightly down from one side and leaving her freckled shoulder bared to his fingers and lips. “Did you get yourself pretty lingerie with the allowance I gave you?”
She nods, the flush spreading to the edge of her chest.
“I did,” she replies, softly. Then, she twines her arms around his neck, arching her body into his touch, and asks him, her lips a whisper away from his, “Do you like it, Ben?”
“I do, sweet girl.” His lips quirk into another smile as he traces the freckles on her skin, from her shoulder to her breasts. “You look so pretty like this. I wish I could always keep you here on my lap. Would you like that? Would you like to sit on my cock while I work?” He doesn’t wait for her to reply – instead, he squeezes a breast in his hand, and she lets out a surprised little moan. “I bet you’d squirm and whimper because it wouldn’t be enough for you, but you’d have to be quiet. You wouldn’t want to disturb me, do you?”
She nods again, her walls clenching around nothing. “No,” she exhales, almost breathless. “I want to be good for you, so, so good–”
“You are, sweet girl. You’re so fucking good .”
His fingers trail down, tweaking at her nipple through the sheer fabric of her bralette, and pleasure sparks in her body like a jolt of electricity burning through her. She moans and cants her hips, almost instinctively, and lets out a trembling exhale when his clothed cock brushes against her clit just right. Without realizing, she does it again and again and again, and oh, she’s already shivering and trembling and oh, it feels so good even with the layers of clothes between them and she’s already so close–
“You’re going to come like this, sweetheart?” he asks her, his voice low and raw like a bruise. His eyes are dark, the black swallowing the usual warmth of his irises, and his lips are slightly parted as he looks at her, as if he were in awe of her, as she rubs herself against the bulge in his pants. “You are, aren’t you? You’re going to come and soak my trousers like the good girl you are?”
She nods, breathy little moans slipping past her lips. Her fingers scramble for purchase against the rough fabric of his jacket, and she arches again into his touch when he starts to tweak her other nipple too.
“Ben,” she breathes out. “Ben, I’m going to come, you’re going to make me come–”
His hands sneak underneath her skirt, brushing against the matching lace panties she got with him in mind.
“So beautiful,” he murmurs, his fingers petting her slit above the flimsy layer of her underwear. “Wish I could keep you here in nothing but your pretty lingerie. Give you all the pleasure you deserve. Make you come over and over again. Would you like that, sweetheart?”
She nods again, almost feverish from the need to come. His fingers brush against her clit without applying the pressure she needs – just teasing, the way he usually does, but she’s so keyed up it’s enough to make her shake and moan and–
“That’s it, darling.” His voice curls around the endearment, a rumble against her skin as he presses kisses on the outline of her breasts. He grunts when her hips start to grind down faster and his thumb comes trace circles on her clit above the lacy fabric of her panties. “That’s it. You’ve been so good. You can come now.” And then, almost possessively, “Come for me, sweetheart.”
As if he’d torn the orgasm out of her himself, she comes with a choked sob, throwing her head back and gripping his jacket fiercely, her fingers digging into the fabric as if she wanted to claw at his back. Her legs spasm and quiver, her back arches, her hands tremble and her whole body seems to be on fire, as if a conflagration had burned her from the inside.
After – when her body has stopped trembling and shaking – she collapses against his chest, burying her head into his shoulder and panting against his expensive suit, her legs twitching still and a desperate sort of need burning through her, as if the orgasm had not sated her, as if she needed more.
Ben runs his hand up and down her back in a soothing gesture, pressing kisses to her temple, murmuring sweet nothings into her ear and she feels weirdly cherished, the way only Ben makes her feel.
“Good,” he keeps saying, softly, lavishing her with praises. “So, so good. You come so prettily. You’re so beautiful, Rey.” And then, almost softer, “Can I fuck you now, sweetheart? Can I fuck your beautiful cunt?”
Her body feels heavy, still quivering from her orgasm, but she still manages to nod and hiccup a soft, whiny, “Please.”
She has no memory of the following few seconds – she must have stepped away from him, because he’s unbuttoned his slacks and he’s pulled them down along with his boxer-briefs, finally exposing his cock, hard and red and leaking precum. He helps her out of her skirt and panties and then she’s climbing into his lap again and–
Oh.
There.
Sinking down onto him always feels like a sacred experience, as if her body were made for this purpose only. She’s wet and relaxed enough from her orgasm and his sweet words that he slides in easily, but he’s big and the angle is deeper like this and she feels herself clenching around him, breath ragged and heart thundering against her chest, her whole body reduced to the place where he’s thrusting into her.
“God, Rey.” He utters her name as if it were a prayer, and fucking her were an act of desperate devotion. “You always feel so good. As if you were made for this.”
I am, she wants to tell him, I was made for you. It seems to her almost cruel that he’s had to wait for her and spend more than twenty years roaming this planet without her, without her cunt to fuck, without her lips to kiss, without her hand to hold. She almost wants to cry, but she blinks away her tears and instead kisses him, desperately, trying to pour into it everything she can’t say into words.
It’s different from all the other times – it’s slow and languid and almost loving. She rolls her hips above him at an unhurried pace, never letting him slip out of her completely, and he follows her movements, his hands resting on her waist without urging her along but just holding her. It’s overwhelmingly sweet, the way he stares up at her, parted lips and wide eyes, and Rey feels a different kind of fire burning through her, taking hold of her heart this time.
“You’re incredible,” he keeps saying, his words barely above a whisper as he thrusts up into her. His chest rises and falls in quick breaths underneath her hands and she can feel the rapid rhythm of his heart against her palms. “Rey. My sweet girl.”
Her own heart stutters at the possessiveness in his words and her walls clench around him.
“Yours,” she reassures him, pressing the words against his mouth. “Yours, Ben– Oh–”
He comes to thumb at her clit, eliciting a sharp cry from her, and just like that her orgasm starts to build again – a slow, radiant thing that spreads from her abdomen to the rest of her, as if it were a tension ready to snap, taking hold of her whole body.
“Want to keep you here forever,” he groans against her lips. His hips twitch and he thrusts up into her again, nothing of his usual finesse in these desperate movements, just pure need and eagerness. “Want to spend the rest of my life cherishing you– spoiling you– making you come and– Fuck– Please, Rey, I need– I need to come–”
It usually takes him way longer to come – as if his own desires were just an additional thing, and his focus were on her only, as if he were a pilgrim kneeling at the altar of her pleasure – but this slow, languid thing feels different, somehow, and it doesn’t surprise her that he’s panting against her shoulder, pressing worshipful kisses there as he fucks up into her, almost reverently.
It fills her chest with infinite tenderness for this man. She rolls her hips again and clenches around him, eliciting a groan from him.
“You can come,” she tells him, softly. “It’s okay, Ben, you can come–”
He shakes his head, his brows furrowed in a desperate sort of concentration.
“No. Not without you. Come with me,” he begs her, circling her clit almost furiously. “Come with me, come with me, please, sweetheart, Rey, my darling–”
Maybe it’s the way he’s touching her, or maybe the way he’s rolling his hips underneath her. Maybe it’s the desperation in his voice. The utter adoration in it. Or maybe it’s those last few words that spark a fire inside her chest she doesn’t know how to put out. Maybe it’s all of it combined. She doesn’t know.
She only knows she comes again, and this time it feels as if he’d broken her into pieces and then put her back together. She laughs or maybe she cries or maybe both, and Ben is there to hold her through it, his hands splayed against her back, his palms warm against her flushed skin. He thrusts once, then twice, and then he spills into her and there’s nothing as beautiful as the sight of Ben, undone – his head thrown back, his plush lips parted into a soundless groan, his hair sticking to his forehead, a flush spreading on his familiar face.
She wants to stay in this moment forever.
For a few minutes, they don’t speak. They just sit there, sated and blissed out, a giddy smile on both of their faces. Then, he nuzzles his nose against her cheek and presses a kiss on the corner of her mouth, soft and delicate.
Almost sweet.
“Thank you,” he whispers, reverently, as if she’d just given him a precious gift. “For everything. You’re– God, Rey. You’re everything.” Then, quieter still, he asks her, “Was that okay? I know it wasn’t what we usually do.”
It surprises her, to realize he sounds almost embarrassed, as if he hadn’t made her come twice in the span of a few minutes. As if there was something to apologize for in his desperate need for her.
She takes his face into her hands and presses her forehead to his, her lips curving into a smile.
“It was amazing,” she tells him, softly, and yet firmly, eliciting a dimpled smile from him. “Are you feeling better now?”
A chuckle slips past his lips, and she’s suddenly overwhelmed by the need to kiss it and feel it against her mouth.
“Yeah,” he replies, and, wonder of wonders, a faint blush comes to dust his cheeks. It’s so unexpected she can’t help but gape at him. He chuckles again and breaks away from her, only to press a kiss to her hairline. “Thank you, sweet girl. You always make everything better. You’re the best part of my life.”
Oh.
They stay like this for a moment more, as if time had frozen and there was only this – this perfect instant, this brief eternity, just the two of them and something blooming in the space between their hearts. He looks at her and she can almost fool herself that this is a real relationship and not a meaningless arrangement.
Then, she sighs and districates from him.
“I should get going,” she announces, somewhat reluctantly.
She doesn’t want to leave this – him – and it’s getting harder every week, to get dressed after he’s fucked her brains out and made her feel so terribly important for a few hours. But she knows she has to – this is their agreement after all. She comes to his place on Friday, he rewrites her body and makes her see stars, and then she’s back to her normal life and that’s all.
For a moment, he seems equally as reluctant, as if he didn’t want her to go, either.
His eyes look so earnestly eager and disappointed at the same time, when he asks her, “Already? I was thinking about ordering dinner.”
Don’t get your hopes up, she tells herself, trying to regain control of her erratic heartbeat. He just wants to fuck you later, that’s all.
“Yeah, no. I’ve got to wake up early to study tomorrow,” she says, without looking him in the eyes. Then, she scrunches up her nose. “Finals are coming in a few weeks and I’m going to graduate soon, so.”
There’s a moment of silence, then she feels him shift underneath her, as if the mention of her graduation – the ending point of this absurd journey, the deadline she’d given them when this all began, just until graduation and then you’ll be free of me – had had a sobering effect on him.
“Of course,” he murmurs, so softly. His hand comes to brush a strand of hair out of her forehead, and he tucks gently behind her ear. If she didn’t know him better, she’d almost say he looks hesitant . “I’ll call you a car. See you next Friday?”
She gulps, then nods. Tries to pretend she doesn’t want to see him all the time.
“Yeah. Perfect.”
His lips curve into a tentative smile and he presses a last, lingering kiss to her mouth, so gentle she wonders if she’s dreaming it. “Don’t forget to text me when you get home, sweetheart.”
Her heart flutters in her chest on the whole journey back to her apartment.
✨
Ben is already waiting for her when the maitre shows her to their table.
The restaurant is something grand – a luxurious, expensive thing, with crystal glasses and ceramic plates and glittering chandeliers that could probably cover two years of her rent, and she feels weirdly out of place, in the silk and chiffon dress Ben got for her just yesterday, as if everyone could tell she doesn’t belong here, in this elegant, distinguished world.
“Rey.” Ben breathes out her name with a reverence she would find appropriate in church. He gets up from his seat with quick movements and stands in front of her for a second, as if drinking her in. Then, he takes her hand into his and brings it to his lips, kissing her knuckles. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. You look even more resplendent than I thought.”
So do you, she wants to say.
They’ve been talking for a week, ever since that first message, and she’s started to know him, from the bits of information he’d shared willingly with her – she’s learned he works for one of the most prestigious firms in Coruscant, that he’d wanted to major in English before switching to Law School and that he had a childhood dog named Chewie. She’s learned he’s got a dry sense of humor, that he’s incredibly curious, especially when it comes to her, and that he spends most of his nights reading on his couch. His words have become a constant companion these days, even if they’d started to talk barely a week ago, and she’s learned to anticipate a new message from him with a flutter of her heart.
Still, nothing could have prepared her for the sight of him.
He’s even broader than he looked from his profile picture, his shoulders filling perfectly the material of his jacket, and he’s so tall, towering over her even if she’s wearing the high heels he sent her with the dress. And, God – he’s beautiful. Warm eyes framed by a pair of glasses and full, sinful lips and dark curls interspersed with a bit of gray, and when he smiles at her, two endearing dimples appear on his cheeks. There are a few lines at the corners of his eyes and his mouth, but instead of dimming his beauty, they heighten it.
Rey feels suddenly as if she’d run a marathon, her heart jumping in her chest and a flush spreading on her face.
“Uh– I– I mean– That’s very–Uh– Thank you.” She cringes, and wonders if it’s too late to run out of here and give up on this whole thing. “Sorry, I’m doing this all wrong–”
He squeezes the hand he’s still holding, his palm warm against hers.
“Rey. It’s alright,” he tells her, not unkindly. He’s so confident – she’d noticed it even in his messages, but it’s different like this, when there’s nothing but a few feet between them, and the way he moves and looks at her makes her want to do something silly like grab him by his tie and kiss him, even if she barely knows him. “You’re doing great.”
The flush on her cheeks deepens at his inconsequential praise. She wants him to tell her that again.
“Sorry,” she repeats, then lets out a nervous chuckle, brushing her hair out of her face. “I just– I have never done this. All of it. You can probably tell, I guess.”
He intertwines their fingers and brings their joined hand to his lips again, pressing a tender sort of kiss to her knuckles, even more reverent than the last.
“I can tell you’re nervous,” he replies, softly, his eyes never straying away from her face, a raw intensity in the back of his gaze. “Which is completely understandable, if you’re new to this. But I can assure you, you have all the power here.”
Her eyes linger on him for a second, tall and broad as he is. “I do?”
A gentle smile spreads on his full lips, and it’s heady, the idea of being at least a bit responsible for it. His smile is different from the rest of him – not quite so controlled and confident, but somewhat goofy, a crooked sort of grin that looks almost boyish on his lined face. She decides she likes it.
“You do,” he replies, then slowly lets go of her hand. “We’re not going to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. If at any point you want to walk away, you have every right to. I’ll even call you a car. But first–” He pulls out the chair for her, and flashes her another glimpse of that wonderful, breathtaking grin. “Let me treat you to dinner, if you’re alright with it.”
She nods, then reserves him a hesitant smile and his grin gets somehow bigger, his warm eyes shining with something she can’t name.
“I am,” she replies, softly. “Thank you, Ben. For this. And for the dress, it’s beautiful, really.”
He lets out a soft exhale and his smile turns a bit softer, like a secret whispered against her ear. “Not nearly as beautiful as you.”
At this, she can’t do anything else but sit down at the table, knowing full well she’s furiously red. She tries to hide it by keeping her gaze down, as if she wanted to study the plates and the complicated cutlery array she can’t even begin to wrap her mind around, but she knows that she can’t quite fool Ben, because he sits in front of her and looks at her for a second, as if to study her.
Then, he asks her, gently, “Are you uncomfortable with praises?”
Her hands tremble in her lap and she fights off the urge to run her fingers through her hair or bite down on her nails.
“No. I’m just–” She shrugs, quite inelegantly. “I’m not used to it. No one has ever– Where I grew up, praises were not thrown around a lot.” She falters, then scrunches up her nose. “Sorry, I’m sure you don’t care about my pathetic life.”
“I do,” he replies, instantly, and when she raises her eyes to stare at him, he’s looking at her as if she were the most important thing the universe had to offer. “If we’re going to do this, I want to know you. I want you to feel at ease with me and that means I want you to know that you can share everything you want with me. I’ll listen.”
Her heart flutters in her chest. She doesn’t think she’s ever been listened to before – she’s always felt like a dead weight, something people wanted to get rid of, and she’s spent her whole life trying to make herself small as if not to be of inconvenience to anyone. Having the full weight of Ben’s attention on her feels solemn and, at the same time, frightening.
She takes a deep breath and asks him, “So, what does this entail?”
He relaxes against his chair, his hand splayed on the tablecloth with a kind of languid ease that makes her stomach churn and her heart flutter. She’d never realized how dull and uninteresting her college boyfriends were until now, as she stares at him, a man twice her age who looks at her with a glint in his eyes. Now, she’s acutely aware of the difference – she knows that the boys she’s dated can’t compete with Ben’s quiet elegance, with his confidence and the way he moves as if he knew his place in the world.
It shouldn’t attract her so much, but it does.
“Well.” He fixes his tie with casual gestures, then quirks his lips into another smile. “For starters, I would like to cover the cost of your college tuition and your living expenses. I was also thinking about a weekly allowance for you, so you can get yourself everything you want or need. We can start at 1000$ a week–”
A thousand what?
She almost chokes on air. “That’s way too much–”
His eyes are warm, and yet there’s a fire in that honey-whiskey gaze. “Rey. That’s not negotiable,” he says. He’s firm, his voice sure and even, but there’s a certain kindness in the way he looks at her, in the curve of his lips, even in the way his mouth curls around her name as if it were a precious thing. “The whole purpose of this is for me to meet every need of yours.”
“But–”
“I insist.” His lips twitch into another smile, a dimple appearing on his cheek. She wants to feel it underneath her fingertips, so desperately she has to sink her nails into her palm to stop herself from reaching out. “And, of course, I would like to buy you nice things every now and then, if you’re alright with that.”
She feels dizzy, her head swimming as if she’d drank too much wine, even if her glass lies untouched in front of her. A thousand dollars a week, her college tuition and living expenses paid for and he still wants to buy her nice things – that’s too much for her to process, especially considering she’s spent this last week trying to make ends meet with the few dollars she had saved.
Still, it sounds good – too good to be true. She can’t help but be suspicious.
“What do you get out of it?” she asks, bluntly. One of his eyebrows quirks up, and she feels herself blushing again under his watchful gaze. “Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t be so direct–”
“I like you direct,” he tells her, and there it is again, that smile of his that makes her a little silly. His voice is deeper, almost rumbling when he says, “I get the pleasure of your company for a night, once a week. You can tell me when it works better for you with your schedule, and that’s all I ask of you. One night a week.”
He looks relaxed and distinguishably at ease, but there’s something in the way he looks at her that betrays some sort of hunger she can’t quite understand, and that makes a dark thrill run down her spine all the same.
“Does this mean–” She scrunches up her nose again. “You know. Sex?”
At this, he lets out a warm rumble of laughter, and his eyes crinkle a bit and Rey thinks, Oh . Her heart does a weird jump in her ribcage and her breath hitches in her throat.
That’s a laughter she would sell her soul to hear again.
“Not necessarily,” he says, in the end. The lines at the corners of his eyes are more prominent, and Rey can’t help but stare at him, entranced. “Of course, you’re gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. I would lie if I told you I haven’t thought about everything I would like to do to you–” A shiver runs down her spine and she rubs her thighs together as his gaze falls briefly on her exposed collarbones, before he flickers back to her face. “But it’s your choice. I would still pay for your college tuition and everything else even if you wouldn’t ever let me touch you.”
Oh.
It’s new, the way he looks at her. She’s not used to being wanted , not in the way he wants her. She’s been ogled at by clumsy boys, sure, but Ben stares at her, and the weight of his gaze makes her heart race in her chest, makes her feel gorgeous and stunning, someone he thinks about at night, when he’s in his bed and he’s needy and desperate and hungry for her. He looks at her as if she were something precious and exquisite, like a fine glass of wine or an expensive fabric, and he were savoring her.
“What if–” She gulps, her hands trembling in her lap. “What if I want you to touch me?”
The fire in the back of his eyes turns into a blaze. “Then, sweet girl, I’m going to take such good care of you.”
✨
Ben shows up at her graduation ceremony.
She didn’t expect him to – he is a busy man, after all, with a job and responsibilities she can’t even imagine. He must have meetings to attend, decisions to make. Why would he even care about her silly graduation?
It’s not like she matters to him – sure, he enjoys her company and they’ve spent pleasant nights together and he genuinely cares about her enough to help her get this degree in the first place, but, when all is said and done, she’s just the girl he sees on Fridays, nothing of consequence. She’d only told him the date and time because he’d insisted, and she’d honestly thought he just wanted to send her flowers.
Instead, here he is.
In the light of the sun, he looks like a vision – elegant and perfect as always in his distinguished suit, his eyes sparkling with something akin to pride behind his glasses and his lips curved into a smile that’s both soft and giddy and that makes her heart skip a few beats.
Her throat feels suddenly dry. She can’t remember her name, let alone how to walk, and she feels as if she could faint any second now.
He’s here. For her.
He watches the whole thing with remarkable patience, as if he cared about this – her –, and cheers for her when her name is called. It’s a quiet, soft thing that passes almost unnoticed – but it’s still a cheer and it makes her heart flutter in her chest. She has to restrain herself from marching right up to him and kiss him silly, ceremony to be damned.
“What are you doing here?” she asks him, later, when she joins him after the whole thing is over. She feels kind of silly in her robe, but Ben looks at her with warm eyes, as if it were the most beautiful outfit he’s ever seen her in, and all her doubts melt away like snow at the first glimpse of sunshine. She’s blushing when she adds, “I didn’t expect you.”
He lets out a quiet chuckle, both fond and warm.
“Do you honestly think I would miss one of the most important days of your life? Of course I’m here,” he replies, so easily. His hand comes to brush a strand of hair out of her face, then he cradles the side of her neck, his fingers tangling in her loose waves. His eyes are so unbearably soft she almost feels out of breath. “I’m so proud of you, sweetheart.”
Before she can react – before she can process all of this, him, here, looking at her like that, telling her he’s proud of her – he bends down and kisses her. It’s a soft, delicate thing, just like the look he’s given her – a brushing of lips and nothing more, and yet it’s enough to spark something within her chest, as if a spring had burst in her ribcage and taken hold of her heart.
When he pulls away, she comes to rest a hand on his chest, twisting the fine fabric of his shirt between her fingers as if not to let him go. She can hear the way his breath hitches on his lips, and it’s a devastating thing, this tiny crack of vulnerability running through his perfect façade.
“Ben,” she whispers, almost awed. She doesn’t know what she’s trying to say, but she’s got the feeling he’ll understand her anyway. “I– This is–”
His lips twitch into that dimpled smile of his that always takes her breath away, and oh , she can’t deny it anymore, the way he affects her.
“I know, sweet girl.” He places his hand over hers, there, on his chest. She can feel the rapid rhythm of his heart underneath their palms. “I know.”
Something passes between them – a thing of warmth and tenderness, and a possibility that makes Rey hold her breath, as she feels his heart stir underneath her fingers. It makes her hope, for once, that this doesn’t have to end after tonight, that this could be something more, something like–
“I hope you’re ready to celebrate,” he adds, then, his soft smile turning into a boyish grin that’s almost dazzling. “I made a reservation for us at Canto Bight.”
A flush rises on her cheeks. “Ben, that’s too much–”
His eyebrows quirk up and he brings their joined hands to his lips, kissing her knuckles one by one in that disarming way of his that always makes her a little weak in the knees.
“No protests,” he says, matter-of-factly. “You deserve it. You deserve everything.”
When he says it like that, she can’t help but believe him.
✨
That night, after a lavish dinner at Canto Bight, they walk into his apartment, his jacket around her shoulders, and he announces, his voice deep and thick with need, “I’m going to worship you tonight.”
She has barely the time to realize what it’s happening.
True his words, he helps her out of her elegant dress, lies her down on his bed for the first time ever since this whole thing started and proceeds to kiss every inch of her body, until he sinks to his knees and reverently eats her out until she’s crying and sobbing and chanting his name as if it were a prayer, whispered for his ears only. He eats her out as if he were starving for her and she can’t do anything but let him adore her, with his lips and his tongue and his fingers and the devastating presence of him, letting him coax orgasm after orgasm out of her.
“Ben–” she hiccups, her body still reeling and tingling from the aftershocks of her last orgasm. “Ben– Fuck – Please–”
She doesn’t know what she’s begging him for, but he seems to understand her anyway, as he always does, because he hums against her center and she feels the reverberations in her whole body, all her nerves alight with a feverish kind of electricity.
“So good,” he murmurs against her cunt, his tongue circling her clit slowly, teasing her in that maddening way of his that always makes her feel as if he were tenderly picking her apart and putting her back together at the same time.
She sobs at the contact and she would have clamped her legs around his head in search of relief if he weren’t holding her thighs in his hands, his huge palms keeping her anchored there. She can’t do anything else but lie on his bed and tremble and whimper and take it, take everything he gives her, this slow, scorching thing that has started to build again in her core and threatens to burn her down.
“Ben–” she whines, her body burning underneath his attention. “Ben, I can’t– That’s too much–”
“You can. You can, Rey. You’re so fucking good . My sweet girl.” He hums again and she feels tears pooling at the corners of her eyes, and she doesn’t know if it’s from the stimulation or his praises. “God, I could eat you out all night– yes, just like that, sweetheart, I knew you could do it,” he adds, as her legs start to quiver and her body starts to arch into him, her hips chasing his face. “Yes. So good. Come for me, Rey. One more time, just one more. You deserve to come. Please, sweetheart.”
She’s lost count of how many times she’s come by now. Her legs feel like jelly and her hands tremble when she sinks her fingers into his hair, and she’s sure she’s half sobbing and half wailing as he closes his lips around her clit and sucks , and yet–
And yet, her walls start to flutter again at his words, and her orgasm rips through her as if it were a forest fire, white-hot and incandescent, and she can’t do anything but come, come, come. She sobs again, tears streaking her face, and clutches at his shoulders, his hair, everything of him she can reach and Ben guides her through it, pressing kisses to her center that make her cry out and sigh at the same time, prolonging the exquisite pleasure-pain of her orgasm.
When she finally comes back to earth, her breath ragged and her heart slamming against her chest in a frantic rhythm, she notices he’s already looking at her with eyes that are a bit too soft for this.
All the words she’s ever known melt away under the gentle weight of his gaze as he kneels there between her legs, and she can’t do anything but look at him.
“Hello,” she says, dumbly.
Ben smiles, his eyes crinkling, and presses a kiss to the inside of her thigh.
“Hi,” he replies, and he sounds almost affectionate. Warmth blossoms in her chest, different from the heat of a few seconds earlier, and yet just as devastating. “How are you? Everything alright?”
A giddy laughter escapes her lips and she tugs at his hair until he gets the hint and crawls up her body, coming to kiss her giggle right from her mouth. It’s slow and tender – she can taste herself on his tongue, and it makes her melt into his mattress, limp and sated and perfectly blissed out the way only Ben knows how to keep her as he kisses her as if he wanted to spend his whole life like this. She can feel the bulge in his pants, pressing against her thigh as he shifts as if not to weigh down on her, and yet he makes no move to relieve himself. Instead, he just kisses her, so slowly and thoroughly she feels a bit drunk.
It’s her, the one who brings her hands to his belt and starts to unbuckle it. He makes a strangled, hungry sound against her mouth and trembles in her arms, almost needy , when she pulls his slacks down and brushes her fingers against his underwear, where his cock is straining against the fabric of his boxer-briefs.
“Rey–” He breaks away from her, his eyes wide and his lips parted. Without his glasses, currently resting on his bedside table, his eyes look even warmer in the golden haze of his bedroom lights. “Tonight– tonight is about you–”
“And I want you.” She toys with the waistband of his underwear, looking up at him with her heart in her throat, because it feels more meaningful than just begging him to fuck her. It feels earnest. “I want you, Ben.”
In this light, the lines at the corners of his mouth look softer, and the gray streaks in his hair are a shining, silvery thing. The freckles and moles dotting his bare chest look like a whole galaxy against his pale skin, and she thinks she wants to lose herself in it, in him .
He stares down at her as if he’d never seen her before, and she can hear the eager beat of her own heart in this solemn silence, hammering away in such an obvious way. Then, he bends down to kiss her, hungry and desperate as if he wanted to devour her, and then he’s on her and she’s hastily helping him divesting himself of his stupid boxer-briefs and then, then–
Oh.
She could spend her whole life trying to make sense of this – this wonderful, breathtaking fullness that takes hold of her every time he slides inside her for the first time, and it would still take her by surprise every time. A pitiful whimper slips past her lips as he notches himself inside, so easily – she’s so wet and relaxed, and yet the friction is exquisite and oh, it’s everything, it’s all she’s ever wanted, it’s Ben and it’s wonderful and she loves it, she loves him and doesn’t want to let him go.
Somehow, he seems to know because this – the press of him inside her, deep and thick and familiar – is different from everything they’ve done.
He rolls his hips slowly, hitting that special spot inside her that makes her writhe on the bed, and rests his forehead against hers, his eyes staring into hers as he fucks her at an unhurried pace and murmurs quiet, ardent praises against her cheek.
It feels suspiciously like making love.
“My sweet girl.” His voice curls possessively around the words, as his body does around hers. “So smart and good and perfect. You deserve everything. You deserve to be worshipped and celebrated and– fuck–” He slides even deeper, and she lets out another whimper, her walls fluttering around him. “Fuck, Rey, I could spend my whole life worshipping you. Letting you come on my tongue and on my fingers and on my cock. Would you like that? Would you like that, sweet girl?”
She clutches at his shoulders, sinks her nails into his skin, wraps her legs around his waist. She feels pulled taut, as if she were a spring ready to snap, and every movement of his hips tears a breathy noise out of her throat.
“I’m so proud of you,” he tells her, and oh, her walls clench around him at those words, her cunt spasming again even if it should be impossible by now. “You’re– you’re the most brilliant woman I’ve ever met and–” He punctuates every sentence with a thrust, hitting that sweet spot inside her that makes her cry out. “You’re so fucking amazing, Rey. You’re everything.”
It shouldn’t be allowed, this kind of adoring, reverent tenderness he seems to devote to her as he slowly fucks her into the mattress, and yet it’s real and she can sense it underneath her palms, and it’s so solid, the feeling of him. He’s all corded muscles and sweaty skin and hair that brushes against her checks as he rocks into her, and he’s real and he’s turning her body into something different, something for him to love.
“Ben,” she gasps, a breathtaking kind of awe bursting in her chest as she meets his thrusts, tilting her hips so he can slide deeper. “I want– I want–”
“Tell me, sweetheart.” His voice is soft, almost pleading, as if he – powerful and controlled as he usually is – were begging her. “Tell me what you want and I will give you everything. Everything I have, everything I am. It’s yours, Rey, it’s always been yours.”
She’s sure she’s crying, but it doesn’t matter – he’s here to brush the tears away, his finger feather-light against her skin, his lips planting kisses there, where her tears were up until a second ago.
“I want you,” she repeats, eager and vulnerable and earnest, opening her heart up to him as he slowly rocks into her with tender, devastating thrusts. “I want–oh– you.”
Up close, she can see the way his eyes widen for just a second, his lips trembling for a moment, as if he’d understood her, as if he knew what she meant by that. His hips stutter, his arms quiver, and then–
He bends down again and kisses her, kisses her as if she meant something, and starts to cant his hips again as he does, and maybe it’s the way he kisses her – as if she were a labyrinth he wanted to get lost in – or maybe it’s the fact that he’s brought his hand down to her clit, rubbing it in slow circles, or maybe it’s his words, the way he breathes out, all ardent devotion and terrible tenderness, “I’m here. I’m yours. You have me.”
Maybe it was just meant to happen.
She comes with a sob, arching her back as if she wanted to melt their bodies together, and it feels less like a fire and more as if she’d fallen back into an unbearable brightness. She comes and it lasts a brief eternity, this solemn quivering of her limbs, this golden glow spreading in her body like a wave, and she feels alight with a sort of incandescent radiance that rewrites everything in her.
Her eyes flutter shut from the intensity of her pleasure but she can feel his gaze on her as he thrusts again, and again, and again, his eyes pinning her to this moment and this devotion, before he stills and comes with a groan, his head buried in her shoulder.
For a moment, they don’t speak.
It feels all too delicate and fragile, as if she could tear this perfect moment apart with a wrong word, being too blunt and direct as she always is. She runs her hand up and down his spine, and he plants small kisses against her skin, and everything feels soft and tender, as if the sharp edges of the world had blurred.
“Everything alright?” he asks, then, gently.
“Yeah.” She can feel him, all around her, his body shielding hers from the rest of the world, and it feels surprisingly intimate, to lie in bed with him like this, just basking in each other’s presence. “You?”
He lets out a soft chuckle and kisses her shoulder again. “More than alright.”
The way he says it – there’s so much tenderness there, in his words, and something else for which she has no name, but that leaves her breathless all the same. Or maybe she does have a name for it, and she’s just too much of a coward to say it.
Panic lodges like a lump in her throat, sudden and overwhelming, because she can’t allow herself to feel, not if this has to come to an end, not if this is all that will ever be–
“It’s getting late,” she announces, trying to sound unaffected, and yet her voice wavers, stumbling over the words. “I should go. I’m sure you don’t want me in your way–”
“Or–” he starts, pushing himself up on his arms and staring down at her. The corner of his lips quirks into a smile, soft and hesitant as the first blossoms in spring. “You could stay.”
A sudden silence falls on his room. She has to swallow what feels like her heart, before asking him, “What?”
“You–” He brushes her hair out of her forehead, gently. “–could stay. You could sleep here for once. And tomorrow I’ll kiss you goodmorning and make you breakfast while you sit at the kitchen table in nothing but my shirt.”
A choked sob escapes her lips. Something melts inside her, and she realizes it was her fear all along – a cold, icy thing that had surrounded her heart until now and that now crumbles down into nothing under the warmth of his gaze. A voice that had told her, over and over again, You’re nothing to him, he doesn’t care about you every time she allowed herself the luxury to hope he could feel something for her.
A voice that is now blissfully silent, as he looks at her as if she were his whole world.
“You’re–” Her voice catches in her throat and she has to gulp again. “You’re sure about this?”
His eyes are so terribly soft and the hint of a dimple appears on his cheek when he smiles down at her.
“Rey. Sweetheart. I’ve been sure about it ever since you walked into that restaurant, that very first night.” His hand runs up and down her arm, his fingers light against her flushed skin. “I want this. I want to fall asleep next to you and find you here in the morning and maybe have morning sex while we’re still half asleep. I want to make you breakfast and lunch and dinner. I want to hear you talk about all those shows I’ve ever watched an episode of. I want to drive you to work and hear you complain about your dumb coworkwers. I want to see you in your oversized sweatpants and old t-shirts and tell you how beautiful you are. I want a relationship with you, Rey.” And then, even softer, “Please. Tell me you want that too.”
Oh.
Tears are streaming down her face, but it doesn’t matter, because Ben is here and he’s wiping them away, and she’s surging forward and he’s bending down and somehow they meet in the middle in a kiss that steals the air from her lungs and oh, that’s what she’s been waiting for this whole time.
Home.
She’s spent this whole time pretending she didn’t feel it, this belonging deep in her bones, and now it explodes like a summer in her chest, and she sobs against his mouth, and Ben is there to put her back together when she crumbles into his arms, a weeping, sobbing mess of a girl who loves him and wants to be with him.
“I want that,” she murmurs, between a kiss and the other, eliciting a giddy little laughter from him. “I want all of that. I want you. A relationship. Everything.”
He nuzzles her nose and flashes her his dimpled, crooked smile, so bright and dazzling her heart skips a beat.
“Not too old for you?”
A watery laughter slips past her lips. “I think we can make it work.”
“Mh.” He presses a kiss to her cheek, soft and delicate and his arms wrap around her frame, surrounding her. “We sure can.”
✨
In the morning, she wakes up next to Ben.
His hair is slightly disheveled and his face is all wrinkled from sleep, his eyes still closed, and yet he’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen in her life, as the first rays of sun filter through the windows of his bedroom.
What a privilege, to wake up in his arms and watch him being utterly defenseless.
It’s still early and they have no place to be but here, basking in this blossoming thing between them, so she burrows into the shirt of his she stole to sleep in and buries her head into his chest. His arm automatically wraps around her waist and he mumbles something in his sleep that sounds suspiciously like My Rey , pressing his lips against her hairline in the tenderest imitation of a kiss.
Rey hums, contently, and melts against him, drifting to sleep again.
This, she thinks before sleep claims her, is the first day of the rest of her life. And it’s wonderful.