obediences | for ltbrownnoser.

Entry tags:

! psls

for ltbrownnoser.

lost in time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Told you so," Luther says, bemused. The sheer logistics of how to reach each other is difficult when Sarah doesn't even come up to his shoulder; as they'd gotten more accustomed to working alongside each other over the past few weeks, he'd noted the fact that she's tiny next to him, more like Vanya rather than Allison— (No, don't think of Allison.) He yanks his thoughts away, reorienting himself back here, in the present, with Sarah.

When he feels her muscles trembling, he turns around and gently deposits her on the hood of the car. It puts her at a decent height where he can step in between her legs, lean in and capture her in another kiss. Normally, this wouldn't be something he'd do in public, and part of him is still trying to stay vaguely aware of their surroundings — but they're in the middle of nowhere and you can see anyone approaching for miles around, like they had earlier, so fuck it. Why not. Public isn't public if the rest of the public is dead.

What eventually becomes apparent, though, is that Luther is oddly all mouth: he kisses hungrily, eagerly, and after a moment pulls slightly away in order to work his way down her jaw, her neck, teeth and tongue against her pulse-point — but all the while, his hands stay braced against the car on either side of her. As if he's still hesitant to touch her, to put his hands all over her.

"Shut up," she huffs in equal parts amusement and exasperation as he sets her on the hood of the car. Luther never really struck her as the sex in public type, but she loves it. Then again, maybe this is a good compromise because she gets to feel like she's in public while he's reassured by the fact that there's no one else around.

If she were less in the moment, Sarah might notice sooner that he's not touching her so much as centering himself. His mouth on her is distracting enough for her to miss it for the moment, and her fingers start again in his hair. They're only there momentarily before she remembers what she'd been trying to do in the first place and he's positioned her where the height disparity is less pronounced.

Sarah tilts her head back, exposing her throat to him as Luther makes his way to her neck and her ankles hook behind his back to keep him close. This time, when she reaches between them, she can successfully reach the waistline of his trousers and she huffs a soft sound caught between a moan and a laugh as she starts to unbutton them.

Someday, in another time — a branching timeline, perhaps — Luther Hargreeves might have learned that he actually likes that electric thrill of the illicit. Hiding a relationship right under the eye of the Monocle and the press, seeing how much he can get away with, stealing kisses after a mission. Toying the smallest of rebellions, and just daring the world to catch on. The golden son stepping subtly out of line.

He hasn't had a chance yet, though, to really work out what it is he likes and doesn't like. So, he's taking advantage of it now, and his mind keeps cataloguing everything neatly. An inventory of things he likes: the softness of Sarah's skin; that moan in the back of her throat; her fingernails raking through his short blond hair; the rapid thrum of her pulse under his lips. His alternating licking and sucking and biting at her neck in an attempt to leave a mark, some proof, Luther was here.

When she draws him even closer and starts working at his zipper, she can feel the hard line of his arousal through the fabric; it doesn't take much. But once Sarah manages to get his trousers open and dives a hand in to wrap around him, he jolts, his whole body shuddering around the pleasurable sensation, and he— grips too hard. The metal of the car hood buckles, an imprint of his hands crushed into its outline. A hiss through his teeth. "Sorry," he says, shakily, his whole attention narrowing down to just the warmth of her hand. The perimeter watch is a lost cause.

It's all probably too much, too fast, but Luther is stubborn and in need of something to prove, and therefore set on trying to make this work—

Because he doesn't seem to have any abrupt change of heart — hell, she'd half-expected him to given how self-conscious he is about his body. Then again, maybe it's just the upper body, the possibility of which is even more interesting to her, but that's neither here nor there — once Sarah gets the zipper undone, she pushes her hand between his abdomen and the fabric and curls her fingers around the length of him. She doesn't get very far before she feels first Luther and then the car itself shudder beneath her. The latter, she realizes, is less the car shuddering and more that Luther's crushed his handprints into the hood on either side of her.

Grinning, Sarah huffs out a soft laugh and shakes her head at his apology. "Oh, darling, I've barely even gotten started. You flatter me already," she teases playfully as she gives him a tentative stroke. Wait until I'm not stuck on the hood of the car and I can get on my knees, mate, she thinks but keeps herself from saying because she'd rather he get back to kissing her and she doesn't want to inject witty banter just now.

It never occurs to Sarah that there might be more to his reaction or his determination than the fact that he's shy and finally letting himself unwind and enjoy it. If it did, she might've thought this through a bit more and waited at least until they were back in their shelter or...something less harried and out in the open like this.

And, really, she does want Luther to touch her, but if it's been long enough since his last lay that her just touching him has him denting a bloody vehicle, it can wait until he's a little more settled into it. She's significantly more fragile than the car, after all. "Were you trying to give me a hickey?" she asks, grinning a little. "Christ, I haven't had one in a decade; it's been a while. Try harder," she goads him breathlessly, thumb sweeping over the head of his cock on her upstroke and her eyes on his face to gauge the reaction to that with mischievous curiosity.

"Maybe," Luther admits, but there's another small smile lurking on his mouth, and at the challenge, he leans in to lavish her throat with attention again.

The man is hopelessly uptight, tightly-wound like a set of gears that's constantly just a minute away from snapping, and so she can quickly see that he starts coming undone with each languid stroke of her hand. When she rolls her thumb over his cock, his teeth reflexively nip sharper into her neck, grazing harder against the skin. His whole body is bowing forwards and leaning into the touch, and it elicits a low moan from him as he mouths against her throat. He keeps one hand braced against the car, and then the other tentatively reaches for the hem of Sarah's shirt, slides under it, enough for his fingers to reach bare skin—

And his hips judder and when he feels how smooth she is compared to him, he inhales sharply. It's been too long. It's been too long and he's not going to last long and now he's right here, right in the open, rutting against her in public and against the car like some animal—

And just like that, Luther withdraws, catches her hand in his and gently tugs her away from him with an iron-like grip. Something undefinable has shot across his face, a shuttered self-conscious look. He hasn't ever actually taken her hand before: when he glances down, even that touch is enough to see how her hand is dwarfed by his, his fingers oversized, monstrous. He shouldn't be touching her with these hands. Not like this.

(She keeps saying it's okay. And yet. And yet.)

"Sorry," he says, and this time there's less amusement laced into that one word, more panic. Like a deer caught in the headlights, suddenly unsure what to do, where to go. "I— I can't. Shit. Sarah—"

He quickly starts buttoning up his trousers again, and his ears are beet-red in a blush. Mortified. "I'm sorry."

And he can't tell if he's mortified for this almost having happened like this, or for shutting them down so abruptly— or some inexplicable, irrational combination of both.

(The latter. Of course it's the latter.)

Another moan, this one a little less inhibited and, therefore, louder, escapes her when she feels Luther's teeth press a little harder against her skin. Her back bows with anticipation when she feels his hand slip up beneath her shirt and Sarah lets out a breathless pant laced with a needy whimper, practically aching for him to finally touch her.

And then, for some unknown reason, leaving her anxious, confused, and obnoxiously wet, he pulls the plug and everything grinds to an abrupt halt, dragging a grunt of indignation from her as he pulls her hand back out of his pants.

"Luther, what the fuck?" she blurts out breathlessly, panting and clawing her free hand's fingers against the hood of the car beside her as if willing that to release the tension. She's torn between angry and hurt because now he's gotten her all worked up and let her get him worked up and now what the bloody fuck is she supposed to do? But he's apologizing and the anger slips away into a passive frustration as Sarah lets her head fall back, exposing her red-marked throat to the sky as she lets out a heavy sigh to catch her breath.

After a moment, Sarah lifts her head again, chest still heaving as she continues to try to settle her breath again. "Don't be," she says, although it does take a conscious effort not to let the offense she's feeling trickle into her voice. Everyone is entitled to revoke their consent, she knows that, but for fuck's sake, he'd seemed just as into it as she was, so why had he?

She wants to ask, but asking would sound more desperate than Sarah ever wants to sound, so she doesn't. She just hops off the roof of the car and tugs down the shorts a little to straighten them out and smooths her hands over her top to straighten that out. ...and steadfastly ignores the uncomfortable wetness between her legs and hopes that it hasn't had a chance to soak into her panties because they're the last clean ones she's got until some of the others dry and, without a dryer, sometimes that takes whole days. "Right, then..." she says and tries not to make it more awkward than it already is. "I guess we should get back, anyway. The sun'll be going down soon."

Edited (holy run-on sentence, Batman) 2020-07-29 02:05 (UTC)

"Yeah. And, uh, we need to transport the supplies back to the safehouse. And maybe get out of here before anyone else shows up. They might've had friends."

It's all excuses and justifications, really, but Luther uses it anyway in desperation to try and paper over this suddenly-awkward offbeat stiltedness to the scene. It all sounds perfectly rational. Perfectly sensible.

Sensible went out the window the moment he almost fucked her against the hood of a car, though.

Still blushing up a storm, Luther opens the door and hops in, shoulders hunched and hands rigid on the steering wheel while he waits for Sarah to get in beside him. He's still uncomfortably hard and he can sense it, trapped against the fabric and desperately yearning for relief. Maybe it's a good thing the water heater's on-again off-again back home; once they get back, he's drenching himself in a cold shower to try to take care of this. This situation.

He keeps his gaze riveted straight ahead as he drives them back to the house, trying not to look at Sarah (lips swollen from kisses and her hair still mussed, with the mark of his teeth against her neck). It doesn't help, though: he can clearly see through the windshield and see the dent in the hood, his handprints pressed into the metal. He's going to think of that every time he looks at this goddamned car now.

God, this was a mistake.

When they get back to the house and offload the groceries and ammunition (some strange variation of a domestic ritual), they make a brave effort at recapturing some of their easy camaraderie from before, but it's difficult. They're walking circles around the elephant in the room, both of them wired and geared-up and restless (and in Sarah's case, confused). He almost apologises while they're heating up a sad little dinner. Considers trying to explain while she's counting the bullets. Almost blurts it out while he does the dishes and she wanders past.

But he bites down on his words and lets the awkward strained evening go on, instead.

It's clear enough to Sarah that Luther doesn't want to talk about it and she's never been a feelsy kind of girl, so she's not interested in pushing him to. The only thing that bothers her about the situation is that now it's awkward and she doesn't think it needs to be. He's making it that way, not her, she's convinced. Sarah's been more than willing to go on as though nothing happened, thinking that's what he wants, but there's still a tension so thick in the air, she could cut it with a knife if she felt inclined to try.

So she leaves it alone until they've settled on their respective beds, hours after she's finally cooled down from the incomplete encounter, and silence falls between them in the darkness.

"All right, Luther?" she asks finally, looking in his direction but really only able to make out the general shape of him in the very dim light from the moon. "You seem tense and that's making me anxious, yeah?"

Sleep is impossible.

For the first time since that first evening and their first occasion sharing a bedroom at night, Luther was discomfited and on edge again, hyper-aware of Sarah's proximity. Self-conscious and aware of the fact that as he lay there in the darkness staring at the wall, aware and cataloguing every inch between them, she was just a few feet away in the other bed and there was something he could easily do to change that, actually. The small distance between them suddenly so significant, where it hadn't been before. Every tell-tale rustle of the sheets, creak of the mattress, had him picturing her.

He'd been pretty good at not picturing her, this whole time. Days and weeks. Lieutenant Sanders was someone to merely survive with, to have his back, to persist through this awful situation together, a hand on a stun gun—

(but until now, not a warm body in his arms, soft skin and hot mouth and—)

It's impossible to sleep. His thoughts keep going in circles. It's like she's planted a seed, a germ of an idea that finally took root after weeks of failed transplantation, and now those roots are growing and digging their way into the foundation and and those thoughts are stubbornly, persistently present. He hadn't really cared, before. She'd been a stranger, before.

But now—

Sarah speaks up, and Luther stares at the ceiling, until he rolls over enough to look at her across the gulf of the bedroom. Too far and not far enough.

"I just, uh," he starts, pauses. "Wanted to apologise. For earlier."

(For what part of earlier, Luther Hargreeves?)

For a moment, she's not really sure he's going to answer her at all, or whether he's even still awake, but then he rolls over, the mattress creaking beneath him like it's gloating. She'd have handled herself while he was in the shower but she'd calmed down enough to let it go. But now their beds are close enough that she finds herself wondering, on a scale of one to ten, just how put off would he be if she closed the space between.

Except, she won't. She won't because he shut it down and Sarah can only assume that the consent is revoked until further notice. It actually takes the fun out of even joking around about it, so she hasn't done that, either. Really, it's put quite a damper on conversation, she can't help noticing.

The apology comes as a surprise, given he's been spending the rest of the evening dancing around the elephant in the room and giving her rather a wide berth. "Which part, my love? Leaving me all hot and bothered or making me spend this whole evening wondering what I did to upset you enough to shut it down so abruptly?"

Her tone is neutral, bordering curiosity more than anything. She's moved past the initial hurt and anger and frustration and onto just wondering and wanting to have the mystery solved for her because, quite frankly, she's too bloody lazy to solve it on her own. Fortunately for Luther, he's found himself a survival partner who is largely averse to feelings; she allows herself to feel them for a few minutes, and then she moves on. They're mostly a waste of time, in her opinion. So, at least he hasn't got a mopey, desperate woman hanging on his every word. Just a confused and curious partner in crime wondering whether she broke some unspoken social construct and blown her chances for getting laid ever again before she dies on this burning rock.

"All of the above. Can it be all of the above?"

The cold shower earlier had done the trick of getting him back down to baseline — Luther didn't ordinarily get hot and bothered anyway, was accustomed to tamping down those urges with almost monastic self-control, ignoring desire for years at a time, particularly compared to something like Sarah's libido — but he was still left tense, wound-up. Today, and riding that adrenaline high and the rush of knowing you'd just killed someone and you'd just survived, you'd just come out of it alive with a partner by your side, well.

Turns out that revved his engines like nothing else.

He hesitates, feeling the silence and the darkness spinning out between them. Weighing his words, trying to decide how much to say. Sarah's averse to feelings, and Luther feels all of them but always bites down on it, tries not to show it. Tries to present that steely indomitable facade as much as he can.

And he fails, often.

But he doesn't want to explain. He doesn't want to expose this part of himself, vulnerabilities bared to view, but Sarah's officially his only goddamned friend in the world anymore, and she deserves the truth after what he'd done earlier: diving in so enthusiastically, only to flip a 180 and pull the rug out from under her. Contrary. Hypocritical. Coward.

Looking at the outline of her neck and shoulder in the moonlight, he's suddenly thankful for the relative darkness in the room, compared to the cold daylight they'd in before.

"You didn't do anything. It's not your fault. It's— it's not you, it's me. I don't really..." Luther says, but then stops, tries to rearrange the words, setting them out carefully. "I haven't really... Uh. I haven't really. Done that before."

He doesn't specify what exactly he means by that.

Sarah has become accustomed to the long silences that sometimes fill the space between them when she asks him a question he's not entirely sure he wants to answer. She imagines he, too, is accustomed to that silence when the tables are turned in the other direction.

So while he considers his words, Sarah waits with some modicum of patience he's earned by never making her regret showing it for him in the past several weeks.

Ah, the ever-dreaded it's not you, it's me speech and she hasn't even the romantic relationship to go with it. Still, she waits for him to finish, clamping down on her urge to interrupt with a complaint about his word choice, and she's only further confused by his comment.

"What, have at it out in the open like that?" she asks, making an assumption. "Yeah, all right, that's fair enough. Not everyone can be an exhibitionist and, even though there's no one else around, I can see that being a bit much for you if you're not," she replies, agreeably enough. It doesn't occur to her even for a second that a fit bloke at his age might not have ever done any of it. Why should it, after all? "Right, apology accepted, but maybe next time just tell me, mate. I was going mad all bloody evening, you know."

"No, um." He can feel himself starting to blush again, cheeks heating like a furnace, although thankfully she can't see it. Of course her thoughts don't follow at first; it's not the usual conclusion to reach, by his age, and he knows it. Klaus' jaw had literally dropped and his brother had clasped his hands to his face in shock and surprise once he'd learned.

"I mean, having at it. In general. At all."

oh god this is a mistake why is he talking about this

"I mean, I've done it once? I think. But I was— I don't really remember it. I'd had too much to drink, took some pills someone offered me, so I kinda. Blacked out. I don't have any memory of it."

And unfortunately, if he can't even remember what it was like, then it doesn't even really feel like he lost his virginity at all. He doesn't have the experience and knowledge to fall back on, no frame of reference. He hadn't felt triumphant that morning, despite Klaus trying to sound celebratory; Luther had been abjectly miserable, regretful. He hadn't ever meant for it to go that way, unfold like that.

"So I'm just. Not used to it. Uh. Which is why." He clears his throat. Still sounding oddly prim and old-fashioned and never quite able to name it for what it is, because old habits die hard, and he'd been raised to be just that straightlaced.

"So. Not your fault."

For once, Sarah finds herself also grateful for the dark. She imagines that if Luther could see the way she's goggling back at him, he'd end the conversation as abruptly as he had ended their earlier sexual encounter and now she's very curious, indeed.

First, that Luther is her age and is functionally a virgin. Second, that Luther got drunk enough to black out. Third, Luther took drugs? This is all entirely too fascinating because it flies in the face of everything Sarah had put together in her head about the person Luther was before the end of the world.

She wants to ask a million questions but all of them seem rude enough to make him shut down. And then, Luther stops talking and Sarah realizes she needs to say something before too long a pause has time to pass between them. Waiting too long will only reinforce the awkward tension and she'd really rather be rid of all that, if it's all the same to Luther.

"Right, I reckon fucking someone on the hood of a car out in the open isn't really an ideal first time, so that's fair enough," she says simply. Then, "I'm glad it wasn't anything I did. Or said."

Sarah finds herself wondering whether she ought to be less overt and pushy and just let Luther come to her when, or if, he wants to try again. A part of her thinks he'll never do it, though, and not because he doesn't want to; because he'll think he can't or shouldn't. So now, how do they proceed from here?

As much as Sarah loves quick and dirty and rough, there is something to be said about taking things slower and gentler every now and again. Maybe it wouldn't kill her to let Luther see the softer side of her to let him know that the door's still open and she'd really rather love for him to come in, but that she isn't going to stand in the doorway nagging him to, any longer.

The mattress creaks under her as Sarah climbs off the bed and crosses the room, closing the small gap between their beds and climbing onto his beside him. She doesn't lie down; just sits beside him and takes one of his hands without permission, moving it to settle against the left side of her chest so he can feel her heartbeat beneath it. The skin is rough against her own, but nothing she hasn't felt something similar to with past lovers. He isn't as different from her previous partners as Sarah suspects that he believes himself to be.

"I'm going to let you come to me when — if — you want another go on your terms. I want you to, but I'm not going to push anymore, yeah? Feel that heartbeat and how steady it is so you know I mean it when I tell you: I want you to. I really want you to." Sarah moves her other hand to cover his where she's kept it pressed to her heart, holding his wrist. He could break away but she likes to think she's earned enough of his trust that he won't. In the dark, she can't read his expression as well, but she can see him more clearly being this close. So Sarah looks him in the eye and hopes he can see it. "I know you don't believe me, so I'll say it once more: I want you, Luther. When you're ready, I am, too."

Then, Sarah lets go of his hand and takes a deep breath, letting it out in a soft sigh. "Okay?"

Sarah takes his hand without permission, but in return, he doesn't jerk away. This time, she's approaching him like one might approach a spooked animal in the woods, movements slow and measured. The weight of her on the mattress creaks, suddenly shrinking the space between them, and his rough hand splays against her chest until he can feel her heartbeat beneath his fingers, the steady rhythm of it. He doesn't have lie detection powers or anything, but it seems telling enough, particularly with her hands folded over his.

He tells himself not to pull away. He doesn't pull away.

Instead, Luther levers himself up to a seated position, and you can practically see the gears turning in his head. She's being patient. Tamping down all of that spitfire energy that she's been wielding this whole time, replacing it with a patience that echoes his instead.

When you're ready, I am, too.

And it's like testing your weight on a still-healing broken bone, wondering: Am I ready? How do you tell?

But Sarah's words are unexpectedly soft, the cocky brash time agent gone now. And he couldn't have explained it aloud if you paid him, but that burst of gentleness and understanding makes something in his chest go into freefall. A low ache that isn't only desire, exactly, but something else. Something that's always been commingled with that rare stirring of desire where Luther's concerned. Where the trust and faith and patience and late-night conversations and having each others' back in a fight, all of that matters more than the way she fills out a pair of shorts, or how blue her eyes are.

Luther's sitting upright in bed now, legs stretched out beside her, where Sarah still perches on the edge of the mattress. And he considers how cowardly it is to be frightened of a woman who simply likes you and wants you.

(It's the most terrifying thing in the world.)

His gaze has dropped to where Sarah's hand is resting on the sheets, his own next to hers. Still looking terrible, but he can still remember that steady thump-thump, thump-thump of her pulse. He reaches out, runs a thumb along the line of her wrist, her knuckles. Swallows his heart in his throat and looks up, meets her eye, and scrutinises what he finds there. In the end:

"I want to," he says. And then hesitates. "And I think I can. If you... can you tell me what to do? As we go. What you'd like best."

Because more than anything, Luther Hargreeves is obedient; takes to instruction well. And while it stings to admit inexperience, but compared to Sarah fucking her way across the galaxy, he's certainly inexperienced. So in this, he can slip out of the skin of Number One and hand over the reins instead for once. Unlike his jostling for authority with Diego— if Sarah has a bossy mouth, he'd rather like to listen to it.

The patience being exhibited is brought to them courtesy of being the last two people alive. Well, for all intents and purposes, anyway. They're not, obviously, actually the last two people alive, but they might as well be. Is it monogamy if there are literally no other viable options or is that just polyamory with a missing leg? Sarah tells herself it's probably the latter, isn't it? If there were a third and they were as fit, she'd have them, too.

But the reason for the patience isn't the important thing. The important thing is that she has it, for now, so she's willing to spend it on him. Somehow, it doesn't really surprise her that he's sat up, but it does, take her off her guard when he initiates physical contact. That's not a thing that Luther does; never has been, at least in Sarah's experience. Her eyes shift down to watch the tentative way he touches her, like he's afraid he'll break or offend her and he's not sure which would be worse.

After a few seconds, she looks back up at him and now that her eyes have had time to adjust to the darkness more, his face is a little bit clearer. He's gauging her response, perhaps to the movement of his coriaceous thumb against her skin. Sarah gives him a small smile to let him know that his touch is welcome.

When he speaks, he surprises her again and Sarah tells herself to stop underestimating him or at least stop trying to assume what might come out of that mouth of his any time he opens it.

His request is strangely heartwarming, but then he tacks on that last and Sarah snorts a laugh. "Oh, darling, you are most assuredly not ready for what I like best. Baby steps, my love," she says, turning her hand over, under his, and giving that thumb an affectionate squeeze. "But we can work up to that. In the meantime, yeah, I can tell you. You have to promise to tell me this time, though, if you're uncomfortable. Don't wait until you can't stand it anymore and then leave us both high and dry, yeah?" This time, when Sarah smiles, it's coyly before she moves again.

Sarah takes his hands, both this time, guiding them to her back where the hooks of her bra are. She's not entirely sure he'll be able to manage it with such big fingers, but it's worth a try. "It hooks together; feel that?" She pauses. "Pinch the fabric on either side of the hooks and push the sides together. That ought to knock some of the hooks out of their eyes, if not all of them. Start there. If you can't get it, don't get frustrated and don't try to force it. There's workarounds in a pinch."

"Yeah. I will," Luther promises, his mouth dry, and he can feel that prickling energy of a looming challenge, almost settling itself into neat and tidy considerations like another field task. Mission parameters: unhook the lieutenant's bra. You can do that, right? (You are capable, Number One?)

But it does turn out to be more difficult than he realised: his hands aren't as dextrous as they used to be, the fingers large and clumsy, and even normal men have trouble with this part. He winds up leaning in closer, his expression turning distant and furrowed in concentration like he's working on a particularly confounding crossword puzzle. Eventually his cheek is nearly against hers, head bowed as he feels blindly for the hooks behind her.

"Somebody needs to design a better mechanism for this," he mutters into her hair. He's keeping his movements careful, so careful to not rip it with his strength — he suspects she certainly wouldn't appreciate him destroying one of her only bras, they'd have to go scavenge for more and hope that they fit — but finally, he manages to unhook it. And his fingertips graze against the strap, and so the bra just slides off her shoulders. And it turns out he got so absorbed that he practically forgot why he was working on that puzzle to begin with, because now he looks a little startled to find that Sarah is sitting on his bed just a few inches from him, and she is. Very. Topless.

Luther swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing, as he glances down. Then, carefully, back up to the level of her eyes.

There is something so inexplicably and incredibly endearing about this gigantic hulk of handsome human clumsily fumbling with something as simple as the clasps of a bra that Sarah has to press her lips together to keep from smiling. She reckons if he catches it, he'll be put off, assuming that she's trying not to laugh when the reality is that there's a fond appreciation for this.

By the time he mutters to himself with frustration at the thing, he's so close to her that he'll never see it and she allows herself the luxury of that amused and endeared smile, just for a second, and then she opens her mouth to offer to do it herself just for now. But then he manages it and the smile falls away organically as his fingers brush the straps off her shoulders in the natural movement as he sits back. Sarah watches him take in the sight of her, finally allowing himself to actually look at her like this, before he shifts his eyes back up to reach her own.

Wetting her lips, Sarah keeps her eyes on his as she reaches for his hands and draws them toward her. "Touch me," she practically whispers. She stops just short of actually putting his hands on her breasts because he hadn't asked her to do everything for him; he asked for her to guide him. "Gently, yeah? Some men think it's sexy kneading them like balls of dough. I promise you, it isn't. Don't do that. But you can hold them. Run your thumbs over; pinch — lightly."

She's let go of one of Luther's hands and, without proactively intending to, she's cupped her own breast, swiping her thumb over her own nipple before giving it a slow-moving pinch. She doesn't mean to be demonstrating, but that's exactly what she's doing, her eyes closing in a slow blink before her hand falls away. "And kiss me," she adds. She doesn't specify where he ought to kiss her because she figures letting him decide keeps the ball in his court enough that she's not talking to him like she's dictating a user's manual or something.

He doesn't know what it was like with the woman from the rave, but also can't... imagine it could have been that good. It must have been sloppy, uncoordinated. (He can't even remember her name, and that grinds on his nerves, a gap he can never fill.)

Here, though. Sarah's voice is soft and soothing and patient, except instead of instructional vinyls over breakfast he's listening to a breathless whisper from her that makes all his body seem to thrum with anticipation. And so after a moment of hesitation — the roughness of his skin still bothers him, the dark mottled wrinkles, he usually still covers up with gloves even when they're out on the road — he finally complies. One massive hand settles over Sarah's breast, swallowed up in it, but he still feels that soft, warm handful against his palm and his heartbeat ratchets higher. He's still being so necessarily restrained to use just a small iota of his strength, but that self-control is a thing Luther's used to.

(It's just like painting miniatures, Number One.)
(Except not.)

He traces her nipple like he's operating new machinery, exploring an unfamiliar land, rolling it beneath his thumb and feeling it stiffen to a peak. He closes the rest of the distance between them, easy enough now that he'd already leaned so close, and catches her lips again in a kiss.

When they break away for a breath he's still thinking about that nonspecific kiss me, and so he pauses. "Can I," he asks, one finger tracing around a curve as he looks down again, and at a nod from Sarah he moves his way down her throat until he reaches her bare breasts.

There's nothing wrong with Luther's tongue or lips.

He's more adventurous with them than his hands, more confident that he can give pleasure this way (he'll need to untangle that particular neurosis eventually, but no matter just now): so after an experimental lick, he closes his mouth over one nipple and sucks, while his other hand still holds her other breast, leaving neither unattended, delivering the occasional squeeze in combination and contrast of the hot warmth of his mouth.

The care and curiosity that lingers in Luther's touch is unexpectedly exhilarating and when he leans in to comply with her request for him to kiss her, Sarah meets him halfway and hums a soft moan of approval against his mouth.

Her chest is heaving with the labored breaths that come with being pleasured and she nods when he seeks permission to explore her with his mouth. After all, that had been her underlying intention. She can't help noticing that he seems more confident with the use of his mouth than that of his hands. Quiet, breathy moans of appreciation escape her, as spaced apart as the kisses down her throat and chest, and Sarah bows her back toward him, arching into his touch and then his mouth when he reaches her breast with those kisses.

The sensation of him sucking on her nipple with confidence whilst his more uncertain hand attends to her other breast is dichotomous in the most tantalizing way. Sarah hisses in a breath through her teeth at the sensation of his mouth and it exhales in a soft, languid moan to encourage him. "Just like that...just like that," she adds, just in case the moan wasn't clear enough.

Sarah reaches forward to unbuckle his belt, unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans but pausing to look up at his face. "Can I?" she asks, wanting to repay the pleasure by dipping her hand into his pants again and, perhaps, not being shut down midway this time around.

It's such a stark difference between now and their earlier almost-tryst; this time, it's no longer like getting into a speeding car, with Luther just hanging on for dear life and trying his best to keep up with her. It's all slowed down to a pace that he's comfortable with and that, unexpectedly, is also making it astonishingly hot in a different way: making each sensation last and dragging it out before they move on to the next, the whole experience drawn out, almost like the bedroom equivalent of a strip-tease.

He takes a moment to switch sides (completionism in all things, Number One), swirling his tongue around the other nipple before he pauses to answer her.

"Please," Luther says, and there's a strained edge to his voice, a sign that they're already chipping away at that vaunted self-control. His belt now unbuckled, he reaches down (his hand brushes against hers and even that innocent touch is still new to him, still electrifying) to pull the rest of the belt out from its loops and toss it to the floor. At least they're not dealing with the height difference anymore; but since they're seated, he obligingly lifts his hips from the mattress to help Sarah tug the jeans down enough to reach for him again.

They, whoever they are, say 'slow and steady wins the race' and maybe, Sarah realizes, there's actually something to that. It's been a very, very long time since the last time she'd been willing to take things this slowly with someone and she almost finds herself thinking that perhaps she's been missing out by rushing into and through her encounters over the past several years.

He's attentive in a way that she thinks must only be reserved for people experiencing something for the first or second time and that in and of itself is intoxicating. Soft moans drag themselves out of her, each presenting itself to him as an earned accolade for his work. And Luther sounds as though he's ready to crank the dial up just a little bit higher; that edge in his voice signaling that he meant it when he'd said before that he'd been in the moment even though he'd been the one to end it.

In the privacy of the room in which they squat together, she doesn't have to work around his jeans and try to ignore the brush burn caused by the metallic teeth of an open zipper dragging repetitively against the delicate skin of the inside of her forearm. Instead, he helps her get his jeans out of the way entirely and Sarah, instead of having to shove her hand into his pants, utilizes the opening at the front of his boxer shorts to guide him, already erect, through to freedom. A light touch of thin fingers curl around the length of him again and immediately go to work stroking him. Sarah's deliberately slow, probably in an almost excruciating pace, with the hopes of giving him some pleasure but staving off a premature ejaculation that could really and truly put a damper on the situation at hand.

"Fuck..." she whispers at a particularly sudden jolt of pleasure when he hits an especially alert nerve with his experimental suckling. "You've got me wet for you already and we've barely gotten started. You're sure you've not done this before?" she asks, almost dubious. His shyness and uncertainty lean in the direction of him being a novice but the way he sometimes manages to hit just right with a ministration leaves her wondering.

And predictable as ever, Luther feels his chest warm at the compliment; the man is eager to please, desperate for external approval and validation. "I mean, like I said: just the once. But I don't think it counts."

In the darkness and privacy of their bedroom, a place he's increasingly starting to think of as home, he's more relaxed, and that helps too, to the extent that he's actually able to respond rather than clam up. Not looking over his shoulder waiting for danger to strike, not tense with having his body visible in plain daylight when she gets to work on his hardening cock. He gets to fade into murky shadow instead, both of them painted in greys and silhouettes, mapping his way across her body more by touch than sight. His hands fan across her ribcage, easily spanning the width of her body before he mimics what she'd done earlier, lightly (lightly) pinching a nipple.

"Maybe there's still some muscle memory, th—" He doesn't finish his sentence. The word though is swallowed up in a groan, his hips pressing forward, all sensation and concentration narrowing down to just the languid pump of her hand. He forgot whatever he was saying. What was he saying? It doesn't matter.

"Christ. You're good at that."

Another moan escapes her at the pinch and her eyes close. "Not sure I believe you," she hums playfully. Not that she cares. It's not about the thrill of breaking him in, really, so what does it matter if he's actually done this before or not? It doesn't, to her. What Sarah wants is Luther. The rest is just superfluous at the mo.

She opens her eyes again to give him a curious look, interested in the concept but as the groan takes over his words, Sarah grins smugly. "Am I?" she asks, rotating her wrist just a little with the next upstroke and adding another rotation in the opposite direction as she strokes back down. "Then it looks like we're both good at what we're doing, darling. D'you want to move forward or idle here for a little longer?"

Her tone suggests she'd be happy with either, at the moment. His mouth feels good and he seems satisfied with her hand; she's all right with them spending a little longer at this step if he wants. She'll just...hope that he doesn't clam up again before she can sit on his cock this time because that's what Sarah's really in it for, in the end. "How daring, really, do you want to be tonight?" Because she can think of a few things that stray away from the vanilla without wandering too far into her taste in kink.

"I can move forward," Luther says, a decision that comes to him quicker than he'd have expected. He's hopelessly hard and turned on enough that it outweighs the fear this time, and he wants to see what might happen next, what else he could do or she could do. A flicker of that innate competitiveness that does come out sometimes, this urge to impress and to not ever back down from an issued challenge. (And, oh, Sarah Sanders is a challenge. A kind he hasn't tackled in his life.)

But her next question, though. He pauses to think that one over, chin propped against her ribs, in a contemplative silence that shows he's truly having to ponder it.

"That, uh. Depends on what exactly you've got in mind. Daring-wise." Luther tries to think of options, possibilities, but his mind is drawing an awful blank as he tries to imagine what a planet-hopping time-traveller who sleeps with aliens thousands of years in the future might classify as daring. He hadn't even looked at Diego's magazines for inspiration, back in the day; Luther had been prim about it, had threatened to report it to their father. With this huge gap in his experience now-looming, Luther might be regretting it right about now.

Still. Unexpectedly, he couldn't have asked for a better partner to steer him through it; he leans back up again to kiss Sarah's jaw, nip at her earlobe.

"Tell me what to do next."

for ltbrownnoser.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject