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“Hello, sweet cheeks.”
You knew you were in for it when he sauntered into the inn and there it is, one of his many pet names for you. You press your elbows against the top of the bar, leaning over to talk to him as he sits down on one of the stools.
“Art.”
“C’mon, don’t be so cold.”
He’s got that cocky smirk painted across his face that you’d just love to slap off.
“You want your usual?”
“Please, darling.”
Darling. What an asshole. But you love him. He’s one of your good friends, even if half of Londinium thinks something else goes on between the two of you.
You pour him his ale and slide it across to him. “So, busy day?”
He takes a sip, wiping over his facial hair when he puts the mug back down. “Had a run-in with some Vikings.” He says, so blasé.
“Vikings?”
“Yeah…” He ponders. “But if anyone asks, you don’t know a thing about any Vikings.”
You’ve learnt that, at times, it’s best not to ask him about things. “Right.”
“Anyway, how are things with… don’t tell me.” He clutches his ale in both hands, elbows on the bar top, as he looks down to think. “Tim! How is it?”
“It’s Tom and I don’t want to talk about it.” You say, even though you smile.
“That bad?” He looks far too pleased.
Tom was the guy who had caught your attention at the tavern a few weeks ago - much to Arthur’s frustration. And eventually, your own.
He’d been looking at you all night, and he was really really quite handsome. You wondered why he wasn’t making the move to come to the bar to talk to you, until he said something about your lover from the brothel.
“Oh, him?” You laughed, pointing at Arthur who, even when he was sat far away from you on the other side of the tavern, still managed to find a way to get under your skin. “He’s just a friend.”
Tom’s eyebrow raised. “Just a friend, yeah? Then why’s he been giving me daggers the entire time I’ve been talking to you?”
“Because he’s an asshole.” He laughed at that.
But you shouldn’t have worked so hard for Tom. It ended in bitter disappointment. He seemed nice for a while but when it came down to it he was all wham, bam, thank you ma’am and it barely lasted three minutes.
“Three minutes?”
“Shut up, Art.” You say, trying to stop his teasing as you wipe down the sticky bar top.
“Three minutes? You deserve longer than three minutes.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I can show you more than three minutes.” He’s insufferable.
“Just because four is more than three doesn’t mean it’s better.”
“Give me some credit, honey tits.”
You flick your eyes towards him, laughing at his seemingly never ending list of names for you. “Honey tits? That’s a new one.”
“I’m trying to keep you on your toes.”
“You always keep me on my toes, Art.” And as you look at him, there’s a small, tiny glimmer of tenderness and love because you wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s cheeky and charming and he keeps you on edge. But you secretly love it.
Not that you’d tell him that, though. That’s one thing that will never change in your relationship - you don’t do real, raw, spoken affection. That might tip things too far into a place where you can’t return from. It doesn’t bear thinking about, even though you have on a handful of occasions. And so, you stick to secret thoughts about one another that you don’t intend to act on, and crude innuendos, and trying your hardest to make the other blush and fluster in a room full of people.
“It’s my job, sweetheart.” He picks up his mug, swigging the rest of it from the bottom. He’d sunk three of them listening to your story about Tim. Tom. Fuck.
“And you’re good at it, you little shit.”
He smirks, letting a laugh hum through his closed lips. “Have a drink with me.”
You quickly swing your gaze over the small crowd left in the inn and decide, why not?
“Yeah, okay.”
You set a stool down on your side of the bar, pouring yourself an ale and refilling his.
You ask about the girls - a lot of them are your friends and you haven’t seen much of them recently with all the work you’ve been doing at the tavern. He tells you they’re good, aside from the shit that happened with the Vikings today, and even though he made out like he wasn’t going to tell you about it, he does. It didn’t sound good.
“Give her my love.”
“I will. She’ll be alright.”
“Can’t be easy for them. At least they have you.”
You drink two mugs of ale as you chat. You tell him about the older guy last week who insisted on getting so drunk he could barely see and almost fell into the river when he made to leave. Arthur tells a few jokes that make you spit out your drink and then the conversation somehow comes back to your short-lived relationship with Tom. More specifically, how Arthur could do better.
He swings his arms around, sloshing his drink over the top of the bar, his voice a lot louder. Art doesn’t really get drunk - he gets loud. “All I’m saying is that I could last longer than three minutes.”
He draws the attention of the few people left, and you laugh at his insistence. “Art, love, I’m sure you could.”
“You don’t believe me do you, angel?” His eyes are narrowed, smiling, and the way he looks at you makes your cheeks flare with heat. He waves a finger in your direction. “I promise you I can last longer than three minutes. I can show you a better time than Tim.”
He goes on and on about it, saying the same thing in different ways a thousand times. He shouts for everyone to hear how he can last for ages, he’ll show you a good time, fuelling the circulating rumours about the two of you. But somehow, and at some point, there’s a shift that occurs - you can’t recall when it happens.
All of sudden, he very quickly goes from joking, teasing, light-hearted banter about how he could fuck you longer than Tom, to sweet whispers while he strokes your arm as he leans across the bar.
You don’t notice an obvious change in his demeanour, but there is one. He’s no longer yelling across the tavern, boasting about his prowess in bed. No, instead, he’s quietened down as he ghosts his fingertips over the back of your hand and tells you how good he could make you feel. And shit, you think he’s serious.
He traces gentle, barely there patterns over your skin and his voice is hushed. Intimate. This isn’t for everyone else to hear - it’s just for you.
“It’d be nice. Sweet - if that’s what you wanted.”
He sounds sincere, he’s dropped the pet names and the words drip like honey from his lips. And you’d give in if this wasn’t Arthur, your favourite pain in the ass.
“You know I would.” He wets his lips with the tip of his tongue, considering you with darkened eyes. “I’d take my time and-”
“Art…”
“Am I making you uncomfortable?” He looks at you panicked for a second, thinking he’d crossed a line. Fuck, is he doing something he can’t take back?
But no. You’re not uncomfortable - you’re hot. Flustered because his words have an effect on you. And you can’t even blame your desire to have him act on his words on the ale, because the goosebumps across the back of your neck are caused by the low husk of his voice as he promises to fuck you well - not the alcohol.
“No.” You shake your head, bringing your mug to your lips as he watches.
“Good.” He does a slow nod of his head, the corner of his mouth curling ever-so-slightly. Curiosity gets the better of him. “Would you ever?”
You’re stunned at the bluntness of his question: would you ever fuck him? You almost spit your drink back into your mug.
He’s probably expecting you to tell him to fuck off, or to tell him you would - when you don’t mean it. But the way he’s been so earnest with you, all soft and then the bluntness to ask you like that makes you think he wants a real answer. And would you?
You’d be lying if you said you’d never thought about it. In the early days, when he’d strut into the tavern and you thought maybe you’d let him take you home - or take him home. But then you got to know him, and there’s softness under that egotistical shell. You know he’d probably make it good and part of you is tempted to give in just to see what it would be like.
He’s almost definitely thought about it, too. And maybe that’s why you don’t want to give in either - because you don’t want to give him the satisfaction. You don’t want to deal with the smugness that would come with you finally giving in to all those passive comments and the fucking pet names.
You think about his question. Would you?
You think you would, if it wasn’t for your friendship. You’re reluctant to say you would because then all of those jokes you make about this with one another wouldn’t be jokes anymore. They’d be very fucking real.
No more of that. Or when people make comments about the two of you in that way and you’d dismiss it with a laugh because you wouldn’t touch Art with a ten foot pole. And you wouldn’t be able to do that because there’d be an air of complete truth to what they’d say. Nobody would even know that those comments would turn out to be accurate.
It wouldn’t be a myth or running joke in Londinium about the two of you anymore because it would’ve happened. It wouldn’t be a what if, it would be a have.
And, nobody would have to know besides the two of you. But, maybe that’s the worst part. You would have to go about your everyday business, hearing the jokes and instead of rolling your eyes, you’d be clenching your jaw - reminded of how he felt between your legs as he rolled his hips and sparked euphoria in your veins.
But you betray yourself. “Maybe.”
“Do you want to?”
He’s always been outspoken - teasing and flirting with the concept of the two of you fucking. You always thought he was joking, but perhaps an unconscious part of you hoped he wasn’t because now that he’s actually offering you, you don’t think you want to refuse.
You told yourself ‘never’ because it wasn’t an option. It went without saying, to you.
“Art-”
“Yes or no?”
You’ve never seen him like this with you. Never in all your time being his friend has he looked at you, nor spoken to you like this. He’s deadly serious. Yes or no. You’re backed into a corner by him - being forced to face up to what you want. He wants to hear you say that you want it, none of this bullshit where you can’t give him a straight answer. Either you want it, or you don’t, he thinks. No ‘maybe’.
Everything you’ve thought about until now has told you that you shouldn’t. It’s wrong. You need to keep clear boundaries between things that are jokes, and things that shouldn’t be joked about because they all too quickly become very serious, with the potential to damage your friendship beyond repair. And, yeah, it’s wrong. Very fucking wrong.
But, fuck it.
“Yes.”
That’s all he needs.
It doesn’t feel like time is passing or that this is really happening as you take the quickest back alleys back to your little home not far from the tavern. You’re actually doing this.
You’re trying to convince him, and yourself, that this is just a test. A game, if you will. You’re doing this to see if he really can live up to all that he says he is. If he really can give you something better than three minutes of mediocre sex - or whether he’s all talk.
But the rules of the game all become very messy when you stumble through your front door, and he’s whipping you around to press you into the wall, barely giving you time to shut the door behind you.
He looks at you as he pins you there, as if he can’t decide how to do this - whether he wants it fast or slow, you against the wall or somewhere else. He settles for a chaste kiss. It’s soft, and searching as he waits for you to give him an indication of where to take things.
You thread your fingers up through his hair, using it to anchor his head back so you can tell him to go through to your bedroom. It’s not far, given that your tiny house is all on one floor and each room is smaller than the last.
It doesn’t take long for him to rid you of the dirty, stained dress you wear to work and leave you feeling exposed before him. You’ve never felt insecure, or particularly vulnerable in front of him but the way his eyes rake across your body makes you cross your arms over your chest on instinct.
But he’s not having any of that. His hands wrap around your forearms almost as soon as you bring them in front of you. He makes a noise of disapproval as he holds them away from your body, drinking you in with those beautiful blue eyes from head to toe.
He glances back up to your face as uses your arms to drag you closer to him, hooking them around his neck as he kisses you deeper this time. You feel his hands settle on your waist - warm and strong as he pulls you against him.
He’s hot. Skin and mouth, and the hands that settle on your body leave you burning up under the firmness of his grasp. His tongue licks into your mouth, hotter and more demanding than your own, tasting and gaging your reaction as you pant heavily into him.
His hands and lips wander at the same time. He grabs at the flesh of your ass when his hands snake around your body and down, while his lips glide across your cheek and down your jaw, settling on a spot on the side of your neck that makes you groan when he grazes his teeth over it.
You close your eyes, basking in the sharp scrape of the edge of his teeth over the sensitive skin, tilting your head to give him access to the place behind your ear that makes you giddy and when his lips finally pay it attention you feel the wetness pool between your legs.
He helps you back onto your bed, where he towers over you as he undresses himself - letting you watch. You’ve seen him half naked more times than you can count - that one time where you went down to the river because it was far too hot and you’d had to strip down to your undergarments, while he went shirtless, because he’d dragged you in. Another time, he’d got himself into a brawl at the brothel and somehow ended up with a knife wound on his abdomen that required your attention. You managed to do a half decent job considering you’d never had to do anything like that in your life before. That wasn’t a great day.
All those times you’d never really looked at him the way you are now - tilting your chin up and watching through your lashes as he peels off layers of clothing, revealing all that hard muscle he hides beneath, the broad expanse of his bare chest and strong shoulders.
He tugs at the strings keeping his trousers laced, all the while focusing his attention on watching your expression change as he frees his cock. He’s an expert in reading you, after all those years of knowing you, a master in understanding your micro expressions. He notices the way your eyes widen by a mere fraction, and your jaw moves slightly as you swallow. Nobody else would pay any mind to it - but he does.
He crawls over your body then and your legs open to accommodate him, he hovers over you as he places his hand on the bed at the side of your head. “I’ve thought about this.” He admits in breaths against your face, blowing hot air over your already searing skin.
You try not to think about what you’re doing, and whether or not you should be enjoying the feeling over his palm skirting over the curve of your breast to travel down your body. But your train of thought goes out the window when his finger presses against your clit. You’re replying to him, gasping the word before you even have the sense to realise what you’re doing. “Yeah?”
“So much.”
You reach down, taking him in your hand and running your thumb over his head, spreading his precum over the tip. It makes him hiss, and his hand quickly disappears from your aching cunt.
He takes your hand away, pressing the quickest kiss to your palm as he places it next to your head. “This isn’t about me.”
But you want to touch him, your fingers seek out the fire that sparks when your skin meets his, and so you settle for placing your hand on his bare shoulder.
He returns his fingers to your pussy, testing. He takes two, pressing them against your entrance and, to his surprise, feels how you’re already soaked for him.
He lets a curse fall from his lips as he starts slowly fucking you with his fingers, marvelling in how you whimper and clench around them, and all he can think is he needs to fuck you. This isn’t enough.
The whine you make when he withdraws his fingers is soon muffled by the rough kiss he gives you, his beard chafing the sensitive skin on your jaw he nipped and nosed at moments earlier. If his kisses are anything to go by, he’ll be fucking good. Your part your lips and he seizes the opportunity to let his tongue fuse with yours, moving together as you let him explore your mouth. You let him.
He’s making you weaker with every second that passes. It’s confusing - how he’s able to make you feel so good without having done much at all. It’s fucking with you, so much so you find yourself starting to beg for him.
You plead into his open mouth when lets you breathe. “Art, pl-”
“I know.”
Before he pushes himself up onto his knees, he kisses you one last time. You don’t want to admit to yourself that it ends too soon. You find yourself craving the feeling of his mouth on yours, and the scratch of his facial hair against your cheek.
He hooks his hands around your thighs, and you watch the veins in his arms bulge as he uses his strength to pull you closer and hoist your lower body onto his lap so he can line himself up.
He breaches you slowly, letting you adjust to every inch he gives you, watching as your mouth falls open as you feel him stretch you. Your breathing stutters and you press your lips back shut, biting down hard to stop yourself from making more sounds as he bottoms out.
He holds still, growing accustomed to the tightness of your cunt before he tries to move. He promised to last - this is what this whole thing was about - but you’re tighter, and wetter, than he thought possible and he thinks he might be fucked.
He decides to chance it and gazes down at the place where the two of you join, amazed by the sight of you stretched around him, before raking his eyes up to look at you as you watch and wait for him to do something. He shuffles his knees up, and gives your leg a soft squeeze as he gently starts to rock his hips.
You don’t think he’s ever been this quiet for this long, lost in the feeling of you clenching him and using one hand to dig your nails into the back of his and the other to pinch at your nipples.
“Feels… fuck-” He can’t quite believe it’s happening. You’re letting him do this to you. Not that you had to be coerced or persuaded, but he never thought this would ever happen. Not after all those times you said never - only in your dreams, Art and they were jokes - everyone knew they were jokes - but he couldn’t shake the feeling that you meant it. And now, here he is. “You feel so- so fucking good.”
He tries to regain composure, focus on you instead of him. He looks down, watching himself as he takes his thumb to your clit and draws small rings that set your nerves on fire, and he smiles as he hears you gasp at his touch.
He takes your leg in his large hand, pulling it up so it lays against his shoulder. And then he surprises you, as he’s done this entire evening, by pressing the most tender kiss against your calf as his palm skims over the outside of your leg. He’s soft, almost loving, and a world away from what you expected.
Even if he is punching deep with every thrust of his hips and making your chest heave as he expertly pays attention to your clit with wet fingers, he creates contrast. Soft and hard - like fucking you means something to him. He’s not being delicate, like he’s afraid he might break you, nor is he pounding into you like he doesn’t give a fuck if you enjoy it or not. He’s careful, attentive, responding to every moan and writhe like he’s an expert on your body.
“I’ll fuck you like this all the time if that’s what you want.”
You do. You want it. You want him and his sweaty, glistening body looming over you while he drives his cock against a spot that has you mewling and circles his thumb around your clit, turning you into a whimpering mess beneath him.
“Shi- yeah, I want that.” A noise hums from somewhere at the back of your throat and he smiles, spurring him to push deeper to tip you over the edge.
He presses harder, faster. His fingers work quicker as he becomes impossibly eager to feel you squirm beneath him and it would be because of him. And he thinks he must be doing something because you grow louder
.
Your moans rise from your chest as he chases your high for you and it feels like fire licking at your spine and setting low in the pit of your stomach as he does it. It burns and sets you alight, the noises you make grow higher in pitch as he fucks you to your peak.
“Oh f- Art- I’m gonna-” You don’t even get chance to get the words out before it happens.
You screw your eyes shut and you think you’d probably kick him if he didn’t hold your leg against him so tight. Your back comes away from your bed, but he keeps his palm flattened against you to keep your lower half firm on his lap, his thumb still pressed against your clit as you shudder and whine for him.
It’s the most gorgeous sound he’s ever heard, how you cry out his name over and over, and he’s completely lost in that and the way you bear down on him so hard, becoming even tighter and… there’s no way he can last any longer.
All it takes is two more thrusts into your spasming cunt before he rips himself from you and you feel warmth spread across your abdomen as he decides that that’s the best place for him to finish.
He groans - low and guttural, husky choked noises from deep in his chest as he pumps himself through his climax, and you watch as the most lewd thing you’ve ever witnessed unfolds in front of you, him painting his spend onto your lower stomach.
He kneels over you, cock still in hand, in awe over how gorgeous he thinks you look. Wild - but gorgeous. Eyes half closed from exhaustion and your body gleaming in sweat as your chest rises and falls, speckled with goosebumps. Beautiful.
He takes your leg down and slips his thighs from under yours before almost collapsing onto you. He doesn’t collapse, but holds himself above you and cradles you, and absentmindedly your fingers start threading through the damp hair at the back of his head.
“Now I wasn’t counting,” he pants. “But I know that was longer than three minutes.”