Archive of Our Own

Mornings are different for Tim and Delilah now.

Everything is, really. But, sometimes, when, say they’re having dinner or watching a movie, just talking, working, something like that, sometimes, he can pretend it’s not different. Sometimes everything still feels the same.

The first few minutes of waking up feel like that. He tends to sleep on his back, arms and legs wide (decades of not sharing a bed is very obvious in what he considers comfortable). She sleeps on her stomach, using the hollow where his chest and shoulder meet as a pillow.

And for a moment, this could just be any Sunday morning. For a moment there’s warm breath, soft hair, the tickle of her eyelashes against his chest. And then they both wake up.

And now, mornings are different.

She pushes herself up on her arms rather than roll over. Easier to do that than to get her legs to flop over.

And there’s the usual, good morning, hi, kisses, sleep well? but that used to be followed by getting a shower together, which was really nice. And now, it’s not. The bathroom at her place is small, too small really. Too small for her and the chair, way too small for her, him, and the chair.

So, she drags herself to the chair, and heads in on her own. He’ll wait. At least at his place he’s got a real bathtub, and enough room for both of them in there at once.

Of course, his place has three steps to get in, and no ramp. As long as someone else is able to give her a hand, she can get up them, but it’s precarious. And on her own… If she’s willing to get out, pull herself up with her hands, and somehow magic the chair from the base of the steps to the top… Three steps might as well be fifteen miles for someone who can walk. Yeah, you can do it, but it takes all of your resources, feels like hell, and pisses you off.

Mornings mean PT, part of it. There’s the formal stuff she’s actually doing with a physical therapist. And there’s this, and this will be part of her life forever.

Fighting off atrophy. In the long term, it’s a losing battle. Even if she’s scrupulous about this, works each and every day, she’s still going to lose muscle tone and flexibility. Can’t not happen. Legs were designed to move people around, and hers aren’t doing that any more.

This is stretches. She loops an exercise band around her ankle and puts her leg through its paces, making sure each muscle group gets stretched out. If she’s doing it right, holding the poses, it takes an hour.

After that comes the “fun” part. Well, Tim thinks it’s fun. Okay, it’s more fun than the stretching, and he can help with it.

After stretching comes massage. It’s not officially part of her care routine, but from all the research both of them did, it seems useful. A good way to help keep her muscles as supple as possible for as long as possible. A good way to keep her circulation in good shape. Good way to help stave off pressure sores.

And massaging her legs and butt is something Tim’s never going to turn down, so he’s on board with helping with this.

She’s lying on her stomach, which she does as much as she can. Nice to be in a different position, and once again, it’ll help stave off pressure sores. No one’s body was built to stay in one position all the time.

“Can you feel any of this at all?” he asks as he presses his fingers into her calf, stroking the lotion that used to just be about keeping her skin from getting too dry, into her skin.

“No. Once you get past where my butt and leg connect there’s nothing at all.”

“And here?” he rested his hand on her tush.

“Warmth, dull pressure.”

He rippled his fingers. “That?”

“Not really. Vague sense something’s going on, but I couldn’t tell you what.”

It’s disconcerting on many levels, but the one that’s hitting Tim hardest right now is that her legs look perfect. They’re soft and warm under his hands. Her skin is still that rose tinged milk.

But they don’t move. They don’t respond. She doesn’t moan or say anything when he ripples his fingers into the tight muscles of her thighs.

If he wasn’t talking to her, she’d have no way of knowing he was there.

He’d read about the scars sometimes being sensitive. But he hasn’t been willing to touch them. Not, intentionally. Can’t avoid touching them completely, they’re all over her right side. But, he’s never just trailed a finger over one.

He doesn’t know if she has, either.

The shrapnel ones are actually fairly small. They pepper her side and abdomen. Biggest one is about two inches long, and that’s right between the crest of her hip and her bottom rib.

The big one is on the midline. Five inches, straight up and down. When the docs went in to try and find where she was bleeding they went in big. They needed to see what they were doing, so they cut a big hole, and that big hole means a big scar, straight down the middle of her abdomen.

He’ll admit, though not to her, or anyone other than himself, and maybe Rachel if it comes up, that he doesn’t like seeing them. Not because they’re some sort of special ugly, but…

If he’d been better, or faster, or smarter, or cleverer… If he’d taken her outside with him for the call. If he’d ignored the call and been standing there, next to her… If he’d dropped the phone and gotten in a few seconds earlier…

If…

“You okay?” Apparently he stopped talking.

“Yeah. Fine.”

“Really?” She’s looking at him, over her shoulder.

“Yeah. Thinking about today. You want to hit the pool?” She’s been swimming a lot, working on building up her upper body strength.

“Maybe. What did you want to do?”

“Hoping to get some writing done.  If you want, we could get some breakfast, hit the pool, and wrap today at my place.”

She nods. That’ll work. “Tim.”

He looks at her.

“It’s okay to let me see you being sad.”

He half smiles at that.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

That gets an eye roll. He gently pats her bottom. “You all good?”

“Yeah, think so.”

“I’ll grab a shower and get dressed. Breakfast in twenty minutes or so?”

“I’ll get my swim stuff together.”

Her legs are warm, milk and rose skin, beautiful curves, but they don’t feel. He can lay his hands on them and there’s just nothing. The scars are real, and she can tell him it’s not his fault, but he didn’t stop it, and he didn’t put his body between hers and the blast.

In the shower, she can’t see him cry. And he prefers it that way. She’s alive and here and still loves him and they’re moving forward. And that matters. That’s the anchor he needs to chain himself to. That’s the anchor that gets him calmed back down, and cold water wipes away puffy, red eyes.

And if that was an unusually long shower for him, she doesn’t say anything about it when he gets out.

Something occurs to him, takes him by surprise, as he’s toweling off.

Delilah’s been in a very good mood. She’s always perky. After that first week, when all the swelling had gone down and the specialists were saying, ‘This is as good as it’s going to get’, she switched into ‘This isn’t going to stop me’ mode, and she’s kept herself there.

As well as he knows.

But, for all he knows, she’s crying in the shower, by herself, too.

He’s not sure what to do with that, so he tucks it away. He’ll think about it later.

McGee doesn’t swim. Not that he can’t. You’ve got to be able to swim to stay an agent. But, he doesn’t enjoy it. Doesn’t like wandering around in just a pair of shorts. Doesn’t like wet. Doesn’t much like water in large quantities.

But he does like Delilah. And right now, swimming is pretty much the only way she can move easily. And she does need to build up her upper body strength.

So, since NCIS and the DOD has a pool and gym, he’ll offer to drive her (NCIS today, since they’re going from her place to his, it’s more on the way), help her getting in and out of the water, and go hit the weights for himself.

He’s not much a fan of working out, either, but he’s there, and he does need to work on his own upper body strength, and she finds it somewhat uncomfortable when he just sits around and watches her do whatever, so he’s got half an hour to kill before heading back to the pool to help her get from the edge of the pool into her chair.

“Okay, come Halloween, I’m going to be the most awesome mermaid anyone has ever seen,” Delilah says after swimming, as they head to his place.

He smiles. “I can see that. Did I ever tell you about my snow elf costume?”

“No…” She’s looking very amused and curious about that.

So he does. He doesn’t exactly leave out, but he sort of glosses over why he was dressing up like a Snow Elf. She knows it was for a Halloween Party; he left out the hot cheerleader part. She may, also, be under the impression this happened several years earlier than it actually did. He didn’t say it happened in college, but in that he didn’t mention not being able to go to the party because of work, he’s sort of hinting that.

“So, is this a round-about way of telling me you can sew?” she asks when she finishes giggling at the idea of him in a fuzzy blue elf get up.

“And design costumes. You know, if you wanted some help.” He’s thinking things like how seam allowances work and fabric bias or how to set zippers and stuff like that, but a more concrete level hits, too, namely, unless she wants to sew it by hand, she will need help because a sewing machine needs two hands and a foot to run. 

“Might borrow your sewing machine. Wanna make it myself.”

“No problem.” He thinks he even sounds like he means that. They can deal with how a sewing machine really works when they get to it.

Stretched out on his sofa, half-listening to the sound of his keyboard clicking away, it’s time to get learning.

There are a lot of things Delilah Fielding is good at, research among them, and dumped into the deep (ish?) end of a submissive boyfriend she adores, a man who’s already told her other women have run screaming from this information, she is sure of two things.

A: she’s not running.

B: she needs to do some research.

And doing some research, she’s getting a better idea of why other women may have run screaming.

Some of what she’s finding she likes. Some of it is terrifying. Some of the things she found have made her already do the computer anti-virus equivalent of setting fire to the house to kill the germs. Twice.

And, the problem is, there’s this huge range of stuff from kneel and call me mistress while licking my toes (Which, umm… okay, that’s already kind of freaky, and she’s not sure she wants that, also WTF is going on with the shoes in this culture? There’s a lot of stuff involving really black, really shiny, really pointy shoes.) to the poor bastard whose genitals were in something called a cage (she hadn’t yet googled CBT, but it looks excruciating, and honestly is making her feel nauseous) being molested with a stiletto heel (again shoes? WTF?) by a woman in black leather.

Tim chooses that moment, while the poor bastard is begging for more, to take a break from writing. As he’s pulling out his ear buds, he takes one look at her computer screen and shrieks, “What the hell is that?”

Her eyes are very wide. “Something I don’t ever want to do.”

He shakes his head, hard, wincing, and shuts the screen on her laptop. “Good, Lord!” He shudders. Then he turns to her. “Did you just google Domination and submission?”

“Yes.”

He nods slowly, putting her computer on his desk, and sitting on the floor in front of her. “Okay.” Then he rubs his eyes, trying to brain bleach that image out from behind his eyelids. “For the record, I don’t ever want anyone, ever, to do anything even remotely like that to me, ever!”

Delilah relaxes a little. “Good. ‘Cause…” she shudders. “Blech.”

“Yeah. No on that.” He blows out a breath quickly. “So, yeah, reading up… I… I don’t spend a lot of time researching this for myself, because…well… Okay, so, like, I like being on the receiving end, but… It’s called Femdom, and a lot of it is way too hard and way too violent and… for the level of stuff I like, usually the girl is the sub. But, for me… I like rules. I like goals. I like making you happy. I like service. I like a little pain now and again. I like you in charge.”

“Do you like being tied up?” That’s in a lot of the images she’d seen.

“I could like that.” He nods. “It’s not something that gets me hot on its own, but as part of a game, I’d probably like it.”

“Like, wrists tied, or…”

He’s watching, waiting for her to finish that.

“Or… like… balls.”

He closes his eyes, inhales fast, and exhales long, wincing. “I’d prefer a rope never got anywhere near my balls.”

“Zip tie.”

He clenches a fist and swallows hard, just the idea of it makes his mouth go dry, and not, at all, in a good way. “Do you know what a cock ring is?”

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll introduce you to mine at some point. It’s a smooth, soft, ring of silicone. But that’s it for any sort of tied on my genitals.”

“How’s it work?” She’s aware of the idea that there are sex toys for men, but it never occurred to her that Tim may have some. She thinks about that and decides she likes the idea of him having toys.

“Goes over my dick, behind my balls.”

She nods, that sounds kind of like the versions of tied she was seeing, hopefully a more comfortable version of it.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do it?”

“It feels good.”

She doesn’t roll her eyes, but it’s close. “I figured that. How does it feel good?”

He’s blushing, hard, and it takes a second for him to get his ideas together. “It… um… The closer you are to getting off, the harder you get. Really hard, really full, more sensitive. That’s… good. Your balls crawl up, too, pull in close. The ring is tight so it pushes the blood up, into your dick, makes you harder, but it makes it so your balls can’t pull close. So… it kind of feels like being close, but you can go a lot longer, because it’s difficult to climax if your balls can’t get where they need to go.”

“Huh.” Her eyebrows were high at that. “Never knew that.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And you like that?”

“Sometimes. The one I’ve got is plain, but they make some fancy ones with built in vibrators.”

She files that away for things to look into. “Orgasm denial?”

He nods a bit. “If we’re talking like an hour or two, yes. That’s a whole lot of fun. If we’re talking days or weeks, no. I… um… get really edgy, and not in a good way, after about three days. Mostly I like…” he sighs again, feeling a little embarrassed by this, but he really doesn’t want her going off whatever it is she’s finding on Google. “I like you playing with me, getting me all hot, and then telling me when to get off. I like it as a way of pleasing you.”

“What’s a little pain? Like… in some of the pictures…” She looks really uncomfortable. “I don’t want to crush on your testicles.”

“Oh God, NO!” He half-curls into himself protectively at the idea of it. “I’ve only been spanked. Only three times, and it was fun.”

“Like three smacks or three different times?”

“Three different times, and not hard enough to bruise or anything like that. My butt was pretty red at the end and I had a really odd looking handprint for a day, once. And I’ve had a few hickies I really liked. But, nothing past that, and I don’t want to go past that.”

“Good.” She sighs in relief. “Cause, I don’t… I’m not a violent person, and I don’t want to… I mean some of those guys looked really hurt and… welts or burns or…” She cringes. “I just don’t want to do that.”

“Good, because I don’t want you to do that to me. But even if I did, this game, whatever, it’s a two way street. We both get to have hard lines, and we both get to draw them, and nothing that goes over them is part of the game. Anything you don’t want to do, we don’t do. Same with me, I don’t want to do it, we don’t do it.”

She looks reassured by that, and moves onto something else that got a lot of attention in what she’d been reading. “What about the yours or mine stuff?”

“You mean like collars or… being a slave or…”

Delilah’s nodding. That seemed to be a really big deal from what she was reading. “Yeah, what about that?”

“What about it?” He’s intentionally being a little dense here, not entirely sure if she knows what she’s asking, but if she does, he wants to make her show her hand first.

“Do you want to be mine?”

He closes his eyes and inhales sharply, biting his lip. She doesn’t know what she’s asking, or she wouldn’t, not like that.

“What?” It’s clear that she knows from how responded that she’s wandered into very emotionally dense territory, but she doesn’t know how or why.

“That’s a very loaded question.”     

“How so?”

“It’s just…” he smiles and shakes his head. “That’s… just…” he exhales long and slow, smiles again, looking very vulnerable. “It’s not like a Valentine. It’s not just a cute candy heart and ‘be mine.’ Do I want to belong to someone?” And it was clear by the way he’s looking at her he means Do I want to belong to you? But he’s terrified of her feeling trapped by this. “Yes.” He looks away from her, biting his lip again. “I’ve been making do with Gibbs for ten years now. I come when he calls. I do whatever he needs whenever he needs. I follow almost every order I’m given. Occasionally, he pets me when I go above and beyond the call. And it’s enough. Maybe not what I want, but it fills the void. But… It’s like a marriage. Don’t offer it unless you’re willing to be mine in return. Yours, mine, for the long run. Because if I take it, it means I won’t be his anymore. He and the job won’t be my number one priority. And, he’ll let me go when it’s time, but… I don’t know if I’d be able to go back… and…” He leaves it there, not touching how terrifying it’d be to be adrift. He nods again, and looks back at her, voice shaky, very nervous. “So, umm… yeah, I would like… to belong to someone… and I’d like something that meets all of my needs… but… that’s a commitment, a real commitment, so… Don’t ask if you aren’t willing to stick it out.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, and I’m not saying that you need to offer it. I’m good where I am… I’m hoping that I’ll be even better eventually… But… It’s a really big deal. And I don’t expect you to just whip it out on a minute’s thought. Or a little bit of research.”

“Okay.” She touches his cheek. “I don’t want you to be my slave.”

“Er… I’m… I don’t want you to own me. I just…” He looks up, away from her, and then brings his eyes back to hers. “I want to know how to make you happy, and then I want to do it. That’s really the heart of this.”

“But if that’s all this is, how is that different from what you’ve got with Gibbs?”

“Besides the sex?”

She looks horrified at that idea. “God, I’d hope so. You’re not having sex with him, right?”

He flashed her a wicked grin. “Only the one time. We were both really drunk.”

She keeps staring at him in horror for a second, and then they both start giggling hysterically.     

“He kept calling me Tobias and slapping the back of my head.” Tim Gibbs-slaps himself. “It was pretty scary. And you don’t want to know what he does with the boats.”

She’s gasping for breath between laughs. But finally they both calm down.

“You know, I had a sort of serious point there,” she says.

“I know. But that was getting kind of grim.”

“Okay.” She smiles softly, appreciating the break. “Still… The thing with Gibbs looks like it’s an awfully one way street.”

“It is,” Tim says with a little shrug. He gets way more out of the arrangement than Gibbs does. Probably way more than Gibbs knows, too, but he’s not willing to open up enough to find out, and honestly, he’s a bit scared to know if Gibbs does know that about him.

“Well, I don’t want it to be a one way street with us.”

“We’re talking about it, figuring it out. It’s not a one way street.”

“Okay. Do you want a contract?”

Tim shakes his head at that. “No. I don’t think we need to put it in writing. Maybe if each of us only had one role… But… I mean… You’ll want me to take over every now and again, right? And I know that sometimes I like just straight, we don’t plan it in advance, just go with the flow sex. Sometimes I want you to take care of me. Sometimes I want to take care of you. All of the time I want to know what you want so I can do it.”

“I can do that.”

“Yeah, but do you like doing that?”

“I liked watching you fall apart. I liked the power of that. I liked knowing that I was bringing you that sort of pleasure, and I like the idea of playing with you like again. I like the idea of being in charge of that.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Whatever you want, just ask.

I want to make you happy.   

And okay, that’s great. That’s really… whatever it is. But it’s also terrifying and really intimate and, God, anything… anything is so revealing. Whatever you want means you’ve got to pick something. Have to run it. Have to be responsible.

What if he doesn’t like anything? What if first run out she comes up with something he’s not interested in?

She’s getting him not saying anything about it. Getting those moments of putting himself in a mindset to run this.

She’s getting why this isn’t something he can just do.

The question is, can she?

Part of her wants to jump back into the computer, and do more research. Except research was scary, and she needs to be researching the man in front of her, not the phantoms on the internet.

And the only way to learn the man in front of her is to actually do this, or talk more, but, really, do it, because he’s only half of the equation here, and she can talk with him until time ends, but that won’t help her figure herself out any better.

So… doing it…

He’s been patiently waiting for her to do something. But nothing’s happened for a bit longer than the somewhat traditional just testing to see how long you’ll hold in place without a command from a new Dom. (The correct answer is Tim’ll hold however long he needs to. And then if nothing keeps happening, he’ll start thinking and then start anticipating the Dom’s needs and trying to fulfill them based on his best guess. It’s worked well with Gibbs, but makes him very nervous. He’d rather be told what to do.)

But she’s not a Dom, not really, she doesn’t know the game and he’s really doubting that this is her testing him.

So… “It’s okay if you don’t want to.”

“It’s not… It’s just… daunting, you know?”

He nods. “There’s a reason I’m not usually on your side of the game.”

“What if you don’t like what I come up with?”

“I’ll safeword, and you’ll pick something else. But it’s really not likely.”

“How do you know that?”

“I trust you. And it’s not like we just met. But, look… If the sex part’s too much. Really, anything. Want new drapes? Dinner? You know I cook. File your taxes? Dust? When you were researching, did you look up types of submissives?”

“There are types?”

“Yeah. That’s something I did look up for myself. I’m… if I’m anything… I’m a servant type. I like the sex part, but it doesn’t have to be sex. It’s the you-tell-me-what-you-want-and-I-do-it-and-make-you-happy part.”

She’s looking pretty disbelieving. “So, you’re not kidding, you’ll file my taxes for me.”

“Sure.” Tim’s nodding. This is why his job can fill his needs for this. If it was just about sex, he’d be in a world of hurt. But since it’s about service, his arrangement with Gibbs can meet most of his needs. “Would you like that?”

“Ummm… no. At least, no. Not now. ‘How was your hot weekend?’ ‘Great, he did my taxes!’”

He rolls his eyes at that. “Okay, no, not now. But, you get the idea. It’s not the master/slave thing. My allegiance is freely given… You’re not taking me. I’m offering. The Lady and her Knight. My fealty and service are at your disposal.”

“Gibbs’ disposal.”

“Well, now, yes. The medieval knight structure actually works pretty well for this. Gibbs is my lord. I offered my sword… gun and oath, he accepted, and I’m his. And look, what I’ve got with him couldn’t be less sexual if we tried. But it does meet a lot of what I need. This, what you and I have… doesn’t have to be sexual, either. I’d like it to be, but if you don’t like it, it’s not going to work for you, and then it’s really not going to work for me.” He’s looking terribly earnest as he says that, and she can see it, the way he’s bending himself into whatever shape will make this easier, more comfortable, for her.

“Go pick some music.”

His eyebrows shoot up.

“I do want to see you dance.”

She expected jazz, something cool and smooth. But this isn’t that. It’s fast and hard and rock and roll, but the beat is easy and the music is loud, sort of bypasses your brains and heads straight to your hips makes you want to move. She wants to move too, feels her head and shoulders sort of bopping around to it, knows her hips would if they could.

He’s nervous, kind of stiff, eyes closed, probably pretending he’s alone so he doesn’t feel so silly with it.

If it wasn’t for the fact that he looks like he’s afraid she’s going to start laughing in the next two seconds, he’d be… not good at it, but on a technical level he’s not bad, he’s just not comfortable with moving like this in front of someone else.

She wonders if he dances by himself at all. Wonders how he’d look if he really was alone. Or… was in a place where people would expect him to dance.

“Tim.”

He doesn’t stop, but he does turn toward her.

“Open your eyes, look at me.” He does, keeping up with the beat, blushing faintly.

“We’re in a club. I’m at the bar. Come and get me.” She rearranges herself so she’s sitting up on his sofa, and sees relief wash over his face. This is something he can do.

And having something he can do more easily, the flavor of the look he’s giving her changes. Bit more confident, little hungry, she feels his eyes flick over her whole body, he sort of half walks, half bops over to her, body quite a bit more relaxed, and then kneels in front of her, so they’re at the same eye level.

“Hi, beautiful.”

She smiles at that.

“Come here often?”

She giggles at that. “You’d really use a line that bad?”

“Bush was still president the last time I picked up a girl at a club.” That gets a giggle, too. “How about this?” He takes her wrist in his hand and kisses it, gently, inhaling her perfume.

“Better.” She kisses him, long and slow. “Go dance. Show me how you can move. Turn me on, seduce me with your eyes. Make me want to leave this bar and go out there and dance with you.”

He licks his lips and swallows, hard, then bends forward and licks hers. He stands up, not wildly graceful, but smooth enough, and starts to dance again, sometimes looking at her, sometimes away, but he keeps the heat in his eyes, and keeps his body moving smoothly, bit less self-conscious.  

He’s still not good at it, but he’s a lot more comfortable, starting to look kind of happy at it, at the way she’s watching him.

He’s touching himself lightly as he moves, hands stroking over his arms or shoulders, on his hip once, hair once, just light little touches, the way he’d touch her if they were dancing together.

She can feel how he’d pin her to him, grind into her as the music gets slow and deep, step back and watch her as it gets hot and fast.

He cocks his eyebrow, as if catching her gaze across a crowded room, and lightly licks his upper lip. Just a hint on pink tongue peeking out. Not his usual unhappy/tense/uncomfortable lip lick, this is an invitation and a request to taste. That look slips into a smile and she leans toward him, wanting to join him, wanting to dance.

His living room is tiny, crowded with desk and sofa and computers, but because it’s tiny, because it’s crowded, his desk chair, which has wheels, is within hand’s reach for her. She pulls it to her, and gets herself settled, then pushes off the desk, to him. She’s not sure what or how she’ll dance, just that she will.

And, yeah, it probably looks awkward as hell, but she can bop around a little, shimmy a bit, and she can spin the chair, rock it back and forth.

The music is loud, the beat hard, no real finesse on this, so it doesn’t much matter how she’s moving, just that she is.

His fingers trail up her arm, lifting her hair so he can kiss the back of her neck as he circles her, and as that song ends and the next one begins, he picks her up.

She knows he can’t keep her up for that long. She’s not huge, but 117 pounds of dead weight is a lot for anyone to carry for too long.

His place has a breakfast bar, and some stools at it. The bar is four feet high. The stools are high enough to sit and eat at it. He bops them over to it, hooking his foot around the leg of one of the stools, pulling it out, and perching her on the edge of the seat. He can’t move back from her, she’s not got enough control to balance on her own on the edge, but she’s about as tall as she would be normally, and he doesn’t have to keep holding her whole weight up.

It works.

Slower music would work better for this part, and she makes a note for trying that next time, but to get slower music they’d have to break apart. And breaking apart right now requires her to sit back on the stool or go back to her chair, and well, the music’s fast, it’s loud, and she wants to dance.

Even if it is only from the waist up.

Four or five songs. She’s not sure how many go by, not the least because this isn’t her usual music and she’s not entirely sure when one ends and the next begins. But eventually, she wants to move on.

They’ve been dancing, and kissing, and petting. He’s keeping her up on the stool, making sure she doesn’t slip off with his body, but his hand is under her shirt on her breast, and the other is tangled in her hair. She’s got half the buttons on his shirt undone, as well as his belt and fly.

Once upon a time, feeling him hard against her thigh or pussy or stomach would jolt through her, ramp her own desire up. Right now, he’s against her thigh and pussy, and beyond the pressure of his body against hers, she can’t feel any details. So her hand is in his pants, not playing or stroking, not yet. Just feeling. Just tasting his desire and holding it in her hand.

“Bedroom, now,” she says between kisses, words licked across his lips and sucked into his tongue.

Tim groans at that, pulling her closer, shifting his hands to under her hips, and she shifts her hold to around his shoulders. He picks her off of the barstool and carries her to his bedroom. Then he stops. He doesn’t topple her onto the bed, and for a second she waits, and then realizes he’s waiting for directions.

“Bed.”

He kisses her at that, and gently lowers her to his mattress. “Good?”

She’s at the edge of the mattress, legs dangling off the side. She scoots herself back a bit, so she’s in the middle, and nods. “This will do. Want you naked.”

He grins, fingers stroking the still-buttoned fourth button of his shirt, but he doesn’t move to start undressing.

Delilah looks down. He’s still got on his socks and shoes. She figures that just getting them out of the way is the best way to deal with this. “Socks and shoes off. As for the rest… play with it. Not necessarily a strip tease, but keep up the game, keep dancing.”

Tim would have to admit that he’s not sure what the hell that means, but he’s good at playing, and… He’ll figure it out. He kicks off his shoes and rapidly pulls off the socks. Then he takes two steps to his phone and changes out the music. Now it’s jazz, smooth and slower, more sensual.

“Music okay?” he asks over his shoulder, putting his phone down.

“I’ll tell you if I want to listen to something in specific.”

He nods, walking back toward the bed. “Play with it?”

She nods and licks her lips, very curious to see what he’ll come up with if given free rein. “You and me, met in a club, lots of dancing, couldn’t take our eyes or hands off each other, now we’re home, what comes next?”

He smiles. She’s in the center of his bed, legs stretched out in front of her, reclining on her palms. He steps to the bed, kneeling, straddling her feet, and leans in, kissing her soft and sweet, before settling back to kneel in front of her. She’s eye-level with his dick, which is doing it’s best to get out of his pants.

She’d unfastened his belt, and unbuttoned and unzipped his fly. So the first thing he does is take the buckle end of his belt and slowly pull it from his pants. For a second, she’s watching his hands, those long, strong fingers, slipping leather through belt loops, then he carefully lays it at the foot of the bed. He nudges her chin, getting her looking away from his dick to his face, and then licks his lips, tongue wet and soft slipping over his bottom lip in a slow caress. She whimpers a little at that.

His eyes trail down her body, over flushed cheeks and mussed hair, taking in her slightly askew shirt and her very askew skirt.

His hands find his dick first, stroking himself with a long, firm pull, and then he lifts them to the fourth button of his shirt. He takes his time undoing it, motions slow and deliberate, then down to the fifth, and sixth.

He doesn’t take it off, not yet. She’s sitting there, watching, waiting, nibbling her lip, feeling hot and sexy all over. Tim leans forward again, kissing her, again, taking his time to carefully suck her lip over and over, pulling it gently between his teeth and then letting it slip out.

Delilah moans at that, too.

That makes him break the kiss, moving back from her, standing beside the bed. He slips his fingers between his pants and his hips, and pushes. His pants hit the floor a second later, and he’s standing in front of her, unbuttoned azure button down and very tented black and green plaid boxers.

She’s looking him up and down, and he says, “Like it?”

“Oh yeah. Want to see more.”

He grins at her, then carefully reaches for his right wrist cuff, unbuttoning the button, then to the left, careful, slow, precise movements, slipping buttons from their holes, stroking his fingers against his wrists. He slips his watch off, tucking that onto the bedside table, then returns to facing her, kneeling over her legs, pushing his shirt off his shoulders but not off yet. He offers her both wrists, “Little help, please?” he asks with a tiny smile.

She grins back at him, yanking on his sleeves, pulling his shirt off his arms and tight across his back. Pulling him forward, into her for more kisses.

When she’s breathing fast, and he is, too, flushed, lips warm and wet from deep kissing, she releases the tension on his shirt, dropping it, and he slips back a little, keeling over her legs, naked except for his boxers, which aren’t exactly covering him because his dick’s wormed its way out of the fly.

Tim decides that looks silly and quickly shucks them off.

Delilah shakes her head. She takes his hands and pulls him closer. Once again he’s kneeling over her legs. “Nope,” she says.

He looks a little surprised at that, but waits for more instructions.

“I like seeing you turned on. And if that means your clothing’s askew, so be it.”

He nods. He’s still straddling her. She sits up a little more, resting both hands on his hips, and pulls him a few inches closer. Right now his dick is inches from her chin and lips. He’s watching her very intently, wondering what she’s going to do next.

She’s looking him up and down, still holding his hips. “Where were the hickeys you liked?”

Tim strokes his hand over his right collarbone and pec. “Four of them.”

“Tell me how you liked it.”

He inhales fast, and swallows. “Um… we were…” she can see him picking a word, “fucking… and, she was on top, and every time I got close, she’d stop moving and suck one into my chest. The pain’d kind of shut me down, kind of take me higher. Fourth one she kept riding me, didn’t stop, and sucked hard while I was getting off, and it was really intense.”

“Good intense?”

“Yeah. I liked that a whole lot.”

“Did you ever get to do it again?”

“Nope.”

“Did you want to?”

Tim closes his eyes, then opens them, not sure how it’d work, but hoping this gets put on the menu for later adventures. “Yeah.”

Delilah’s hands slip over his sides, and down his legs, and up again, touching from where his knees press into the mattress to his nipples. “Nowhere that shows, right?”

Tim feels a flush of pleasure through him. “Yes.” He swallows. “Please.”

Delilah lowers her lips to the crest of his hip and delicately lays her teeth against his skin. No pressure, just wet mouth on dry skin, and then she sucks hard, while biting down and Tim shudders all over with a moan of pleasure.

When she pulls back there’s a dull red-purple splotch on his hip, and she’s wondering how he can possibly really like that, but she can see that he does. He’s rock hard, small line of pre-cum oozing down his dick, flushed all over, and the last time she saw him that turned on she had his dick in her mouth.

This is obviously not just a passing fancy for him.

“Hands behind your back.”

He rushes his hands behind his back so fast they almost make a clapping noise when they hit.

She takes her time, stroking his legs and hips, running her fingernails up the insides of his thighs, running them down his chest and stomach. She flutters light kisses all over his belly and hips. Touching near, but not making contact with his dick or balls.

He’s groaning at that, eyes open, watching her play with him.

She’s starting to get an idea of where to take this, how she wants it to play out. “Take my panties off.”

He all but leaps to it. Hopping off the bed, flipping the top of her skirt up, hooking his fingers in the waistband and tugging down quick and hard. Takes both of them a bit to get them off, her shifting from side to side, but once they’re past her hips, he scoots down to where her feet are, places his hands under each knee, bending her legs up, and then scoots forward again, so he’s keeping her feet and legs steady with his legs, and rapidly pulls her panties down her legs. He hops back again, holding her knees making sure her legs don’t just flop to the sides. He gently lowers her legs, and then yanks her panties off her feet.

And then he waits.

“Lube. Get it, put it near my hand.”

That takes him about two tenths of a second.

“Back up here.” Delilah pats her lap. “Kneeling, right over my thighs.”

So he does, straddling her. Hands coming to rest behind his back again without being asked.

She looks him up and down, and then gives his dick a long, wet lick. He groans again, staring at her, watching the way she’s handling him. Right now, she’s just licking. Soft licks all over his dick and balls, getting them very wet.

He’s not moving, but she can feel his hips and thighs tensing, like he wants to thrust.

She grabs the lube, drizzling it over him, making sure he’s very, very slick, then she starts a slow, tight, up down stroke. He’s groaning at that, too, head back, body tight, giving himself to her.

She keeps up the slow stroke and begins to nuzzle his balls too, enjoying the way he sighs when she does that. When she feels them start to pull up, she kisses over to his thigh and sucks another deep hickey into him.

His jaw clenches, and she feels his dick pulse in her hand. She almost drops it, not wanting him to get off, yet, but having forgotten the bit about how the girl before stopped riding him before she sucked. He whimpers at the loss of the heat and tight of her hand, but sighs when she starts delicately licking him again.

She remembers something about how the one in charge gets to pick when the sub comes. “Don’t come.”

He nods, a low “Yes,” all but growls out of him.

From there, she plays. Different strokes, different speeds, different pressures. Everything from just her finger tips and tongue ghosting over his dick to covering her teeth with her lips, holding her jaw tight, and letting him just slip through.

He seems to love all of it, and loves it even more when she’s sucking him and presses her thumb into one of the bruises to pull him back from the edge.

She’s been pumping his dick, moderate speed, steady, tight fist, and each time she almost pulls off the tip he gasps, each time she gets to the base he flexes a little deeper into her hand. She lets go, thinking of adding another hickey, and he moans. That almost sounds like pain to her so she asks, “You okay?”

His eyes slowly laze open, and she realizes she’s never seen him like this, unfocused, pupils blown wide with pleasure. His body is tight, and there’s quite a bit of frustration radiating off of him. But eventually he pulls out of it enough to say, “Oh, yeah. I’m okay.”

“Keep going?”

He nods slowly.

She pulls gently, slowly, base to tip, watching the delicious play of pleasure and frustration on his face.  She sucks another hickey into his thigh, and he moans, shuddering, as she takes his dick back into her hand.

It’s not just that she’s never seen Tim like this before, she’s never seen any man like this. Tim’s not her first lover, not by a long stretch, but this is the first time she’s been in complete control, first time she’s called all the shots and made a man fall apart.

First time she’s ever gotten a guy this hot. He’s whimpering for it, almost begging, and if she tells him to, she knows he will. First time she’s held his orgasm in her hands, deciding exactly when he gets to come.

The rush of that. The sudden sweep of the power of this, and with it the suffusing pleasure of this level of trust, of Tim laying himself completely naked, open to whatever her pleasure might be crests through her.

She’s blushing, high on the pleasure of this, and deeply, sincerely wishing she could just push him onto his back and straddle him, ride him at her leisure. He’s liking her hand, and it’s getting the job done just fine, but… Oh God, if she could be easing down his dick right now, blowing both of them out of their minds.

He’s thrusting against her hand, his hands clenched behind his back. She loosens her grip and he whimpers.

“Relax” she says softly.

He groans, but forces his hands to unclench, his shoulder slump a bit as he forces himself to relax.

She kisses his stomach and hip. “Very good. Makes me so happy when you do what I tell you to do. So happy.”

Her fingers ghost over his erection, and he groans again.

“Wanna come, baby?”

“Yes!” he sounds pained, looks like he might be in pain, the expression on his face is very intense. She knows she won’t take this much further. But… it’s compelling, in and of itself. She’s never seen a dick this hard, skin stretched drumhead tight, bright red, glistening with lube and pre-cum.

“Good. Want to get you off. Want to make you come so hard.” She drizzles more lube over his dick, watching it twitch as each drop hits, seeing him jerk and squirm, thrusting against the air. She caresses the lube over him, very slow, very light, very gentle.

“Tim…”

He moans again.

“Want you to fuck me.” That gets his eyes open, looking back at her, and a deep groan falls from his lips. She lays back. “Help me. Legs wide.”

She can’t quite do that on her own, but he moves fast, helping to rearrange her.

“Am I wet?” she asks.

He’s kneeling between her legs and stares at her, breathing hard, so tight and tense, and then he pulls her skirt up, lowers his head to her pussy, and licks her. She can just barely feel something, a dragging stroke, followed by the broken glass growl of his voice, so turned on he can barely think. “Yes.”

“Good. Fuck me as hard and fast as you can. Want you to come so hard your vision blacks out.”

She can feel a nudge, some slide, hear the loud “FUCK” that rips out of his mouth as he gets himself set with a firm thrust. Then his hands worm their way under her shoulders and neck, his palms cupping the front of her shoulders, holding her in place, her chest flush to his.

He’s kissing her hard and deep, and her eyes slide shut.

She can more feel the way he’s slamming her into the bed, hard, deep, breakneck speed, than the actual sex, but his words, the half-moaned, half-gasped litany of sweet profanity, kissed deep to her, the ‘Holy God, fuck, Delilah, fuck! Gonna, oh god, FUCK!” feels, maybe not as good as the sex ever was, but it’s rich and satisfying and a different sort of good. This is power. This is feeling sexier, more in control, than she ever has. This is taking this lovely man, this controlled, thoughtful, gentle, mild-mannered man, and turning him on so completely, pushing him so far out of his head, that all of his walls have come down, all of his restraints have broken, leaving him shuddering and pounding into her, hands tight, body soaring through his climax.

And then there’s his dead weight against her body, occasional shudders tearing through him, hard raspy breath against her neck, heart pounding so hard she can feel it against her chest; that was fantastic.

And then kind of heavy and sweaty.

And after another minute of dead weight she said, “You conscious?”

“Mrgh.”

“You’re crushing me.”

He rolls off of her, but pulls her close as soon as he’s on his back.

It’s two days later, when she’s thinking through it again, feeling all hot and flushed replaying it in her mind, that she remembers what they forgot.