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Lucy found Cooper in some sort of closet that had a bench built into the wall at the back and a weird screen thing to one side. An identical arrangement was mirrored on the other side of the screen, and there were curtains tied back on either side of the openings. The late summer sun filtered through the dusty, cracked window, lending an almost ethereal quality to the scene before her.
Cooper hadn’t noticed her yet, so she took a moment to take him in. He sat cockeyed on the bench, lounging as comfortably as anyone could on furniture too small to lounge on, left leg bent up at the knee and foot propped against the wall opposite him. He’d perched his hat on his knee and braced himself with his forearm against his thigh, right leg out straight. Cooper looked as peaceful as Lucy had ever seen him.
When she did move, careful to make enough noise to not startle him, he looked up at her and smiled softly, though the smile showed more in the crinkle of his eyes than on his lips. He didn’t seem keen on making room for her on his side, so Lucy sat on the other side of the screen. Through it, she could only see him as a vague, shadowy outline. How strange!
“What is this?” she asked, rapping her knuckles gently against the screen.
“Confessional,” Cooper answered lazily. “Folks would come here ‘n’ tell a priest all their sins so they could be forgiven.”
“Priests could forgive people like that? I thought that was God’s job?” Lucy wracked her brain, trying to remember what she’d learned in her various religious studies.
“Catholics like to make things complicated.” Cooper huffed a slight laugh. “A priest sat on one side, the penitent on the other. You’d both cross yourselves, then you’d tell the priest how long it’d been since you’d last confessed your sins. ‘Bless me, father, for I have sinned. My last confession was 160 years ago.’”
“160?” Lucy interrupted.
“Gave up practicin’ religion in my teens,” Cooper elaborated. “Didn’t see much good in it. Then, you’d tell the priest all the sins you c’n remember. Supposedly the priest was there to facilitate your connection with God.” Lucy heard him shrug. “Priest’d assign penance, you’d say some special prayer about how bad you felt for all yer sinnin’, and the priest would absolve you and bless you.”
“What gave priests that authority?”
“No fuckin’ clue.”
They sat in comfortable silence, Lucy digesting what Cooper had told her. An idea quickly took over her, and Lucy shifted in her seat, leaning closer to the screen between them. She didn’t know what Cooper had meant when he said people ‘cross themselves’, but in a heady, sultry voice, she murmured, “Bless me, father for I have sinned. I’ve never given confession before.” Cooper shifted and made a soft noise of interest. “I’ve had these…thoughts about my traveling companion lately. I don’t think they’re very godly thoughts.”
“Tell me about ‘em,” Cooper encouraged.
“I haven’t been able to keep my mind off him. We’ve desecrated a couple other churches on our travels, and I’ve been dreaming of doing it again.” That was God’s honest truth, there: too many mornings she woke horny and irritable for it. “Father, you have to understand: he consumes me. Do you have any idea what that’s like?” Her voice shook with the intensity of her earnestness. “To want someone so thoroughly that it burns the blood in your veins?”
She heard him swallow, the sound of him sitting upright fully, spurs clinking. “Come ‘round to this side,” he rasped.
He was a sight to behold, pupils blown and breathing heavily through a slightly-parted mouth. Lucy knelt before him, head bowed. “Oh, Lucy.” He gently tipped her head up to look him in the eye, and Lucy’s heart skipped as he leaned down to kiss her. He tasted like cigarettes, moonshine, chems, and something minty Lucy couldn’t place before he broke the kiss.
The sound of Cooper undoing his belt galvanized Lucy to her feet so she could undress too. Cooper reached out to stop her, shaking his head and saying something about needing to do this. Lucy didn’t understand but let him undress her, starting with her shirt. His hands shook as he reached for her top button, and Lucy placed her hands on top of his, rubbing his palms with her thumbs. She slid her hands down to rest on his forearms. His hands were steadier as he unbuttoned her shirt, pushing it off her shoulders. She let it fall to the ground behind her as Cooper’s eyes hungrily, hesitantly raked over her. Reaching back, she unclasped her bra, letting it join her shirt. She’d never been self-conscious, but there under Cooper’s gaze she felt deified.
He reached out and gently ran his fingers down her side, enthralled as she shivered. Reverently, he unbuttoned her jeans and worked them down her thighs with her underwear, licking his bottom lip. She toed her boots off and stood proudly before Cooper, who was fully clothed still with the exception of his hat.
Lucy stepped forward and leaned down so her tits were level with Cooper’s mouth, hoping he’d get the hint. He pressed gentle kisses down the slope of her breast, then took her nipple in his mouth. She moaned and rested her cheek on top of his head, reaching down to undo his trousers as he teased and nipped at her.
“So about this penance,” she found her voice long enough to prompt, stroking his dick with an intentionally infuriating, feather-light touch. He shuddered, letting go of her nipple, and leaned his forehead against her chest, shifting restlessly and trying to press harder into her fingers. She felt him shake his head, one hand drifting down from her hips to rest between her legs. All that for you, she thought as he breathed out a strangled groan, gently prodding her entrance with his middle finger.
Lucy twitched as his thumb found her clit, rubbing in firm circles. She rewarded him by digging her nails in as she stroked him base to tip. It wasn’t long before Lucy wanted more. She stepped back from Cooper, and he immediately dropped his hand from her cunt. “You…?” he started to ask. Lucy shushed him as she straddled his lap, sitting more toward his knees so she could kiss him again. Despite her own desperation, she went slow as she unbuttoned his vest.
She broke the kiss this time and, hoping against hope, she reached for his top button. The fear in his lust-addled eyes was undeniable, but he nodded all the same. He kept his eyes locked on hers as she slowly undid each button. Each button was a chance for him to say no, but he didn’t stop her even when she pushed the sides of his shirt back to get a better look at him.
He wasn’t quite gaunt, ruined skin pulled taut over bones and muscle, and heavily scarred. She gently ran her fingers over the exposed curve of a rib bone, the skin around it raw and irritated. Tentative hands came to rest on her hips, and she shifted her focus to Cooper’s face and the questions she saw there. Figuring it’d just be better to show him how she felt, she stood so she could guide him into her, moving slowly to give them both time to adjust. Fully seated, she sighed. Cooper wrapped his arms around her and just held her there for a bit. He’d started shaking again, so Lucy rolled her hips against his.
With his shirt undone, she slid her hands around his back and shifted herself to an angle she liked more. Smoothskin dicks weren’t going to be good enough, she realized with a start.
“Whatchya thinkin’ up there?” Cooper murmured.
“Ribbed for my pleasure,” she said honestly. “I don’t think smoothskins are gonna cut it anymore.” He chuckled darkly.
“’ll do my best to ruin ‘em completely for you,” he promised, leaning back against the wall behind him and placing his hands on Lucy’s hips. “Safe word?”
“Radscorpion,” she said. He repeated it with a nod. She braced herself with her hands on his ribcage, fingers brushing the exposed bit of bone there, and began fucking herself on his dick. For all his strength and cavalier capability for violence, Cooper was sinfully gentle with her.
“That’s it,” he encouraged softly. “Take whatcha need.”
Lucy had no such qualms about being gentle. With his blessing, she picked up her pace, eyes shut as she focused on herself. Without any prompting from her, Cooper brought his thumb back to her clit. “Harder,” she gasped, picking at the ragged flesh around the bone. He hissed at that, hips jerking up to meet hers, and obliged her. “Keep doing that! Keep fucking doing that!”
Lucy drowned out the sounds their bodies made as she fucked him, more than vocal enough for the both of them. With the hand not between her legs, Cooper cupped her tit, rolling her nipple between his forefinger and thumb before pinching and pulling slightly. She keened her approval, drawing blood as she clenched around him. He rewarded her with a sharper thrust than she was expecting, nearly unbalancing her.
“You like when I do that?” she asked, slicking her fingers with his blood. He nodded. “Let me hear you say it. You like when I make you hurt? Like it when I make you bleed?”
It took him a moment to get the words out: “Yeah, Luce. I like you makin’ me bleed.”
She kissed him hard for that, all teeth and hunger, biting hard at his lower lip and relishing the way it felt having his blood in her mouth again. She kissed along his jawline and down his neck before biting over his collarbone and hoping she’d somehow be able to scar him as hers. Blood ran down her chin from the corners of her mouth, and she surprised herself with the way she gnawed at him. He evidently liked it, rewarding her with that delicious whine again.
Cooper did something with his thumb on her clit, and she sat upright, arching her back. Mouth bloody and hands touching every bit of Cooper she could reach, Lucy came hard. She had the wherewithal to dig her nails into the bite on his collarbone, wanting him to come with her. “Cooper! God, yes!”
“How’s that for penance?” he asked when they’d regained their wits. Lucy laughed, throwing her head back.
“Well, father, I certainly feel forgiven,” she said, meaning the words despite her teasing tone. She stood and slipped off him, and he gathered her onto his lap, cradling her in his arms where she let the uneven tattoo of his heart settle under her skin.