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The L shakes and shudders, helping Nancy rouse herself from her half-sleep. She will not accidentally miss her stop.
With finals looming, she's been spending more time in Evanston than in Chicago, holed up in Northwestern's library desperately researching, writing, revising. She feels like she's barely been home, and between her schoolwork and Jonathan's freelance gigs, they've barely seen each other in a week.
They've barely spoken, too, taking turns crawling into bed late at night while the other is already asleep, curling up in each other's arms, mumbling hello's and I love you's in the dark and then waking up to the other half-dressed in the morning, rushing out for work or class or that stupid writing group she really wishes she hadn't signed up for.
She's dropping that stupid writing group next semester, she swears.
It's barely dusk, hours and hours earlier than she's been home all week. She feels stiff and grimy, and her back hurts from hunching over papers and books. She arches her back, tries to stretch without knocking her elbow into the woman next to her, who has been frowning this whole ride. She doesn't touch her, but the woman's frown deepens into a scowl.
Screw you, lady, she thinks and hoists her book-filled backpack onto her shoulders, shuffling towards the doors as the train pulls into the station.
It's cold. Not bitterly cold but cold enough that Nancy's fingers start to hurt only a block into her walk home. She counts her steps for the four-block walk and wonders how hot she can run the taps, if she can thaw out in a bath.
She checks for mail, tries to roll out her neck at the same time. There's nothing in their mailbox and she perks up a touch at the thought that Jonathan might actually be home.
She wonders if she can get him to join her in that bath.
When she opens their door, she realizes he's beaten her to the idea. She can hear the shower and that one pipe that squeaks out a high note at random intervals without warning. She drops her backpack, relieved, and only misses his camera bag at the last second. Is glad; she's pretty sure her haul of books would have crushed something very expensive.
She doesn’t announce herself, just sheds her coat and locks the front door behind her, toes off her winter boots with a grunt. She sheds her clothes as she walks to the bathroom, leaving a trail down the hallway and feeling relief with each layer lost. Their apartment is warm but she can see steam creeping out from the crack under the bathroom door, feels goosebumps rise on her skin in anticipation.
"Jonathan," she calls in her best seducing voice as she pushes the bathroom door open, wanting to alert him to her presence in some way, wanting to make sure he doesn't startle so badly he slips and falls and hurts himself. She wants to press wet skin together and kiss him under the spray, not figure out how to get him dressed while waiting for an ambulance.
She slips into the steamy room, keeping the cold air out as best she can, the heat in, and she registers his stuttering sigh just before she slides the shower curtain open. If she'd taken a little more time she'd recognize that sigh; she's heard it in the backseat of his car with her hips grinding down against his, when her lips are wrapped around him and his hands are tangled in her hair, when he's buried deep inside her, one leg over his shoulder and their foreheads pressed together.
But she hasn't taken that time, the shower curtain is already moving, and when it is out of the way their eyes meet and she thinks his expression of shock must be mirrored on her face.
He's got his back to the tile, just barely out of the spray, and his hand wrapped around his cock. His very, very hard cock.
They both freeze
"N-Nance—" he stutters out, eyes wide and a flush on his cheeks that could be the heat, could be the arousal, or could be something else. Embarrassment, perhaps. Except she doesn't feel embarrassed. Surprised, yes. Shocked, even. And something else too – something warm and sharp that makes her mouth water a little bit.
Okay. That's maybe a little embarrassing.
She knows he does this. Hell, she gets herself off too. They had to endure their year apart somehow. And they've listened to each other from half a country apart, heavy breaths and soft moans down the telephone line and distantly, so distantly in the background perhaps the sound of hands on flesh. But she's never seen him do this, has never done this with him either. And the image of him in front of her – his lean, strong body, his large, nimble hands, and his cock, long and hard and flushed with arousal, all of him with water dripping down his smooth skin, from the ends of his hair – is possibly the sexiest thing she's ever seen.
She wonders why she never thought to ask him to do this before; to see how he likes to touch himself and see if she can touch him in the same way. He never seemed to want to. Was always more than content to have her touch him how she likes to touch him, how he likes her to touch him.
She wonders if he'd prefer his own touch or hers in this moment and decides to find out.
"What—" he manages as she climbs over the lip of the tub and into the shower. It's small and he is right there, right in front of her, so she braces her hands on his chest as she lifts on her toes and presses her lips to his.
There is the briefest of pauses before his arms are wrapped around her, crushing her to him and slanting his mouth over hers to kiss her deeper. He groans as his hardness is trapped between their bodies, sliding against her belly.
For a long moment she lets herself be kissed, savors the taste of him, the feel of him, the heat of him – all the things she's been missing for days now. Feels herself go slightly dizzy with it before remembering her mission and sliding one of her hands down, down, down between them.
He groans again when she grasps him, ghosts her fingers up and down his shaft once before taking a firm grip around him. He bucks into her hand and she slips her other arm up around his neck to steady herself.
"Show me how?" she asks softly against his mouth. Her voice is barely audible over the pounding water but he pulls back like she's shouted at him, and while his eyes are still clouded by desire the confusion comes through clear.
"Huh?"
It takes a lot of effort for her not to laugh.
"Show me," she repeats, stroking him again. He hisses.
"You know how," he says, like she's being dense. Like she's somehow forgotten they've been together for three years now and she's given him countless handjobs.
She could draw this out, tease him and question him at the same time just to watch his head spin, just to watch the man who so rarely loses track of himself spiral deeper and deeper into arousal and confusion. But she's not cruel and the heat growing in the pit of her stomach demands more than just teasing.
"Show me," she says for a third time, lips at his ear, nudging his arm with her elbow, keeping her hand wrapped around him. "How you do it."
In their three years together she thought she had gotten every sound she could out of him, but this hybrid of a gasp and a gurgle is new. She delights in it, memorizes it, starts plotting ways to pull it from him again.
Then, slowly, tentatively, his hand comes up and wraps around hers. His skin is hot, hotter than she's ever felt it thanks to the shower, and wet, and his grip is firm. She gasps against his cheek as he slides their hands up to the tip, pauses there to flick his thumb over a spot she hadn't discovered yet, then twists back down. She can feel his breath and the way it hitches, catches along the journey.
He stops at the base of his cock, waiting. When she doesn't move he seems to get it, strokes himself with her hand again.
"Nance," he breathes out, and she drags her teeth along his jaw just to feel his cock jump in her hand. It doesn't disappoint.
For the moment they breathe together, his hand still guiding hers, her arm tight around his neck as she leans more and more heavily against him. His eyes slip shut and his free hand clutches at her hip and she pays attention to the different rhythm, the way he stops for short strokes just under the head, how he sometimes pauses at the base and squeezes tightly. Trying to remember.
But it's not enough; his breath grows heavier and between her legs she is so slick and tingling, and sucking on his neck just isn't doing it anymore, so she shakes his hand off right when his hips surge. His eyes fly open again and the look on his face is just on the verge of pleading, of begging, and a little like he's about to cry.
His cock bobs between them as she steps back, moving with his heartbeat, and he grits out a pained what just before she drops easily to her knees before him.
"Oh—" he breathes as she angles him a little to the left so the shower spray is blocked by her back and opens her mouth.
The strangled fuck that he gasps out when she takes him fully in her mouth sends electricity straight to her core and she shifts her legs a little, seeking a modicum of relief as she braces one hand on his hip, holds him steady with the other, and starts to bob on him. Runs the tip of her tongue across the spot he just showed her and feels his knees buckle, just a bit.
His hands come up, trying to tangle in her hair but it's been flattened by the water, so he cups her cheeks instead, feeling her jaw work.
Curse words fly out of his mouth in a steady stream, oh fuck, oh fuck, please, oh fuck please, please, Nancy, and when she's sure he's braced against the wall and won't suddenly thrust into her throat she lets go of his hip and lets her hand wander. Cupping him, slipping a finger behind his sack and pressing against that incredibly sensitive crinkle of skin.
After all these years she could do this in her sleep; knows how to draw it out into infinity, to make him beg and plead, but also how to finish him in an instant. That skill came in handy when trying to grab time before their parents got home or their little brothers inevitably intruded.
Water is dripping from her hair down her forehead but she chances a glance up and it's worth it, so worth it, to see his head thrown back against the blue tile and the flush from his chest all the way up his neck and onto his cheeks. His eyes are shut tight, his mouth open as he desperately sucks down air, and his lips are moving, trying to find words but only managing to get out a series of rhythmic "aahs" instead.
She hollows her cheeks, sucking hard.
"Oh fuck, Nance—" It's a warning and an exclamation at the same time.
His taste hits her tongue and she pulls back a little, sucking softly until he is done, letting him go slowly, trying to ease the transition. She wipes her mouth and stands on trembling legs. He is still backed against the tile, knees bent, one hand braced in the corner to keep himself up. His eyes are still closed, his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath.
He is beautiful. She reaches out and cups one of his cheeks lightly, smiling when he nuzzles into her touch.
Her entire body is thrumming, desperate for the same release, for his hands and his mouth on her, for reciprocation. But she grabs the shampoo instead, taking the opportunity to lather up, to start to wash, as he recovers himself.
She's got her eyes closed, her head tipped back under the spray to rinse her hair, when she feels him move beside her. She only has that change in the air to warn her before his arms are tight around her and his mouth is on hers. She moans and tugs him closer, abandoning her task in favor of wrapping herself around him again.
He's soft against her thigh now and she wonders how long she's gonna have to wait until he can fuck her.
"Hi," he says against her lips. "You're home early."
"You too," she replies, letting her words be muffled by kisses. "I'm hungry. Can we please order Chinese?"
He doesn't answer, just reaches behind her to shut off the water. She makes a soft sound of protest but she forgets herself when he maneuvers them carefully out of the tub and runs a towel over her body and then his. Keeps busy kissing her, running his hands over her breasts, her hips, just barely brushing against her sex.
He tugs on one of her thighs and she steadies her grip on him, jumps into his arms. Tries to wiggle in hopes of getting him hard again as the cold air in the hallway shocks her out of her daze.
"Cold!" she yelps but he ignores her, crosses the hall into their bedroom.
He doesn't seem to care that they're both still quite damp as he drops her on the sheets, kneels at the side of the bed and tugs her to the edge. His arms wrap around her hips, holding her tightly in place, and she arches her back in anticipation.
"Dinner later," he mumbles, skipping the usual trail of kisses up her thigh and instead licking her long once, pressing a kiss to the most sensitive part of her. "Snack now."