Chapter Text
Yaz lets out a long sigh as she closes the front door behind her, pulling her hat off her head and letting it thump against the solid oak as she rests against the door, letting herself breathe for a moment.
What a day.
Three incidents of disorderly conduct in Sainsbury’s all because it is Valentine’s day and there was a shortage of bouquets and chocolate. Hour upon tedious hour spent appeasing people that no, it was not the end of the world, and perhaps they could but their loved one another gift instead. Days like these, Yaz does question in the back of her head why she swapped Sheffield for Cornwall, but then she remembers the events surrounding that decision, and she does not doubt herself further.
This is just a silly day to put behind her.
At least she is home now.
“Jo!” She calls, pushing herself reluctantly from the door and hanging her hat on a peg, removing her jacket and hanging that up soon after. She begins pulling pins from the bun her hair is pulled tightly into, shivering a little as her hair releases from its tight restraint, sighing in relief. The cottage remains quiet, and Yaz frowns, fiddling to stuff the pins in her pocket.
“Jo?”
“Sit down on the couch!” Jo shouts from upstairs, and Yaz blinks, looking confusedly up the staircase.
“What?
“Sit on the couch!” Jo repeats. There is a thumping sound and Yaz hears the woman curse to herself. Her brow furrows as her confusion only deepens.
“Why?” She asks.
“Just do it! Please!” Jo begs of her, and Yaz sighs, shaking her head and giving in. She shucks her boots off, kicking them lazily in the direction of the small rack they keep their shoes on, and slouches to the couch, falling upon it with a light thump.
“Okay!” She calls back, feeling just shy of impatient, wanting a shower and a cup of tea and to simply unwind and spend time with her partner on such a romantic day. “I’m sitting on the couch!”
“Fab! Right, okay!” Jo calls back, and Yaz can hear her walking around frantically upstairs. What the hell is she doing?
The footsteps travel across the ceiling until they begin to echo upstairs in the landing, and Yaz peers up, frowning as Jo’s arm sneaks around the banister, remote in hand. She points the remote at something somewhere in the main living room and presses a button, her arm sneaking back behind the banister soon after. And then, music begins to play.
“What the…?”
The beginning notes of Beyoncé’s ‘Love on Top’ blast from the speaker in the corner, and Yaz’s eyebrows rise to nearly her headline as she shifts on the sofa to look back at the speaker. In doing so, she misses Jo’s feet appearing at the top of the staircase, but the wood soon creaks under her feet as she descends and Yaz turns, eyebrows raising ever further.
Jo is dressed… well, like herself, in a deep blue jumper and some casual jeans, but she looks distinctly uncomfortable as she walks down the stairs in socked feet, smiling at Yaz. She has made an attempt at curling her hair, and it sits in gentle waves, brushing her shoulders.
“Hi, babe.” Yaz says, a small grin growing on her face. “What is….”
“Don’t talk, Yaz,” Jo tells her, slowly reaching the bottom of the stairs. She stumbles on the last stair a little but steadies herself with a hand to the bannister. She smiles at Yaz. “Just enjoy.”
There is something odd about her smile, her lips pouting a little, and her eyes are narrowed, almost like she is squinting.
“Did you lose your contacts?” Yaz asks her as Jo pads over to her, standing in front of her.
“Shhh.” Jo shushes her, putting a finger to her own lips.
Yaz shakes her head in confusion. “What are you-”
“Shhh.” Jo says again, a little more forcefully, and Yaz raises her hands in surrender before miming zipping her lips shut, settling her hands in her lap.
“Just listen to Beyoncé, and enjoy.” Jo tells her, and she lets her voice drawl a little, lowering her tone. Something prickles at the back of Yaz’s neck, and as Jo begins to sway her hips to the music, realisation dawns slowly on her.
Ahh. Right.
Jo’s swaying is not quite in time to the music, but Yaz feels a smile grow wider and wider on her face in appreciation of her partner’s efforts as Beyoncé begins to sing out in the room, bringing in the beat. Jo is mouthing the lyrics, although from her lip movements it is clear she is not one hundred percent sure on what the lyrics actually are.
Yaz can do nothing but lean back against the sofa cushions as Jo ‘dances,’ surprised at her partner’s choice of… romantic activity. Still, Yaz is not complaining as Jo’s movements show of the litheness of her body, the slim yet strong muscles, even under her jumper. Yaz wishes she would hurry up and take it off.
Jo, however, decides she should start what is now being confirmed to Yaz as, yes, a strip dance, with removing her socks. She lifts her right leg up, still very much trying to dance along to the music and therefore causing herself to hop around on her left foot. This action makes it much harder for her to remove said sock from her foot, and Yaz tries her best not to burst out laughing as Jo hooks her finger around the top of the sock and begins to pull, however the sock has other ideas and decides to remain resistant to its removal, forcing Jo to hop some more. Her partner’s face becomes scrunched up in concentration and she forgets to continue mouthing the lyrics along to the music. However, just as Beyoncé reaches the chorus, Jo’s sock leaves her foot with sudden ease and goes flying out of her grasp and across the room. Yaz cannot help but laugh out loud at that, and Jo stumbles, regaining her footing just as Beyoncé sings ‘baby it’s you!’, and managing to point her finger at Yaz at just the right time, making her laugh even harder.
Yaz claps, fulling getting into a very ‘Jo’ strip tease, bobbing her head along to the music. Jo mimes actions along to the chorus with exaggerated movement which makes Yaz glad they have not lit the fire, or else they might face a very singed human with Jo’s tendency to trip over herself.
Jo resumes ‘stripping’ at the end of the first chorus and gets to work on removing her second sock. She hops about some more, toes flexing against the rug, but is in danger of falling as the sock simply refuses to budge.
“You should have worn the older ones, they’re less elasticated!” Yaz cannot help but say, and Jo raises her eyebrows at her in reprimand. Yaz mimes zipping her lips shut again with an apologetic expression which does not belie the amusement she is filled with.
Jo struggles for a few seconds more before surrendering and holding up a finger to Yaz as if to say, ‘one moment please’, and promptly sits down on the coffee table behind her, lifting her foot to rest on her other leg and removing the sock. She does so with intense concentration, all attempts at allure forgotten in the effort to release her foot from its prison. Yaz cannot help but giggle.
Jo eventually pulls her sock off with a flourish, beaming at Yaz, and she stands abruptly, throwing the sock behind her shoulder. It lands, impressively, over the edge of one of the paintings hanging on the wall.
Jo resumes her dancing, slowing edging towards Yaz, so that by the second repeat of the chorus she is straddling her lap, knees digging into the couch cushion either side of Yaz’s thighs. Yaz reaches out and holds onto Jo’s hips as she smiles, delighted, up at her partner as Jo mouths the lyrics.
Jo bends down, teasingly close to Yaz’s lips. Yaz can feel her warmth breath on her face, and she leans up, eager for their lips to connect, but Jo draws back with a cheeky look on her face. In retaliation, Yaz runs her hands up her sides, and the other woman shudders.
“Take more off.” Yaz instructs gently over the music, and Jo grins cheekily, obviously finding no reason to reprobate Yaz for talking this time. Both of them are getting in the mood.
Jo kneels up a little higher, taking the hem of her jumper and beginning to pull it over her head. In doing so, she reveals to Yaz what she is wearing underneath.
She must have bought it new or kept it a very well close secret from Yaz, for Yaz has never seen the lingerie set Jo is wearing. A teal lace bra creates a ‘v’ shape at her chest and slinks down her abdomen to sit along the bottom of her ribcage. It is matched with a set of high-waisted of suspenders, cutting across pale flesh at her waist. It leaves a strip of skin bare between them, and Yaz lets out a long slow breath as the muscles underneath are defined by shadow and dips in Jo’s flesh by the woman’s stretching. Yaz rests her hands again at Jo’s waist, feeling the soft and tactile material of her lingerie under her thumbs.
“I love this.” She murmurs. “Is it new?”
“Uh huh.” Jo confirms, but her words are muffled as, in trying to get her jumper over her head, it has instead gotten stuck. Her arms are raised, face completely hidden beneath blue fabric, and she moves to and fro, getting herself in even more of a bind.
Yaz chuckles, reaching up with one hand to try and help Jo with her jumper. “You want some help?”
“No, it’s okay, I got it!” Jo tells her, although from the looks of it she does not have it at all. She grumbles under her breath, twisting from her place on Yaz’s lap. Surprisingly, her movements to try and free herself from the jumper are more in time to the music than they had been without the garment impeding her movement and vision.
Yaz leans forward, holding out hands to try and help Jo, although her partner’s movements are so erratic it is hard for Yaz to intervene effectively. Jo struggles and struggles, wrestling with the jumper and loosing terribly, until her movements unbalance herself and she goes falling off of Yaz’s lap with a muffled cry, too quick for Yaz to try and catch her.
Jo’s legs stick up in the air and Yaz sits upright quickly, concerned Jo could have hit her head on the side of the coffee table. However, when she peers down past Jo’s legs she can see that her partner’s arms are cramped up against the edge of the table and her head lays on the floor, uncomfortable but not harmful. She is also finally free of the jumper, which sits shucked up on her arms, leaving her face a little red and her curls dishevelled.
“You okay?” Yaz asks her as Jo wiggles onto her side to eventually drag herself upright, throwing off the jumper. She kneels up and looks to Yaz, plastering a rather flustered smile on her face.
“I’m fine! I’m fine!” She assures Yaz.
“You sure?” Yaz asks her, tentatively leaning back when Jo gives her a nod and waves off her concern.
“Positive! I’m perky!” Jo replies, and Yaz cannot help but smirk at that, looking appreciatively at her chest.
“You can say that again.”
Jo’s eyes widen briefly, and she flushes an even deeper red. Yaz beams with delight at her partner’s reaction.
“I love it, babe.” She says approvingly, and Jo’s eyes glint as she looks up at Yaz. Yaz leans back in her chair and gestures casually at her. “By all means carry on.”
Jo’s eyebrows raise, and as Beyoncé makes a key change she, too, amps things up and leans forwards, hands snaking towards Yaz’s sigh, fingers slowly crawling upwards. Yaz fails to smother the shiver which travels all the way up her body, and she shifts a little closer to Jo’s touch, fingers curling into the sofa cushions. The temptation is there, for the tension to heighten and for them to get to what they both want sooner rather than later, but Yaz cannot deny that she wants to see the rest of what Jo has planned for entertainment. And so, when Jo’s fingers creep towards the fly of her work trousers, she stops her with a hand and a shake of her head.
“Yours first.” She says with a smirk, nodding to Jo’s trousers.
Jo’s mouth squirms as she looks down at her trousers, and Yaz raises her eyebrows as if to say ‘well go on then.’ Jo’s eyes glint back at her in challenge, and she rises swiftly with surprising smoothness, and takes a step backwards, leaping onto the coffee table.
The shadows catch at her midriff even more prominently whilst her hair is haloed by bright light from the overhead lamp, and Jo’s toes flex against the wooden surface as she gently sways her hips, getting back into the rhythm, well, as much in rhythm as Jo can manage. She does not break eye contact with Yaz once.
Yaz has to shift subtly in her seat when Jo pops open the button on her jeans and makes a long, slow display of pulling down the zipper. She begins to shimmy her jeans down her hips, revealing the matching lacy underwear, connected to the suspenders. Yaz suddenly curses her rationale to be patient.
Things are going surprisingly smoothly and Yaz is getting caught up in the fluster and heat of knowing Jo had planned this for her, especially for Valentine’s day, but inevitably it seems for Jo, something else is bound to go wrong. She has successfully removed one leg from her jeans, but the other she gets stuck at her calf, the material remaining stubbornly attached. Yaz winces slightly on her partner’s behalf, not wanting a repeat toppling following the jumper incident.
Jo wiggles her leg back and forth, hopping on the table surface, and Yaz leans forward, pointing at the criminal jean leg.
“Pull it from the bottom.” She instructs.
“I know!” Jo says, sounding hot and bothered as she struggles. She grumbles under her breath, eventually surrendering and bending down to free herself off the jean. It gets down her calf, but unfortunately gets stuck once again, this time on her heel. Yaz anticipates Jo’s quickly dwindling patience.
“Be careful, babe.” She warns.
“Agh, get off my foot!” Jo shouts, and, patience completely lost, she pulls hard at the jean. It finally comes free.
However, in coming free it also means Jo suddenly looses the tension she had been pulling against, and she therefore goes toppling backwards, off of the coffee table. She hits the ground with a thud that even the loud chorus of ‘Love on Top’ can smother.
“Jo!” Yaz jumps up from her seat.
“Ow.” Jo says, splayed flat out on the floor, finally free of her jeans.
“You okay?” Yaz asks her, bending down by her side. “Again.”
Jo gives her a thumbs up, chest heaving and hair even more of a mess. “Nothing bruised but my pride. Well, I’ve probably bruised up my legs. And my arms. And my head probably.”
Yaz tuts and holds out a hand to help her partner up. Jo takes it gratefully, blowing her hair out of her face when she is sat upright. She looks to Yaz bashfully. “Sorry, that wasn’t quite supposed to go like that.”
“It’s alright, as long as you’re okay.” Yaz replies, and with Jo’s affirming nod she smiles. “Can’t believe you decided to do that for me, babe. It was quite the surprise when I got home.”
Jo smiles, pleased. “Thought you might like it. Although, have to say, these aren’t the comfiest things.” She hooks a thumb under the strap of her bra as her nose screws up dispassionately.
“Oh, is that why you looked so uncomfortable coming down the stairs?” Yaz asks.
Jo frowns. “Uncomfortable? I was supposed to look…. You know… alluring.”
Yaz giggles. “You’re always alluring to me, babe.”
“Really?” Jo quirks an eyebrow. “Even when that crab pot fell on me and I smelt like fish for a week no matter how much I washed?”
Yaz laughs even harder and nods in confirmation. “Even then.”
Jo looks at her strangely, a small joking smile on her lips. “Yaz, I didn’t know you were into anything like that-”
“Oh, shut up you.” Yaz tells her, poking her in the arm. She lets her finger linger on Jo’s skin and draws it up her arm and across her chest, tracing her collarbone, to finally rest just above the seam of Jo’s bra. The other woman shivers, but before she can move closer Yaz smirks, jumping to her feet, idea coming to mind. Jo’s confidence has given her own a boost. She holds out a hand to help Jo to her feet. “Don’t we have a strip tease to finish?”
Jo blinks as she takes Yaz’s proffered hand and stand, brushing off her legs and arms. Yaz quirks an eyebrow. “The song’s not over yet.”
“But… I thought these things ended when the person was down to their, you know, undies?” Jo says, gesturing to her lingerie clad body.
“Very romantic way of putting it.” Yaz replies sarcastically, but she takes Jo’s hand, tugging her over to the sofa. Jo sits down with a light thump of the cushions, peering up at Yaz confusedly. Yaz steps forward, towering over her, bracketing her legs between her own thighs. Her hands go to the zipper of her jacket. “But I meant I think it’s time we even things out a bit, don’t you think?”
Jo’s eyes widen in understanding and she lets out a shaky breath, watching the movement of Yaz’s fingers aptly as she draws the zipper down. “Oh… yes, yes, we absolutely should! Good thinking Yaz! Brilliant, really, amazing! You always are, you know? Always so amazing-”
“No talking.” Yaz instructs in a turning of the tables. Best to turn them rather than fall off of them. “Beyoncé’s still singing.”
Jo nods, settling back into the cushions as Yaz begins to slide her clothes from her body. This was not the evening Yaz had had in mind when she had returned, exhausted and irritated, from work, but she is certainly glad it is the one she is having.
If love is on top, then this Valentine’s day certainly tops the list, too.