Chapter Text
The sun cast Ricardo’s apartment in heady honey glow and deep, long shadows as it sank below the horizon. Neither of them particularly noticed. They weren’t exactly paying attention to the room.
Ricardo, being who he was, had invited her back with him as they were leaving the restaurant, like he hadn’t expected her to agree. He was sure the night he’d gotten her to bed was a fluke -- a lapse of judgment on her part, perhaps fueled by the few shots of tequila she’d done with shaking hands.
But Annie was careless. She should have declined, and very well could have, because he suggested it in that overly flirtatious way he did to keep the mood from souring if he got turned down, like he had been joking the whole time anyway, trying to fluster her, never serious. She really, really should have elbowed him and hailed a separate cab and gone home, but he asked her with his hand around her waist, holding her close, and she’d thought of his hands smoothing down the curve of her hip, fingers digging into the soft skin of her thighs, and how nice it had felt. How nice it would feel again. She thought of how just thinking of it made her heart hammer and her face flush. And she was careless, and she’d tilted her head to look up at his horrible, handsome face and agreed.
In the cab, they’d kept their hands to themselves, purely out of respect for the driver. Annie could’ve directed his attention elsewhere, but that would have required taking some focus off everything he made her feel in the back seat, and she was too selfish for that. Better to wait. Better for the pressure to build up like a stopped hose and come out in a torrent rather than a trickle.
What a vulgar notion.
Ricardo had her up against the polished wood paneling of the elevator the second the doors closed. They nearly had the doors close on them again, so reluctant were they to break apart, even for a moment.
She didn’t get a step in the door, didn’t even get her shoes off, before he was on her again, against the front door -- except now they were in private, well and truly, and so his lips migrated, to her jaw, her exposed neck. That was fine -- no, God, that was wonderful, and drew a little involuntary noise from deep in her throat that she thought sure she felt him smirk at against her skin.
Annie reached between them and splayed her hand across his chest, pushing him off. He looked at her in confusion, sudden concern flitting across his face, like he’d done something wrong, he’d upset her -- but she answered that look with a step towards him, arm firm, that forced him to back up, and again, and again, and his worry vanished as his knees his the sofa cushion and he stumbled back onto it.
She wasn’t used to this sort of thing. To taking charge. Sex was new and frightening and made her more vulnerable than she liked, and it was easy to revert to default settings -- to obedience, to following orders -- when faced with foreign situations. Ricardo wasn’t domineering. He’d been more attentive to how she was enjoying it than to his own pleasure. But he had made the decisions. That suited her perfectly.
Only not tonight. Because it had been a very nice restaurant and she was not drowning in layers and layers of fabric like she usually was. One slip up right now and he’d undo too many buttons on her shirt and get a full view of the plethora of little lines on her body that, each and every one of them, screamed “inhuman.” So, no decision making for him tonight, except to say yes or no to what she proposed.
Terra incognita.
Ricardo rested her hands on her hips, warmth seeping through the fabric of her skirt. And the way he looked up at her, the way he gazed with pupils blown wide, dazed and content but still hungry, somehow? She couldn’t stand him sometimes, his stupid dashing smile and how he so earnestly loved her, wanted her. Or at least thought he did.
Annie climbed into his lap, straddled his hips in a way that was entirely indecent. She didn’t settle back on her calves, however. She maintained those precious few inches of height on him, stood up on her knees, and cupped his stubbled jaw, tilted his head back, kissed him. Good. Soundly. He inhaled sharply and his chest expanded against her stomach.
His hands wandered. Up her thighs, first, until he found she was wearing tights and not stockings and he’d find no soft skin to squeeze and palm at on that avenue. So they drifted up, began tugging on the back of her shirt where it was tucked in, presumably in order to skate his hands up her back, maybe undo the clasp on her bra. But the warning sirens already on high alert in her head, which she had up until then been steadily ignoring, jumped in volume. She managed to pull back without it seeming like the tense reaction it was, and sat back a little. He was, it became apparently just then, more excited than she’d imagined.
The restaurant had been nice. Tie-nice, in Ricardo’s case. Slightly loosened tie. Annie hooked a finger under it and tugged it looser, made like she was going to pull it off over his head before stopping it just over his eyes and tightening it again.
She leaned close to his ear and said, low, barely a whisper, “No peaking.”
“Is this really necessary?”
She didn’t answer straight away, but dropped her lips from his ear to the soft spot just below it, behind his jaw, and she kissed there, and then down, down, down his neck, soft, wet. She stopped at the collar of his shirt. “We could always wait until it gets dark. Are you feeling patient?”
Not that she was feeling particularly patient either. And she didn’t think he’d ever actually choose stopping over being blindfolded, but to dissuade him further, and maybe a bit out of curiosity, she pressed her lips to his neck again, sucked at it, drew a little blood blooming under his skin. Let go with a soft pop. She knew about hickies in theory, and had never seen much appeal in them -- but drawing back now, seeing a mark dark and wet there on his neck? She understood.
“Jesus, no,” he breathed.
Annie hummed an ‘I didn’t think so’ and then set about unbuttoning his dress shirt. It wasn’t as satisfying as it ought to have been, because rather than each button exposing more deeply tanned, muscled chest, it simply revealed the ever-sexy white t-shirt.
She tugged at the neckline of it in a fit of foggy annoyance and muttered, “Undershirt...”
Ricardo laughed. “Now you know how it feels trying to undress you!”
“You’re nowhere close to my level.” Dress shirt undone, she slid it off his shoulders and tossed it onto the floor behind them.
And then... well, fair was fair, and careless was careless. When his hands came groping again, pulling at her blouse, she let him. Helped him, even, untying the bow around her neck and undoing enough of the buttons that he could pull it over her head and toss it behind them. She guided his hands to her rib cage and he ran his thumbs over her skin, skin he could not see, while she unclasped her bra and slung it over the back of the couch.
She would’ve liked to look. Would’ve liked to see his hands smooth across the planes and curves of her body, to see his thumbs trace every scar they found, to see him surge forward and close his mouth around a nipple. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t bring herself to look down. She shut her eyes and tilted her head back and let the moans and whimpers out as they knocked at the back of her throat, and she earned noises of approval from him in return.
And she wanted to pull off the damn undershirt. Wanted to admire him like he did her, because God knew he was more deserving. But doing so meant possibly dislodging the blindfold, and here she was, naked from the waist up. She really hadn’t thought this through. But it was fine. It was fine. She would manage. She’d figure it out. She always did.
They fell chest-to-chest, Ricardo’s arms wrapped tight around her, one hand at her hip and the other at her shoulder, hers around his neck, nimble fingers buried in the thick hair at the nape of his neck, a thin layer of cotton all that separated their bodies. Her face was flushed, body warm, and she so mindlessly rutted against him, reveled in his gasps and groans at every bit of friction her movements provided.
So mindlessly that she did not register the doorman’s thoughts, too close for comfort. Didn’t notice a thing wrong until he knocked.
Fucking careless.