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He’ll leave her when they reach the stairwell. If he were a stronger man with any sense of decency, he would tuck his hands neatly in his coat and walk Riza straight to her apartment door, no problem. Roy wishes he were stronger. He wants: sure, I’ll come up for a little while, why not. Haven’t seen Black Hayate in months. Your living room is warm. Wine, thank you. Just a glass and then I’ll get going, I know it’s late. Goodnight, goodnight, see you Monday.
But Riza wore this dress to the wedding reception, and so all Roy can do is procrastinate at her bottom step.
“It was an 1877. Western valley region. Unmistakable.”
He leans his elbow on the curl of the banister’s end, crosses one dress shoe over the other, and looks up expectantly. Riza stands one stair above him.
“If you say so.”
“You doubt my wine identification accuracy, Lieutenant? You know, while my sight was gone my other senses grew highly perceptive…”
“To the level of sommelier?” Riza says. “You’re advanced even in the realm of exaggeration, I see.”
Roy exhales a laugh and shakes his head. Long pause. He glances toward the front doorway, all the way at the end of the shiny brown tile.
“I didn’t care for the floral arrangements,” he continues, twisting his gloves around his palms. Riza leans the small of her back against the railing and folds her arms. Her coat is thick tan wool and dark green satin slips out below the hem.
“Oh, don’t tell Havoc and Rebecca. Your approval of the flowers is tantamount to their matrimonial bliss.”
“Of course! Everyone should seek decor approval from their future Fürher.”
Riza rolls her eyes and bites down a smile. When she uncrosses her arms, Roy catches a sliver of her bare wrist, red with cold, between her coat cuff and her gloves. God. A wrist doing something for him, that’s new and embarrassing. He tips his head toward the ceiling, where beige paint splinters. Two of the three hall lights are burnt out. Dust coats the trim. He exhales white breath.
“You’re shivering,” Riza notices. “That thin jacket. Vanity will be the death of you, I swear.”
“As long as I leave a fashionable corpse.”
“All the women of Amestris will waste in grief, to be sure.”
“Understandably. But you’re under orders not to die, Lieutenant.”
Riza stares at him for a long moment. His hair sticks against his brow, lank with dried sweat and melting frost. His nose is wind-chapped. When he catches her looking he rubs his shoulders briskly, smiling, and his lower lip splits.
“One cup of coffee for the road,” Riza says, finally. “Consider it my duty to preserve a national treasure.”
Well, in that case.
He forgot how many stairs there were before the promised comfort of Riza’s home. A truly ungodly amount of stairs. Surely her stipend is comfortable enough to move into a building with an elevator, he thinks. He’d look into that on Monday morning. A nice place closer to headquarters, maybe by the park for Black Hayate. Or would she rather be near restaurant row? She does like that pastry place on Hemlock. Plus, if she’s closer to said pastry place, there’d be a greater chance of her bringing some madelines by the office in the mornings…
“Six flights too much for you, sir?”
Roy winces and quiets his breathing. “It was all that dancing.” He rubs an ache in his thigh as they reach the seventh floor. “And drinking. And congratulating.” He smiles. “Not to mention the consistently futile attempts to rope you into a waltz.”
“I promise it was for the benefit of everyone’s eyes that I declined. We’re here, by the way, so you can lessen the dramatics. Let me take your useless coat.”
Riza’s apartment is more or less the same: warm beige walls, a narrow kitchenette with some dishes in the sink, plush rugs over the warped sections of hardwood. She changed out her curtains since Roy had been there last, which was…God, a whole year ago? And on the table now sits a large vase, empty save for a few damp leaves clinging inside.
“You know, someone of my rank likely won’t work another stint as neighborhood florist,” Roy says, scraping out a leaf with his nail.
Riza stays silent. She slides open the tiny closet by the front door and smooths Roy’s jacket over a padded hanger, making sure the lapels don’t crease. Roy watches her remove her own coat, unlatch her shoes, and fall four inches shorter. She stands barefoot in the green dress that will be the death of him, and then goes to the kitchen to heat water.
Roy sits at the edge of the sofa, careful not to dent the embroidered cushions. Black Hayate pads toward him, sniffs his pant cuffs, begrudgingly approves his presence, and then chooses his left foot for a pillow.
“As long as you don’t drool on my socks,” warns Roy, who prefers cats. He gives Black Hayate a cautious pat on the head and then sees Riza in the doorway, who smiles fondly at them both. Her hands are wet from the dishes.
“Well then, sir. Tell me what you want,” she says.
Roy looks her in the eyes for as long as he can manage. Then she absentmindedly wipes her palms on the front of her thighs and Roy’s gaze slides down. He exhales a cautious laugh and turns his head toward the window.
“Nothing?” Riza says, a smile at the corner of her mouth. “That was some easy bait to take.”
“I’m a gentleman, Lieutenant.”
“Hear that? Your reputation is laughing.”
Roy turns back. “Tea, then. Basil, if you have it.”
He picks at the old leaf still under his nail and smells it, peppery and light. He imagines Riza buying marigolds for herself at the market, a big armful wrapped in brown paper, because any other scenario would make him…no, that’s not fair. Of course Riza probably goes on dates. Dates that get her flowers, predictable bouquets of red roses and baby’s breath. If she goes on dates does she bring them back here? Do they get along with Black Hayate? He glances down the hall where her bedroom probably is and imagines her pressing the door open with her back, pulling some faceless nobody through to…
Then again, if she has someone particularly special, she probably wouldn’t have brought Roy to the wedding. Then again, Roy himself was also invited, so maybe it was just a matter of convenience. Then again…
“Here. It’s hot. Move over, you’re taking up the whole sofa.”
“Tch. Ordering me around…”
“It’s my house, Roy.”
Roy blinks in surprise.
“Haven’t heard that name in awhile,” he tells her. “From anyone.”
Riza drops a thick mug into his hands and nudges him to the side with her knee. Her hips graze him when she sits, and she balances her own mug of chamomile in her lap. Steam curls from from the top and reddens her hands. He wonders what it would be like to feel that heat spread across her thighs. He swallows and traces a bead of water around the rim of his cup.
“I like how you say it,” he continues.
“With admonishment and weary frustration?”
“I like it very much.”
“Noted. I’ll use it sparingly and strategically.” Riza’s voice is deadpan, but there’s an evening huskiness never present during work hours. (And thank God for that, because otherwise Roy would never be able to focus again, and he’s already bad enough at finishing desk work.) He studies Riza’s face. Her lipstick blurs the edges of her mouth and mascara smudges her lids. There’s none of the blushing Roy has come to expect from women at this hour, but then, those women haven’t already spent more than a decade at his side.
“Yet another weapon you’ve gathered against me,” he says. “Really, the nation falls deeper into danger every second I’m with you.”
“Will you be escaping toward safety, then?”
“I…” Roy considers the various levels of catastrophe he’d endure before he’d even consider going home. He leans deeper into the couch, fancy cushions be damned, and rakes his hair from his forehead. “I’m all out. I am officially drained of banter.”
“So scotch, then?”
He laughs. “Surely not the bottle I gave you years ago.”
“Takes me awhile to finish on my own.”
Roy nods, quietly triumphant, and gives Black Hayate another scratch behind the ear. There’d have to be an invasion. No, an explosion. He could be persuaded to leave over an explosion right here in the living room.
When Riza returns, she spills her glass of scotch across her knees.
“Shit.”
“Let me—do you have…?”
“Towels near the stove,” Riza says. Well, the dress survived the ceremony, at least. She’ll get it dry cleaned before returning it to Rebecca. She hears Roy fumble in the kitchen, finally emerging with an embroidered tea towel. He kneels to wipe the spatter from the floor and Riza watches his shoulders knot under the film of his dress shirt. He double-checks for any moisture on the hardwood (shitty hardwood, it doesn’t matter anyway). When he’s satisfied he lifts his head, and his breath is hot against her calf.
“I should have dried you off before the floor,” he realizes after a moment, glancing at the now-dirty rag. He laughs. “I really am useless, aren’t I?”
“I’ve learned to manage in spite of it.”
“I can say goodnight, if you’d like,” Roy offers with pained and profound reluctance.
“What, and leave your own glass full? That’s expensive stuff, and from your own wallet no less,” says Riza. “I’ll be right back.”
Roy crosses his ankle over his thigh and allows himself to mourn the loss of the green dress. Then Riza reemerges, and he celebrates its loss.
He tries not to be obvious with his gaze, he really tries. He builds her in quick fragments—hair undone and freshly brushed around her shoulders. Mascara fallout wiped away. Lips brighter than before. An olive button-down, many sizes too big, skims her knees and folds upward at the wrists. And because God really, really favors Roy tonight: that seems to be all.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a woman in houseclothes before,” Riza says primly, as though she wore a granny bathrobe and long pants to match. Roy shifts. He takes a sip of scotch, puts the glass down, and immediately picks it back up to sip again.
“Dry throat,” he manages.
Riza settles beside him, tucking one leg against the cushion and leaning her elbow on the frame. Roy bookmarks the image in his memory next to all the rest: Riza running errands, shooting at the range, filing paperwork, lifting in the coed gym. Riza writing by the office window, smoothing down her coat, adjusting her hair clip before meetings. Cleaning firearms, rolling up black sleeves. He even saw her pick salad from her teeth on that rare and wondrous occasion that work ran late and that spot on Spring Street was still open. And tonight, he’s seen Riza refuse to dance, and spill expensive whisky on her dress, and curl next to him on the couch, and smile comfortably, as though this has been their routine all along.
Roy sets his glass on the end table. While looking forward, he gently touches the edge of Riza’s sleeve. Thick flannel.
“How many years has it been?” he says softly.
“To be honest, I’ve never counted,” she replies.
“Any number would feel too small.”
Somehow Riza’s arm finds its way around his, and then her head is against his shoulder, and then his cheek presses her hair. A stillness wraps the room.
“It’s hard for me to tell you out loud, you know,” he says. “As though a simple phrase could begin to contain everything.”
“You’ll have to begin writing poetry.”
Roy winces.
“I did,” he says, muffling the words against her hair. “In my years at the Academy.”
Riza pulls back.
“Recite exact stanzas to me this instant or I’m never speaking to you again.”
“Oh, it was something about…and through the bloodied skies I see / a sparrow, flown on winds of change—”
“Roy, if you continue I’m never speaking to you again.”
“And darts she past the stable oak / The river, pale and slow as smoke—”
“You’ve the soul of a burdened academic.”
“I received an outstanding grade.”
“Well, I hear the Academy has been losing prestige…”
Roy scowls and tips his head back.
“You’re something,” he tells her. Riza pulls her lip into her mouth.
“What would you have done if you went straight home tonight?” she asks.
Roy studies the ceiling. His apartment is slate gray and bare besides the couch and desk and one place setting. He would have taken off his coat, brushed it, and hung it neatly before nursing a glass of worse whisky. He would have stared down unfinished paperwork, debating whether it could wait until tomorrow. And then—because God knows he’s thought about it before—he would have called Riza to say the most unprofessional of goodnights. He looks at her, this woman he’s loved for years.
“Died of cold,” he answers, and Black Hayate starts barking at the window.
Riza sprints to calm him. Shh, it was just a car skidding on the road, see? All dramatic over nothing. She presses her face against foggy glass and hears some shouting seven flights below. Drunken shouting, probably. Black Hayate cools his barks to a whimper, and then plops his chin on the sill. Riza pulls the curtains in a tent around his head. Sudden warmth spreads from her shoulder blades down to the small of her back, and she wonders if Roy would let her catch him looking. She gathers her hair to one side and turns her neck.
“It’s late and the roads are icy,” she says. “I’ll fix up the couch for you.”
Roy cleans the dishes while Riza showers. He polishes them dry while the water sprinkles to a stop, and doesn’t glance down the hall when he hears the bathroom door click open. There are fresh towels in the cabinet, Riza calls, and a spare toothbrush behind the mirror. When he steps inside the room is still filled with steam, heady scents of juniper and amber and clove. He unbuttons and folds his clothes into a basket by the sink, already wincing at the thought of re-dressing while slightly damp. He splashes some water on his face, climbs over the ledge of the tub, and proceeds to take the coldest shower of his life—not by choice, necessarily, but because Riza used up all the hot water.
“Sorry about that,” she says after, while spreading blankets on the couch. “Your Flame Alchemy not working, sir?”
Right. Right, that was an option.
“You’ll know for next time,” Riza says. She fluffs a pillow and sets a glass of water by the end table and looks at Roy. His hair falls in damp strands across his forehead. His shirt is undone from collar to chest. He swallows. His throat moves against the lamplight.
“Are you sure I can’t give you anything more comfortable?” Riza asks, as if stretching something of hers across his body all night would give Roy any sense of peace.
“I’ve already troubled you enough,” he says, and grins for good measure. “Get some sleep. You must be tired after all that sitting and refusing to dance with me.”
Riza pauses. She considers what it would be like to press the length of herself against his front, to arrange his hand in the dip of her back and drape her arms across his shoulders, to slowly turn in time, to kiss into the ropes of his neck: would you shut up about the dancing?
“Goodnight,” she says, lower than she means to, and goes alone to her bed.
Roy stares at the living room ceiling for approximately twenty-eight minutes. He listens to the traffic outside—it’s sparse, but every so often a car wheel spins or a horn honks or a truck grumbles to a stop. It’s strange to have a frost in Central. Is there an omen about frost on a wedding day? Rain is good luck, supposedly, so frost can’t be too far off. He thinks briefly of Havoc’s knowing grin before driving off to, presumably, have the best night of his goddamn newlywed life. Definitely a lucky bastard.
But this is nice, too, Roy thinks, even if Riza’s couch is a little narrow. It’s late, but still earlier than he usually sleeps, so after twenty-nine minutes he untangles himself from blankets and walks to the window. A nice evening cityscape, as expected. He turns to Riza’s bookcase. The top shelf is mostly binders of tactical records with some alchemy basics thrown in. Then comes a row of weapon manuals, a thick hardcover of firearm history, and a few unmarked folders stuffed with paper. There are magazines—a couple about fashion, one about dogs, and one promotional pamphlet about female soldiers that Riza forgot to throw away. On the bottom shelf, pushed back a little, is a collection of well-worn mystery paperbacks.
“Gathering intel?”
Roy turns to see Riza at the start of the hall, still wrapped in the button-down, hair pulled back in a braid.
“A decorated sniper with books on guns. It’ll make for a shocking report,” Roy says. He stands. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Riza shakes her head and bites the inside of her cheek.
“Is everything all right?” Roy asks softly. Riza meets his gaze.
“If you must know,” she says, slowly, “I’m trying to think up an excuse.”
Roy stares in confusion and Riza rolls her eyes. She glances at her bedroom door and back at Roy, and then he ducks his head to stifle a grin.
“Ah.” He leans against the couch and crosses his arms in exaggerated thought. “Well, let’s weigh all options. Maybe your window won’t close?”
“No, you’ve seen me lift. I could handle a stuck window,” Riza says. She shakes her head. “If I didn’t spill that scotch earlier I could’ve asked for help with my dress zipper.”
“Oh, that’s a good one. A classic.”
“Maybe I need something from a top shelf?”
“I’ve already seen the stepstool in your closet,” Roy counters. He moves closer, his hands in his pockets. “What if you heard a scary noise and wanted me to investigate?”
Riza blesses Roy with another exasperated eye roll. “A scary noise. Seriously?”
“All right, all right.” Roy steps into the edge of Riza’s shadow. His voice drops lower. “How about: you can’t sleep knowing of my cruel exile on the couch?”
“Hah.”
“You just lay awake, thinking about what would happen if I knocked on your door…” He stops casually against the hallway threshold, hands still tucked away. “Well?”
Riza crosses her arms and says plainly, conversationally: “Well that wouldn’t work as an excuse, because it’s the truth.”
Roy’s face shifts in surprise. He tries to gather himself, puts his fingers over his mouth and breathes a laugh into them. He lowers his eyes and then drags them upward, knees to thighs to chest to face. He’s close enough that Riza can hear the movement of his clothing and get the warmth from his body. He rests his arm on the corner of the hallway and crowds her against the wall. He smiles the way she loves, the kind tossed during meetings or across officials, small and secret and just for her.
“So it’s back to the drawing board, I suppose,” Roy says, quietly, and kisses her.
It’s fragile at first. He cups her cheek with the palm of his hand, tastes the piece of chocolate she must’ve eaten after brushing her teeth. Her lips are chapped under a layer of balm. His other hand finds her shoulder, tense planes of muscle that soften near her chest. He pulls back to look at her.
“I wanted to do this since the reception,” he breathes.
“Mm. Just since tonight?”
“Tonight, last night, every night of the past decade…”
“Don’t tell me the infamous womanizer general has been pining.”
Roy shakes his head. “If the world discovered that their future Fürher has been languishing after his bodyguard slash advisor slash…”
“Go on.”
“Old war buddy sounded sexier in my head.”
“Idiot.”
“That mouth of yours,” Roy whispers, and Riza kisses him harder.
He smells like her soaps, peppery and green. Like the cologne she dabs behind her ears on days off of work—did he swipe some from her cabinet without telling her? She slides her hand across his wrists and forearms, teasing under the rolled cuff of his shirt. She follows the breath he takes with her mouth, lifts her shoulders for a moment from the wall, and he presses her back with his hips. When she shifts her body underneath he grows ragged.
He slows down, moves his lips from the center of her mouth to the corners to her cheek, her jaw, pulls them down to her neck and lingers there. His lower lip drags into the divot of her throat and then her chest, nudging apart the fabric of her shirt. He meets her eyes and she nods, so he undoes the first button to kiss lower. His hands trail her waist, slink upward to enclose her ribs. When he brings his right hand to her breast she only barely catches a moan.
“Don’t. I want to hear you,” Roy whispers, buried where her neck meets her shoulder.
“You first,” she dares, and pulls gently on the hair at his nape.
That laugh again, breathy and low. He presses one more kiss to her shoulder and then pulls back. Her face is familiar: brows raised, defiant, as though just asked to retrieve a file before finishing morning coffee. Fine. A competition, then? He could’ve predicted as much. He could do that.
He looks at her half a second more before slamming her against the wall, pinning her wrists on either side. When her hips roll upward he stills them with his thigh, bracing himself between her legs. Her breathing is heavy, now, as she heaves her body in whatever small movements she can manage. Roy digs his fingertips into her hands and then presses his thigh deeper, and Riza’s breath comes in pants, and he shifts his thigh upward, and her voice barely—
“Mm? What was that?” he whispers, his mouth by her ear. “Did I hear something?”
Riza is still. Quiet, save for the sound of her breathing. And then her muscles tense, and before Roy can react, his own back hits the wall. She holds him there with a kiss, one that traps his lower lip between her teeth, and then pulls away.
“Neat trick,” Roy tells her. Riza smiles into another kiss and the feel of her body against him is too much, her chest against his, her palms sliding down his waist and parting the fabric there. His stomach tenses as she traces the line of hair that sinks below his waistband. God.
Roy tips his head back. His eyes fall closed and he loses himself to the waves of her body, the places where her hard muscles give way to softness, the massage of her hands beneath his ribs. His eyes snap open when she replaces her fingertips with a wet mouth.
“Riza…”
She grabs the hem of his shirt and pushes it up toward his chest, all the while moving her lips across his skin. He smells of her soaps and musk and sweat. She looks up through her lashes.
“Can I…”
Roy swallows and nods weakly. He fumbles through each button of his shirt—goddamn expensive tiny buttons—while Riza snakes her palms up his sides. Her face moves lower. She kisses him through the fabric of his pants, feels where the muscles of his legs meet his hardness in the center. He closes his eyes. His belt clinks and slides to the floor, and Riza undoes the button of his trousers and pulls the zipper down, and everything down, and his knees almost give out when she holds her mouth on the inside of his thigh. She pauses.
“No sounds yet?” she whispers, glancing up. One of Roy’s hands kneads her shoulder, the other scrapes the wall. His breath is uneven. Riza brushes her cheek against his cock and he bites on his lip, hard.
She braces her hands on his hips and moves achingly slow. She kisses down one thigh and up the other, sometimes just barely allowing her lips to trace his cock, as though by accident. She digs her thumbs into him and breathes. He feels her nose against him. Then her tongue flattens up his length, and she surrounds his head with the wet heat of her mouth.
“Fuck,” Roy hisses. He buries his free hand in her hair and twists his fingers through the braid.
“You can pull it,” Riza says, and Roy barely has time to register before she takes him as far toward her throat as she can.
“Fuck—”
Riza holds him there a moment, and then begins back and forth, her tongue curving patterns, her neck swallowing, her lips around her teeth. The hallway starts disappearing, everything fades except where her body envelops his. When she wraps her hand at the base of his cock, he grips her hair and yanks.
“Yes?” she hums, catching her breath. Roy relaxes his grip slightly but still keeps her head pulled back. He considers letting her continue, because the sight of her on her knees, lips swollen, shirt falling halfway off her shoulder, crumpled at her elbows, the muscles of her forearms tight, her hand curled around him, God—he considers, but he wants to fuck her.
“Get up,” he says. The hoarseness of his voice makes him sound more commanding than intended, and Riza raises her brow. Roy is about to apologize when she sinks her nails into his hip.
“Make me,” she tells him, eyes bright.
So it’s gonna be like that. Roy pauses for a moment to catch his breath. He tightens his grip in her hair, but instead of pulling her upward, he sinks to his knees. He tugs and she melts backward, and her shoulder blades meet the wood. Roy adjusts himself and nudges her knees apart with his own until his thigh is once again between her legs. But this time his thigh is bare, and this time it’s coated in her wetness. It dawns on him.
“Are you…are you not wearing…”
Riza shrugs. So she doesn’t sleep in underwear, so what?
Roy tosses some assorted prayers of gratitude and humility skyward. He kicks off the bottoms of his pants and settles himself, moves his thigh slowly, watches her legs slide further apart. She curls one knee around his hips and tosses her hands above her head and relishes how solid he feels against her. Her eyes flutter closed and she rolls her body against him, chases a buildup of heat, until he pins her down with one hand. She meets his gaze while he untangles his other hand from her hair and trails it down her body, lower, until his finger dips inside.
“You’re so fucking wet,” he murmurs. He pulls his finger out and sucks it clean, and while that is ungodly hot, Riza needs to feel him again.
“Roy,” she says.
“Hm?” He massages her hips, still pressing them to the ground, his fingers edging close but not quite to where she needs them. “What?”
Riza bites her lip and swallows. Her leg tightens, desperate to pull his body closer, but he keeps still.
“Do you need something?” he asks, and Riza could kill him.
“Roy.”
He lowers his face to her stomach and kisses there, laps his tongue across the planes of her abdomen, and it feels good, so fucking good, but not good enough to stop the desperate ache between her legs. She tries to grind her hips but he shoves them steady against the floor.
“Always so impatient,” Roy chides. He kisses her inner thigh. “You have to work on that.” He draws circles with his tongue, spreads the wetness near her lips. She’s swollen red with want. He exhales across her and Riza hisses.
“I am not in the habit of begging, if that’s what you’re after,” she says through gritted teeth.
“You should take it up. It could be good for you,” Roy grins, God, seeing her writhe like this… “I could do this for hours,” he continues, and then Riza remembers that even if her hips are locked to the ground, her hands are free.
She moves her right hand down her front, twining it with Roy’s for a moment and then lower. She presses her palm against her clit and arches her back. Roy inhales sharply when she dips a finger inside. It’s not enough. She adds a second, slides them in and out, but the angle isn’t right and it’s still not enough, not after she already took Roy’s, thick and calloused.
Roy’s throat tightens as Riza curls her fingers inside her, desperate for even a glimpse of what he could give her. Her hand is covered in her own wetness and she adds a third finger, and he pulls his own hand free to lightly stroke his cock, no, everything’s too much. He pushes Riza’s wrist aside. He teases her slit with two fingertips, and then pushes inside, and Riza’s voice breaks when she moans.
Roy doesn’t have the presence of mind to gloat. He can only stare at her, stare at his own hand pumping in her dripping cunt, curve his fingers upward when her breath catches.
“Your mouth…” Riza whines, and Roy digs his nails into the flesh of her thighs. He kisses down her stomach and then her lips, swirls his tongue around her clit while building speed with his fingers. Her hair is rough against his mouth. He gathers her wetness with his left hand and reaches toward her breast, smooths his thumb over her nipple, and then reaches even further to graze his fingers at her mouth. She opens to take his fingers and sucks, God, and Roy moans into her cunt. Someday he’ll let her take his cock into that mouth and suck until he comes down her throat. But tonight, Roy wants to ruin her differently.
He drags his hand from her mouth to her hip and grips her ass, squeezing hard enough to leave nail imprints. He slowly pulls his fingers out of her, loving the drag of her cunt as she gasps. He grips his cock with his wet hand and gives it a few strokes, and then pauses, and looks at her.
Her head tilts to the side, hair damp and plastered across her face and the floor. Her shirt is all but undone and pools around her body, face and breasts flushed, shiny wherever his dripping hands spread. Her forearms are tense and flexing. Her chest heaves a pattern of ragged breaths.
“Roy,” she whispers, already nearly spent, “would you do something for me?”
Roy stops and nods, of course, anything. He gives a light kiss to her cheek and skims a lock of hair from her forehead. Riza’s heart warms at the soft concern in his gaze. It’s the Roy she’s seen in their most intimate of moments, the times when the world felt small enough to envelop only them. She draws her hand to his cheek, and kisses his lips, and loves feeling this way in her living room instead of on a battlefield.
“Is this okay?” Roy asks gently. He kisses her forehead and she laughs.
“God, yes,” she says. “We’ve waited long enough, haven’t we?” She blinks, and runs her thumb along Roy’s cheekbone. She pauses. “Make me wait longer.”
A note of confusion in Roy’s face settles to acceptance, and he kisses her cheek once more, of course, of course, whenever you’re ready. Riza laughs again.
“No, I mean—that’s very romantic of you, Roy, but I mean…” She chews her lip. “Earlier. When you kept me waiting…I liked that.”
Roy raises his brows and gives her ass another squeeze. “Fascinating.”
“Shut up.”
“No, no—what was it you said earlier? That you’re not in the habit of begging?”
Riza sighs and stretches, and Roy wants to melt. He kisses her collarbone and narrows his eyes.
“I hope you know, Riza, that I’m a very patient man,” he says lowly. Riza shifts against the floor.
“Then we should move to my bedroom,” she tells him.
Her lamp casts the room in a dim glow. When Roy tosses her on the bed, slivers of light catch the blond of her hair and the skim of her jaw. He undoes whatever stray buttons cling her shirt together and then reaches to untie the ends of her hair. He knows that where were we is a tacky line, and so instead he bends to kiss her neck, and feel her body, finally, naked under his own. Her skin is calloused where she holds her gear and soft along her waist. Her razor forgot some hair around her knees. There’s a bruise on her forearm from training and Roy kisses it. Her chest tastes salty and cool. Riza wraps her arms around him and kisses deeply, saves every sound Roy makes. They relish this for awhile. Then Roy grips her calf and secures it around his back, and moves his hands to her thigh, and rubs his cock lightly in the V of her waist. She’s warm, lightly coated with sweat, and her eyes grow glassy.
“Talk to me,” she says, “I need….”
Roy skims his hands across her collarbone. He sets his cock at her inner thigh.
“I can’t stop thinking about your mouth,” he murmurs. “Do you know how hard it was for me to not fuck your throat?”
Riza’s brow furrows and she moans, and she grinds her hips into Roy’s. He weaves his fingers through her hair and grips it tightly toward the scalp.
“I loved seeing you on your knees like that, taking me as far as you could,” he continues. “You looked incredible, your cheeks flushed…I wanted to pull your hair and yank you toward me and watch you gag…is this all right?”
“Yes,” Riza whines. Roy grips his cock at the base and teases the edge of Riza’s soaking lips.
“I wish you could’ve seen yourself spread out on the floor like that, so completely wrecked. You’ve thought about this, haven’t you? I saw the way you touched yourself, it’s like you’ve done so before, wishing it was my cock instead of your fingers.”
Roy pauses to lap his tongue across Riza’s breast and take a nipple into his mouth. He blows lightly on it and Riza digs her nails into his shoulder.
“I need you,” Riza says.
“Again with the impatience,” Roy breathes. He positions the head of his cock at her entrance and slides it between her lips, achingly slow.
“Fuck.”
“Again with that mouth,” Roy laughs. He pulls on her hair. “I want to do this in Central. I want to take you into the closet by the phone room and shove my fingers in your mouth so you can’t make any sound, and pin you against the wall. I want to feel your dripping cunt with my hands and push myself into you from behind, slam you into the wall again and again, fuck you until you can’t stand, come inside of you.”
Of course they’d never, ever do this in the office, but God, now the phone room closets will forever turn him on.
“Roy,” Riza pants. “I…”
“Begging already?” Roy raises his eyebrow and gives a light nip on her earlobe. Riza breathes heavy for a moment and curves into him, relishing how hard he feels against her.
“Not yet,” she says, and then Roy flips her over.
“Is this—”
“Yes,” Riza assures. “It’s all right.”
He doesn’t dwell too much on the scars; that will be for another day. Instead, he gathers her hair to one side and kisses slowly downwards, her neck, her shoulder blades, her spine. He moves back up to keep his lips near her ear, and rubs his cock against her ass.
“I can already tell how tight you’ll feel,” he whispers. “The way your cunt felt around my fingers, even though you were so wet. Still are.” He holds himself again and teases her lips with the head, pushing inside slightly more this time. “I’m not sure how I want to fuck you yet. Part of me wants to like this, and reach around and touch your clit while I’m deep inside you, and feel you come apart while I’m pinning you to the mattress.” He traces his fingers down her spine. “But I want to see your face when that happens. I could always throw your legs over my shoulders and fuck you hard that way, listen to you cry out again and again.” He kisses her shoulder. “Or we could move to the bathroom. I could push you against the counter, one knee up, and slide into you from behind. I’d hold your throat with one hand and your clit with the other, and we could both watch you in the mirror as you fall apart. I could watch your face as you pulse around me until I fill you up—”
“Roy,” Riza moans.
“Yes?”
“I—please—”
“I can’t quite hear you,” Roy says. He turns her back around, still keeping the head of his cock between her lips. He pushes in deeper, ever so slightly, and then returns to tracing up and down her slit.
“I need you so much,” Riza whines.
“Mm. I need some convincing.” He’s torturing himself at this point, too. He holds the base of his cock tightly and can barely maintain control, God, he wants to fuck her so bad. Riza throws her head to the side and tries to grind her hips, tries to get him deeper, but he holds her steady. Just a little more…
“Please,” she says, “please, please, I can’t—”
And then he sinks inside her, fills her so fully, that she can’t speak.
“You feel,” Roy gasps, “you’re incredible.”
He stays there for a moment, buried to the hilt, hands clutching her hips so hard she could bruise.
“Roy,” Riza breathes, “move.”
He does. Slowly, at first, feeling every ridge inside her, how wet she is. He watches his cock move in and out, and the sounds it makes, God, filthy sounds. Riza cries out as he builds up speed.
“Keep talking,” she says, and yes, Roy can do that.
“I love the way you feel around me, so fucking tight just like I knew you would be. I’ve wanted to do this for so long. At the wedding tonight I wanted to pull you aside and grind your ass against me until you feel me get hard, hike up your dress and finger you. Slide my cock inside you while playing with your clit…God, you’re so wet. Do you hear yourself, whining like that? After begging me to fuck you? What would you have done if I went home, mm? Who would pull your hair like this…grip your throat…kiss you like this? Who would fill you like this, so hard you can barely stand it?”
Roy gives Riza another kiss and turns to her knees, pulls her up by the hips. This is a new angle—a good one, ah—made even better when she turns her face to look at him. Almost absolutely ruined. Not yet.
Keeping one hand on the side of her ass, he moves the other around to circle her clit. She throbs around him and his knees almost buckle. He flattens his palm on her lower back and builds a rhythm, grinding and fucking into her, all while holding her gaze.
“I love how you feel inside me,” Riza says in between panting breaths. She brushes her lower lip against her shoulder and leaves a thread of saliva. Her brow furrows and Roy puts more pressure on her clit with his fingertips, and she clenches around him again.
“So thick,” she continues, “like you’ve never been this hard for anyone. Like every time you’ve ever taken a woman you were thinking of me.”
Roy closes his eyes and then opens them, because he doesn’t want to spend a second away from looking at her.
“If you were still on the couch when I came out tonight,” Riza tells him, “and you wanted to, I would have straddled you right there. I would have teased you until you couldn’t handle it, and then lowered myself down as slowly as I—could—and then…ah…rode you until you—came—”
“Fuck, Riza, I’m almost—”
“A little more,” Riza gasps, and Roy circles her clit faster, holds that pace, pulls her head back by her hair and gazes at her while she cries out, and tenses, and then comes apart in his arms. He holds her for a moment as she catches her breath. And then she folds over, stretches her arms toward the pillow, and tells Roy:
“Use me.”
He blinks, panting, so hard his vision blurs. And then he tosses her to her back and slings her calf over his shoulder. He folds her in half and fucks her. He clenches her waist for leverage and shoves as deeply inside as he can, feels the ridges of her walls, feels her swollen lips around his base, God, and he rams into her hard, again, and loves how her cunt is so open for him, and when he looks up her eyes are bright through her lashes, and her cheeks are so flushed, her mouth open and slick, and he drives inside once more before pulling out to come across her chest.
They lie together on their backs, breathing heavy.
“Do you want to come again?” Roy offers weakly.
“No. Again, eventually, obviously, but not right now,” Riza says. She stretches again and Roy’s chest glows. He shifts for a cooler portion of the linen sheets. His limbs are made of lead. He has to get a towel but the bed is so comfortable.
“I can use your dress shirt,” Riza teases, and Roy jumps toward the bathroom. He returns with hand towel and wipes her clean, and tosses it in the hamper.
“Was that so hard?” Riza smiles, and curls beside him as he falls back into bed.
“Yes.”
“Dramatic.”
He rubs his eyes and laughs, and rolls to his side. He just had sex with Riza. He just watched her fall apart in his hands. He just fell apart in hers. They had sex. What a world.
The traffic outside slows for the night. The only sounds are a train in the distance rattling by and the off-key song of a drunkard, happily trying his best.
“I would give some sugar to that little bird, who could sing the name of her…” duets Roy, equally off-key.
“I didn’t know you knew that song.”
“After all these years?” Roy surrounds Riza’s shoulders and pulls her closer, so that her head rests beneath his chin. She rolls her fingertips on his chest in a rhythm, listens to his racing heartbeat slow. She’ll change the sheets tomorrow, she’ll shower off tomorrow. She won’t move from here tonight, so warmed by his body, kissed sweetly on her forehead every now and then.
“I’m trying to figure out when to say it,” Roy whispers. Riza prods his calf with an icy toe and he retaliates lightly with a pillow. She pulls a crocheted blanket to their waists.
“If I tell you now,” he continues, “well, there’s a chance you wouldn’t even believe me.”
“They say a woman shouldn’t trust a man’s declarations in the aftermath of passion,” Riza agrees, and kisses his chest. “What if I tell you first?”
“No, I want to do it.” Roy shifts to lay on his side and looks at her, and doesn’t want to stop looking at her. “I could tell you in the morning. I don’t know if I could help myself from saying it if I see you wake up next to me.”
“My hair will be frizzy, I’ll have bags under my eyes. I’m warning you now.”
“I want to see you like that,” Roy says. “Undone like that.”
Riza sprawls on her front—is she blushing, after all this?—and glances up at him.
“Tomorrow, then,” she says into her shoulder. Roy rests his hand on the small of her back, skims his thumb across the scars. He brushes a strand of hair from her face and reaches to turn off the light. Winter air slips through the window and he pulls her closer, twines her damned cold feet with his, and kisses her, and wonders if her bedroom gets the morning sun.