Chapter Text
He ended the call and dropped the phone into his pocket, as Robin motioned emphatically for him to come out of the rain. He was sodden and dripping as he stood just inside the door as she closed it behind him, waiting for her cue.
“Go through, for god’s sake, you’re wringing wet. I’ll grab a towel,” she said, practical despite the emotions coursing through her. He moved up to the lounge, and she diverted to the airing cupboard, fishing out a large, clean, dry towel. She hugged it to herself for a second before she closed the door. This was a conversation she didn’t want to mess up, and she took a steadying breath in, blew it slowly out again, and nodded wordlessly to the towels which remained in the cupboard.
“Here you go,” she said, handing Strike the towel. He had pulled the coat off and draped it over the back of a dining chair.
“Cheers,” he replied, unfolding the white fluffy bundle and first using it to vigorously rub his dripping hair.
“I need a hot drink, I’ve been asleep,” Robin said, moving to the kitchen to put the kettle on. “D’you want one?” She asked.
“Shit, yeah. Sorry,” Strike said, and she knew he meant for waking her up.
She was partly sorry herself. She glanced back over to him, as he tried to gauge which bits were wettest and needed most towel attention, and remembered the exhilarating intensity of her dream, and how it was only a kiss that had detonated the feeling inside her. She allowed a smile to quirk round her lips, and she chewed the end of her thumb as it occurred to her how more than a kiss, and more than a dream might feel.
“Coffee ok?” She asked, realizing her breath had quickened and needing to feel clear headed to have a conversation. She decided on the brevity of instant coffee when he said yes, and poured in the hot water. When she brought over the mugs, Strike had peeled off his jumper and dropped it in a heap at his feet. The shirt he wore underneath was damp round the collar, and his hair had the same roughly dried wildness it had from before dinner the evening before. As he took the mug with a smile, she thought he looked wonderful, and the pressure to get this right felt even heavier.
They sat on the sofa, and Robin pulled both her feet up, cross-legged, facing him. She held the mug in both hands, taking a mouthful of coffee and watching him rub the towel round the back of his neck again, before leaving it crumpled over the arm of the sofa behind him. He gulped in some coffee himself before putting the mug down. She watched him, unsure how to break the quiet. It wasn’t an uncomfortable silence, but it was thick with anticipation. She needn’t have worried. He leaned forward, closer to her.
“Robin, I don’t want to piss about anymore. I’m not going to spend an evening holding your hand and pretend nothing happened,” he said in a low voice. There was no hesitancy. He was a man determined to get this out.
“Ok,” she said, startled at the complete lack of preamble. “Well, what did happen?” She asked, still guarded, choosing her words carefully.
“I don’t know Robin. I don’t even know what made me do it, but as soon as we stopped outside Nick and Ilsa’s it was like all the lights were green and I put my foot down. Are you telling me you didn’t feel it? Because it felt like you felt it,” he said. He was earnest and warm.
Robin pressed her lips together briefly, touched by his honesty and directness, and after a second, she decided respect demanded she respond in kind. She reached over and put her mug down on the table beside them.
“I didn’t just feel it. I think I started it,” she admitted. “I touched your hand in the car deliberately, and I… I couldn’t follow through. It was a spur of the moment thing, and I just felt a bit silly, so I chickened out. I didn’t expect you to notice.”
Strike looked at her like she’d just revealed that she was, in fact, a fairy queen, and she couldn’t help laughing. He shook his head a little in amused wonderment.
“I thought I’d imagined that. I mean, yeah, I noticed, but I thought it was an accident. I thought I’d respond when we sat down, and see what happened, and it just sort of escalated when you didn’t slap my hand away,” he explained.
“I’ll say it escalated. Ilsa was practically ready to go out and buy me a toothbrush to make me stay,” Robin was still gently laughing.
Strike winced, good naturedly. “Yeah, sorry. I should have realized, but I got a bit carried away. She didn’t let it drop after you’d gone, either. I ended up leaving the rest of the lasagne and hiding in my room just to escape,” he told her, and she knew he was emphasizing how serious it was because he left food behind and she continued to smile.
There was a companiable quiet, and he rubbed his jaw and held his hand there for a minute, his elbow on his knee, before looking at her. He reached out and caught her left hand in his right. She had almost known he was going to do it, and she wasn’t a bit sorry. Holding back had been requiring the effort of holding apart strong magnets.
“I’m really sorry I let you leave like that. I thought… I thought I’d misread everything. That I’d steamrollered you all night and ruined it. Then you didn’t phone, and I was sure I’d blown it,” he said, intently.
“And then I sent you a bloody love heart like a teenager and really mixed it up!” Robin said, still smiling as she looked down at their hands, entwined.
“Yeah, thanks for closing the door so firmly on me getting any sleep at all with that,” He laughed, and impulsively took her other hand too, shifting further round so they were facing each other.
“I want this. I really want this. But I don’t want to push my luck, and I don’t want to push you away,” he said, both his thumbs running over her knuckles, slowly.
“I… I don’t know what ‘this’ is, Cormoran,” Robin admitted. “I’d like to know what it is you want. I’m not keen on messing up our friendship either.”
He blinked, and she was taken aback by his reaction.
“I want… I want you,” he replied, his tone surprised. “I want us. What did you think I want?”
“I don’t know, I don’t… I thought you wouldn’t think of me like that. I know we’re best mates, and I know we think a lot of each other, but I didn’t think you, you know, fancied me,” she stammered, feeling her cheeks reddening as she tried not to gabble.
He let out a sound that was half snort, half incredulous gasp. “You can’t be serious. You’re gorgeous. Why wouldn’t I fancy you?”
She shook her head, embarrassed. “I don’t know, I’m just, you know, ordinary. I’m tidy and polite and I didn’t think you liked that. I thought you liked dazzling and exciting and beautiful like,” she paused, realizing this particular stone in her shoe was never going to be shaken out unless she said something. “Like Charlotte.”
Strike looked winded. He let go of her right hand and rubbed the bridge of his nose, screwing up his eyes like he had a sudden headache. Robin thought she had just demolished everything for a second, but he still held tightly on to her left hand.
“Fucksake,” he muttered, and sighed.
Robin’s heart was in her mouth. She had no idea what was going to happen now.
“Why would I want Charlotte?” He asked, after he’d rubbed his hand over his entire face. “Why would you think I wanted a woman whose idea of love is trying to top herself and phoning me to let me know?”
“I don’t know, Strike. I don’t know because you’ve never said,” she replied, sounding fiercer than she intended.
“Well, I don’t! I don’t even know why you would bring her up!”
“You don’t know why I’d bring up the woman you were with for, what, a decade and a half? You’ve got no idea why I’d compare myself to your relationship with a beautiful woman who you shared your life with and who you took so bloody long to get over?” Robin couldn’t hold it back now the floodgates were open, and she gave up trying to be careful.
Strike frowned. Robin pressed in.
“I mean, why would it occur to me that I am just your work partner, just your mate, and however much I might think that I feel something more than that, there’s no point because I’m just boring? Christ, Strike. I’m not a bloody mind reader. How am I supposed to know how you feel about her, or me, unless you say?”
“You didn’t pick it up from your birthday present, or the late night phonecalls, or spending the evening holding your bloody hand and then coming over here at three in the morning in the pissing rain?!” He returned, with the same heat.
“No, I didn’t. I need to hear things from you. We’ve been here before. If you leave blanks, they’ll get filled, and I can’t see inside your head!”
“Well, fine, you want to know? I’ll tell you. I haven’t thought about Charlotte in months. I changed my number so she wouldn’t be able to fling any more barbed wire at me when I wasn’t expecting it, and I haven’t missed her for a second since I did it. But I’ve thought about you every single fucking day for years now, and there is no comparison between the two of you. I can’t even be bothered to try. It’d be like comparing the measles to a four-course meal. Why would I choose the measles?” He thundered, and he was so exercised he’d dropped her other hand and stood up, running both hands over his hair and gesturing widely.
They looked at one another, eyes wide, breath quickened. Robin looked down, trying to process the enormity of what he’d just said, unsure of how to convey how incredibly full her heart was. She looked up as she felt the sofa shift as his bulk returned to sit, closer to her now.
“I adore you, Robin. OK?” He said, his voice pleading and warm. He took hold of her right hand and drew it up to his mouth, pressing a kiss on the back of it. Their eyes were locked together, and her mouth hung open slightly as she pulled in oxygen and tried to stop the pooling tears from falling. She failed, and wiped away the tumbled line of wet from her cheek.
“Yeah,” she nodded. “I think I’ve got that now.”
There was a pause, no awkwardness at all. It felt to Robin like the moment you step off an air-conditioned plane into tropical heat and sun and feel completely alive.
“I think you nailed it when you compared me to food,” she laughed, and he grinned.
The moment of levity passed, and it was replaced with something altogether headier, as he reached out his left hand and slipped it round the back of her head and pulled her into a kiss without any ceremony or hesitation at all. If the touch of his finger had sent electricity through her, the touch of his mouth almost knocked her unconscious, and she succumbed to it like her life depended on it. She reached her hands round his neck, up into his hair, pulling her legs out of their cross so that she could better press herself against him in response to a kiss that was a hundred times more intense than in her dream.
It must have been more than a minute before they pulled apart slightly to catch a breath, and Robin felt giddy and playful, rubbing her nose gently against his. She wasn’t just on fire, she was blazing, and the feeling was compelling and overwhelmingly terrifying all at the same time. This was really happening. She dotted a few light kisses on his face, but he seemed more determined than playful, and he caught her mouth with his again and she felt his tongue trace her lower lip, and his hand press into her lower back, pulling her further into him. She felt the merest trace of embarrassment as she whimpered into his mouth in response, but the sound seemed to intensify his kiss, and the pressure of his hands, one running up and down her back, one tangled in her hair.
She was dizzy with desire, and it took a few seconds to register that he had shifted his weight to pull them up to standing. He broke the kiss, his darkened eyes focusing on hers.
“Shall we…?” He asked, and she nodded mutely.
He crushed her mouth with another kiss again, and then took her hand as he pulled away, leading her down towards her bedroom. Her legs felt like jelly as she followed him, her heart pounding in her ears. Once in, he closed the door behind them, and turned back to her, taking her face with both his hands and pulling her into a deep, slow kiss, and she felt no embarrassment at the noises she made now, noticing his every response to her. She ran her hands over his chest and rested them on his shoulders, squeezing slightly before running them to the buttons of his shirt and beginning to fumble them open. She managed two, but in her nerves, the third refused to co-operate, and she made a frustrated noise into his mouth. He pulled back with a gentle laugh.
“Need some help?” He asked.
“Well, I’m normally quite good with the basics, but I’m a bit off my game tonight,” she responded, remembering the dropped fork. Grinning, he quickly finished opening the shirt, and she reached forward to run her hands through the hair there, snatching another kiss as she did so. He reached down to the hem of her pyjama top and pulled it over her head. The vulnerability of standing in front of him, wearing only her pyjama bottoms, and the reality of what was happening made her catch her breath, and she fought a sudden coyness. She wanted to raise her arms to cover her breasts, but she managed to hold them down to wrap only round her waist, defensively.
Strike seemed to sense her nervousness, and slipped his hands through her elbows, pulling her arms gently apart and bringing her flush against his bare chest. The tremulous coyness subsided as she sank into the sensuous feel of his chest hair against her own naked flesh, and something primal bubbled up inside her as she felt his unmistakable erection against her belly, and they kissed again. She pushed his shirt over his shoulders, and he reached round to tug it off, without breaking the kiss.
He walked her backwards towards the bed, and she felt the frame bump against her calves. The solidness of the mattress against the back of her knees seemed to cut through the incoherent sweep of desire, and she broke the kiss, partly to breathe, partly to ask him the sensible question about if he had anything. He had already begun to trace languid kisses down her neck, but he froze at the question and muttered a curse into her shoulder. He drew back enough to face her.
“I honestly didn’t think it through, not to this point,” he said, apologetically.
The primal desire mixed with Robin’s level-headed practicality, and she found a mischief of her own.
“Then you have even more reasons to appreciate my organization skills. There’s a box in the bathroom cabinet,” she said, and he laughed delightedly, and they tumbled onto the bed in another kiss. He didn’t linger, though, pushing himself back up on his elbows, kissing her nose and getting up again.
“Wait there. Don’t start without me,” he said at the door, disappearing quickly, and Robin laughed quietly and lay back, rubbing her forehead, savouring the absurd happiness she was feeling, before the sound of his footsteps returning ramped up the tension in her core and the point of no return approached.
She propped herself up on her elbows and he stood at the foot of the bed for a second. She didn’t feel quite as exposed as when he had first removed her top, but his looming presence was a bit intimidating none-the-less, and when he didn’t get straight back on the bed, she cocked her head to one side.
“What?” She asked.
“I’m just taking a minute to enjoy you,” he said, his voice low and honeyed with desire, and Robin felt heat start to glow within herself. She lay back against the bed again and raised her arms above her head, the affection in his gaze making her bold. She felt the bed dip a little as he bent forward, planting his arms on the mattress either side of her legs and beginning to kiss his way up her body, and from the first brush of his lips on her thighs she knew the point of no return had long passed.
He placed each languid kiss on her skin with reverence, lingering a little at the place where her stomach curved into her breasts. She had sunk so far into the sensations, she hadn’t realized she brought her arms down and twined them into his hair as he ran his tongue lightly on the sensitive skin of her neck, and then she couldn’t help but tug him up to her mouth. It occurred to her that she might have expected the bulk of him to crush her down more, but he was holding himself slightly to the side of her. His left hand was at her waist, his arousal keen against her hip and he reached round to take one of her hands from his hair and lace his fingers with hers. She ran her other hand down through his chest hair and pulled at his belt.
“I could try, but I think I’d probably fail again,” she whispered. His mouth twisted into a knowing smile, and he took his hand from her waist and deftly unfastened himself.
“You only have to ask,” he said, his hand flat on her stomach now, and slipping beneath the flimsy elastic at the top of her pyjama trousers, and her breath hitched as another wave of passion hit with his touch, and she arched into it. He was covering her collarbone and neck with those full-mouthed kisses as his hand moved, and this was a new electric circuit she hadn’t even allowed herself to conceive before now. He moved with her, his hips rocking against hers, and as she shifted into an arch again, she reached down to push her trousers completely off. He broke their contact and she let out a moan of protest, and he chuckled in response.
“Give me a minute, woman,” he said, as she kicked the trousers off her right foot, and he sat back on the edge of the bed to remove his own. He eased off the prosthetic, too, before turning back to her. She grabbed at his shoulders a little clumsily.
“Christ alive, what’s the rush?” he rumbled, still amused. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She was glad of the half light to disguise her blush.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Don’t need you to be, Robin. Just trust me, ok?” He assured her, and his next kiss pushed further, beyond languid and slow, straight back into the fierce need that she had felt from him on the sofa. Completely naked now, completely open, readier and more exhilarated than she had ever been in her life, she lost herself in the feel of him against her, in what his hands were doing, in the intensity of knowing she was here with him now, relishing every confident move he made with the intention of delighting her.
“Please,” she whispered against his mouth, and he understood. Too many milliseconds later, he was moving with her once more, hitching one of her legs round his waist and claiming her cries with his mouth again and everything was stars and fire and him, him, him.
When she came to herself again, the room refocusing in the strange blue light of early dawn, tangled up with him and overcome with a blissful exhaustion, she couldn’t hold back gentle laughter. It sounded more resonant as she lay on her back, and Strike raised his head to look at her.
“What?” He asked, propping his head up with his crooked arm.
“I can’t believe I ever thought it was a good idea to hold back from that,” she said. She laughed some more when she saw the look of contented pride on his face. There’d be no holding back now, she thought. Once you complete a circuit, you just need the voltage, and she now hadn’t the slightest doubt about the certainty of the connection.