Chapter Text
Nicole's POV
It’s the first extended moment of quiet we’ve had since I woke up in the hospital—or, well, as “quiet” as our lives can ever get. We’ve spent most the last couple days apart, me trying to take care of some things at the station and keep things running while Nedley recovered from his own variety of Widow torture, while Waverly was on twenty-four-seven Wynonna Watch, since we could only imagine how she’d handle the grief of her daughter’s departure.
Tonight, though, we have time to spend together. After I drag Wynonna’s passed-out body from the couch to her bed, and Waverly sets out water on the nightstand for her, we retreat upstairs to Waverly’s room, where she pushes me gently down onto the couch and drapes her perfect body across my lap, looping her perfect arms around my neck.
“So,” she begins, smiling up at me. I smile back, curling one arm under her thighs and the other low on her back, cradling her, helping to support her weight and keep her as close as the position allows. “We’re alone. Together.”
“Finally.”
“What do you think we should do?” she asks, suggestively, but I raise my eyebrow.
Yeah, I probably shoulda known that she’d try to avoid this part.
“I think we should talk.”
She winces, and her posture shrinks a little, but thankfully, she doesn’t pull away. I don’t know if I could stand it if she pulled away from me.
“Do we have to?”
“We don’t have to do it right now, but we do have to talk at some point. Waves, I want this to work between us. I want it to be real.”
“I want that too.”
“Then we need to be open and honest with each other. There’s a lot of stuff I want to apologize for, and explain to you, and also, there’s a couple things I kinda hope you’ll explain to me.”
Waverly sighs, and pouts, and it’s adorable and pathetic and it scares me how much that small, banal gesture makes me want to kiss her till I suffocate.
“So, Sorry Party time?”
Kissing her temple, I once again offer her an out, because I’m soft and useless when it comes to this magnificent woman. “Like I said, doesn’t have to be now, but it does hafta happen.”
“No, no. Let’s talk. I wanna talk,” she declares, her voice getting slightly more confident and assertive until she looks down, surveying our current position on the couch and adding, tentatively, “Should I, um…?”
And God, I don’t want her to move, unless it’s to get closer, but at the same time, I wouldn’t blame her if she were too angry with me to let me hold her.
“If you want,” I murmur, trying to keep the sadness out of my voice and mostly, but not totally, succeeding. “But I wouldn’t mind getting to hold you, while we talk. I always wanna hold you…so long as you’re okay with it.”
“I’m very okay with that,” she smiles, reaching up to comb her fingers through my hair. “Where do you want to start?”
And the words just burst out of me, like a floodgate releasing or like Wynonna entering a room.
“Baby, I’m so sorry I hid those DNA results from you. I had no right—I told you I’d be there for you however you wanted, and then I made choices for you and that was horrible and I am so, so sorry.”
Waverly’s expression is steely throughout my apology, just drinking in my desperate and sincere words, but obviously, still needing something more. “Why did you open them?”
I duck my head remorsefully. “I don’t want to make excuses.”
“I’m not asking for an excuse; I’m asking for an explanation.”
Her tone makes me flinch, a bit, but I rise to her request. She’s owed whatever she wants, whatever will help her hurt less. If she asked me to cut off my arm and beat myself to death with it, I’d do it. As long as it eased her suffering, I’d do anything.
“I was afraid of seeing you hurt,” I confess in a heavy, grave whisper, overwhelmed by the irony of my fuck-up. “I didn’t want you to be hurt, and I thought if I—I thought I could make it hurt less, but the second I opened it I knew I did the wrong thing, and then I was so ashamed and angry with myself that I was even more afraid because I knew I’d hurt you, and it all just sort of…spiraled from there.”
Waverly doesn’t speak, just sits there, ponders for a second, and words just keep falling out of me, like if I keep talking, somehow, I’ll eventually say the right thing, the thing that will make her understand, make me understand, why I did this awful thing to her, the one thing she implicitly trusted me to never do.
“I wasn’t trying to control you, Waverly. I would never. I love that you’re a strong, independent badass who makes your own decisions and doesn’t need anybody to protect you, ever, but…also the idea of you ever being sad or hurt about anything, ever, makes me physically ill, which is stupid and unrealistic, I know, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling it. Just like I knew that it was stupid and unrealistic of me to think if I knew before you, I could prepare you better, I could help you better, when all I really should have done is just be there for you however you needed me and have I mentioned I’m so, so sorry?”
My pulse is as frantic as my stumbling explanations, and my beautiful angel moves her hand from my hair to my chest, inhaling sharply as she undoubtedly feels my heart thumping behind my rib cage. She bites her lip and those flawless hazel eyes look deep into mine, as if reading my soul.
“Is that why you didn’t tell me you were married? Because you didn’t want me to be sad or hurt?”
Her question isn’t harsh, or accusatory, and yet it cuts me deep. I feel like I’ve been ripped apart and exposed as nothing but a sentient abyss of shame and error, and yet she’s looking at me with tender curiosity, with mercy, with love, even—it breaks me further, and I have to look away, because I don’t deserve her, I don’t deserve her compassion, not when I hurt her and lie to her and betray her.
So I avert my eyes, chuckling bitterly as I try to piece together any adequate apology for my monumental omission.
“No. No, I didn’t tell you about that because…I’m selfish. And I thought if you knew about—look, marrying Shae was the dumbest, most impulsive thing I’ve ever done. I’d finally met someone who I thought…saw me, and understood me, and still wanted me, anyway. It was adrenaline and stupidity and I put more thought into what I ate for breakfast that morning than I did into agreeing to marry her, and then it fizzled out as quickly as it started and she went back to Edmonton and I got a job here in Purgatory and honestly, the only reason we never got divorced is because we were both so busy and barely ever remembered we were married, until I met you and I wanted—”
I cut myself off just in time, taking a breath to regroup after narrowly avoiding a potentially disastrous revelation. Instead, I settle for:
“Until I met you and realized it wasn’t fair to you. So about three months ago, I called her for the first time in two years and asked her for a divorce.”
Waverly shakes her head slightly, her shoulders sinking. “Why didn’t you just tell me all that?”
“I didn’t want you to think I’m some reckless dipshit who falls in love at every corner. I didn’t want you to hear about this crazy whirlwind I got swept up in and think that what you and I have means any less. And I didn’t know how to explain that Shae and I are married, technically, but we haven’t been together for years. I didn’t know how to explain what my life looked like before, or how to explain why I hadn’t explained before, without making you think I was hiding it because you were the other woman, or something.”
And my jaw tenses at the inadvertent wording, and I close my eyes to push away images of Waverly’s lips on Rosita’s, and it makes me so, so angry, because I let that happen. I fucked up and I hurt her and I made her seek comfort in someone else, because I had lost myself the right to comfort her, had lost myself the privilege of healing her. I hurt her, and I pushed her into the arms of someone else.
God, the idea of my Waverly in Rosita’s arms. The idea of someone else’s hands on her, someone else’s lips—I don’t own Waverly, I know that. I would never dream of trying to own her, or treat her like a commodity, or like she’s worth a certain number of goats, or like if I did x, y, and z things, then I’d earned the right to her. I know she isn’t mine, she belongs to nobody but herself, but nevertheless, I can’t stop the basest part of my brain from taking over my every thought process at the very inkling that someone else had touched her in ways only I’m supposed to be allowed to.
And, of course, I hate myself for that, too. I hate myself for driving her into someone else’s touch, and I hate myself for how much I hate the idea that someone else touched her.
I married a near-stranger in Vegas—did you really expect me to be as emotionally stable as I project myself to be?
While I’m stuck in my internal strife and wormhole of self-hatred, Waverly apparently decides it’s her turn to host the Sorry Party, and she moves her hand up from my chest to cup my jaw, guiding my face until I’m forced to make eye contact with her.
Her eyes are swimming with enough sorrow that even if I were still mad at her for kissing Rosita, I’d instantly forgive her.
“Kissing Rosita is the worst thing I’ve ever done, and I’m so sorry.”
I snort skeptically at her exaggeration, challenging, “The worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“Everything else, everything I did to keep you from dying…I don’t regret any of that, not for a single second,” Waverly contends, without hesitation. “At first I wished I hadn’t done it, I wished I’d waited for Wynonna, but…if I had to do it again, I’d do the same damn thing. You’re too important to me, and since in the end, I didn’t actually disappear my sister forever, I’m feeling a lot less guilty over the whole Iron Witch thing. But…not about the kissing Rosita thing.”
Tears start to blur my vision, but I blink them away before they have a chance to fall.
“Do you promise me it was just a kiss?”
“Yes,” she vows, beseeching and penitent. “It was like, ten seconds, at most, and then I pulled away and I hated myself for it and—”
“Where were her hands?”
The question comes suddenly, raggedly, so much so that I surprise myself with it, but it all but knocks the wind out of Waverly. She stills for a moment, her lip quivering, and it’s hard to hold my ground, but I need to know. I need to know if Rosita got to put her baby-snatching revenant hands on my best baby.
“What?”
“Did she get to touch you?”
Waverly breaks, allowing her eyes to fill up with tears as she holds my gaze steadfastly. “For a few seconds, she put one hand on my knee, underneath the water. Her other hand was on her glass the whole time.”
“And your hands?”
“I…I touched her cheek. Just my fingertips, brushing against her skin, and then I immediately snapped out of it and came to my senses and I told her I’m with you and we decided to leave.”
I swallow audibly, my throat feeling tight and dry to an almost painful degree. Everything hurts, all of a sudden, and I try to move my head, to look anywhere but at my girlfriend’s stupidly perfect face, but the small yet mighty hand on my jaw is relentless. With no other recourse, I close my eyes so as not to submit to her beauty.
“I probably deserved it.”
Her breath hitches, and she sounds almost offended when she breathes out, “Excuse me?”
“It’s my fault,” I choke, shaking my head subtly, my eyes still glued shut. “I fucked up, I lied to you, I hurt you, I drove you away. Of course you’d go make out with a hot revenant.”
“Stop that,” my compassionate, sweet girl implores, caressing my cheekbone with her thumb. I realize only as she wipes them away that a few stray tears have leaked from between my eyelids. “I don’t want her. I didn’t even want her then, not really, I just…I was angry, and confused, and questioning every single thing about myself and my life, and—I made a mistake. I was reckless, and impulsive, like you were with Shae, except I was childish and hurtful and there’s no excuse. But I don’t want her, Nicole. I don’t want anyone but you. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone the way I want you.”
While the words aren’t exactly the same, the sentiment is. I know what she’s trying to do—she’s reiterating my message, my hospital bed declaration, when I was about to go under and afraid I might never wake up. I needed her to know she’s my everything—I always need her to know that, but I usually didn’t say it in so many words. But if those had been my last seconds of awareness, I needed to use them wisely, and the wisest way I could think to spend them was to commit my undying devotion to the love of my fucking life.
So while she still struggles to tell me in so many words that she loves me, I know she does. I’ve always known, and frankly, at this point, I don’t care if she never says the words out loud; her actions are far more meaningful, to me.
I nuzzle my face into the crook of her neck, breathing her in, pulling her body even closer to mine.
“You did it just to hurt me?” I whisper brokenly, and there’s a tacit addendum to it, the next step on the flow chart which reads: because if so, it worked.
And Waverly must pick up on it, must hear my silent expression, because she grips me tighter.
“I don’t know why I did it. Maybe it was just to hurt you, I don’t know. It was stupid and mean and I—”
“You can’t do that to me,” I say through gritted teeth, swallowing in hopes of relieving my still arid throat. “You can’t—we can’t. We can’t just hurt each other because we feel hurt.”
“I know.”
When she talks, her lips brush my temple, and it sends an involuntary warmth through my whole body. It must have a similar effect on her, because she weaves her fingers into the hair on the nape of my neck, pressing our chests ever-closer together until I can feel her heart beat against mine, I can feel our lungs expand and contract in sync, and I wonder if it’s always been this way, if our heartbeats were always in time with each other, long before we ever met. I wonder if our autonomic nervous systems knew years before we did that we were made for each other, had been practicing, training for the day we finally came together, for the first time our chests pressed together.
Because that’s the moment I knew I was made for her, that she’s the only one for me. My heart knows it, my brain knows it, my whole body knows it.
It also knows this:
“I’m so sorry, Waverly.”
“I’m sorry, too,” she murmurs into my hair, inhaling it deeply, exhaling with a soft sigh that tells me she’s reveling in the scent of me just as I am in the scent of her. “No more lies, okay? No more secrets, no more lies, no more doing the wrong thing for the right reason. Like you said before. If we want this to work, we have to talk to each other.”
“I promise. No more secrets, no more lies.”
We sit there a few silent moments, wrapped up each other, until my sweet one speaks again.
“Shae knew who I was. At the hospital, I introduced myself just as ‘Waverly,’ and she knew who I was.”
“Yeah,” I chuckle, nodding into her neck. “When I called her to ask for the divorce, she sorta guessed there must be someone special. I think I spent close to an hour talkin’ her ear off about you.”
“Oh yeah?” Waverly drawls, disentangling our bodies just enough to get a glimpse of my blushing face. “What did you say?”
“Mm, mostly just how good you are in bed.”
“Nicole!” she scoffs, affronted, giving a cute little swat to my shoulder.
I snicker in response, tightening my arms until she’s basically folded in half on my lap, but it doesn’t matter, because we’re closer than we were before.
“Obviously, I told her how you are the most brilliant, caring, determined, adorable, gorgeous, badass, unstoppable person in the whole wide world, and how I’m the luckiest sap to ever live that I get to love you and be with you.”
But my brunette godsend doesn’t preen at the praise like she normally does; she freezes, pulling her hands slightly away from me, palpably confused.
“You didn’t say ‘nice.’”
Now I’m the confused one, and I lean back to get a better sense of her, trying to read her body language to figure out where this is coming from. “Huh?”
“There’s only two ways people ever describe me to someone who doesn’t know me: ‘everybody loves her,’ or ‘she’s the nicest girl in Purgatory.’”
Waves recites that like it’s fact, like she’s translating a text from an old dead language nobody else can dream of contesting her on, and I don’t really know what to make of it.
“…Duly noted?”
“No,” she stammers, as if snapping out of some trance. “I don’t mean—I mean, no one ever describes me, you know? It’s like they’re describing some perfect little pixie sprite who could never conceive of doing or feeling anything bad. When people think of me, they just think…nice.”
And oh fuck, that breaks my heart. I’m no stranger to the reductive caricature that is Waverly Earp, Nicest Girl in Purgatory™, or how much it has affected her, how much her precedential reputation has stunted her confidence in every way. But she’s been getting so much better, lately, I thought.
Or maybe, she’s just had a few other existential/identity crises on her plate, so she had no room for this particular one.
Still, the ever-diligent girlfriend, I shake my head firmly, and remind her in no uncertain terms, “Sweetie, you are so, so much better than ‘nice.’”
She sniffs, slightly, tracing a fingertip down my sternum, leaving goosebumps in her wake.
“You missed a very important adjective when you were listing my best attributes to your secret wife.”
“Oh yeah?” I simper, allowing myself the tiniest glimmer of hope in response to her playful tone.
“Forgiving.”
I release a monster of a breath, one I didn’t even realize I was holding, and for once this evening, when tears spring to my eyes, I don’t fight them, because for once, they’re happy tears. “Really?”
“Some of it might take a little more time, a few more talks, but…yeah. I hate fighting with you. I hated fighting with you even before you got bit and almost died trying to save me, and, well. We both made mistakes. Now we can grow from them, together. Right?”
“Right,” I agree, stooping my head low to bury my face in her chest, nosing past her low collar to press a series of earnest kisses to the skin covering her heart, the heart I hope like hell she’ll still allow me to hold.
She strokes my temple with her thumb, waiting for my compulsive show of affection to play out before she asks, in a quavering, apprehensive voice, “So you’ll forgive me?”
I look at her, and I remember when she first admitted to her transgression.
We were standing in the open field, watching Perry’s helicopter fly away with Alice on board, and I let her cry into my chest for a while, her arms clutching onto me as if I might fly away, too.
“I’m so happy you’re okay,” she said to me, for about the hundredth time since I’d woken up; but for once, we had time for more conversation to follow that.
“You’re gonna have to fill me in on like, everything that happened since I got bit,” I chuckled darkly, and much to my despair, she stiffened in my arms.
“I kissed Rosita.”
Her words had hit me like a freight train, but I still couldn’t let go of her. “What?”
“Yesterday, or the day before—I don’t even know anymore, but the night before you were bit. When I sent you that awful, cruel text, I—she was mad at Doc, and I was mad at you, and she had a spa gift certificate, for some reason? So she took me, and we were in a hot tub, drinking champagne, and I was so mad at you, and I barely remember why, but I was, and she was being really nice to me, and I did the stupidest, dumbest thing I’ve ever done and I kissed her. But then I stopped! And I’m so sorry, I—”
“Please stop,” I implored her through gritted teeth. “I can’t—I can’t think about this right now.”
“There’s more,” she said tentatively, and I pulled back, fearing the worst. “No! Not like that, I didn’t—I mean, after I kissed her, and then after I stopped, I went to go change and…Tucker Gardner was there.”
“Tucker Gardner is dead,” I growled, too disturbed and alarmed by where her story could go.
“He is now,” she informed me. “Rosita killed him. He…was going to abduct me. Take me away from here, away from Wynonna, and you. You were right about him, Nicole. He was scary, and dangerous, and not a good person, and he didn’t—”
She’d cut herself off, then, before looking up at me and adding, “Also, Rosita’s a revenant, and she tried to steal Alice.”
At that point, I’d just sucked in a deep breath and begged her to table the conversation, begged her to wait for our Sorry Party and we’d lay it all out on the table then.
Of course, the details slowly eked out along the way, and by now, with my favorite person in the world draped in my lap, asking me for forgiveness, I really can’t even imagine being mad at her anymore. I feel betrayed, but it’s nothing I didn’t bring upon myself.
“This time,” I squint, one corner of my mouth twitching up. “But no more lies, no more secrets, and definitely no more kissing anyone else without at least talking to me about it first, okay?”
“Deal,” my wonderful, wonderful Waverly beams at me. A smile so bright it could make midnight look like high noon; the kind of smile that makes me fall in love with her all over again. “I can still kiss you though, right?”
“Whenever you want.”
“I always want.”
Our lips meet in a kiss that is equal parts hungry and appreciative and needy, mixed with a little bit of lingering apology and desire to prove our devotion and cement the promises we’ve made. Quickly, my tiny girlfriend adjusts her position so she’s straddling my legs, sitting up just enough to allow my hands to pursue their natural position: cupping the taut globes of her ass. As soon as they make contact, we both moan, luxuriating in the feeling.
“Sometimes I wonder which one of us likes it more when you touch my butt,” she giggles against my lips.
“Me,” I deadpan without missing a beat, staring lustfully at the delectable woman perched above me. “Definitely me.”
She smirks before ducking her head to suck on my neck as I continue to grope her ass indulgently.
“You know,” I suggest, my voice coming out as a low groan. “A wise woman once told me that the best sex is make-up sex.”
“Mm, she sounds like a keeper.”
I respond by initiating another kiss, only to whine when she pulls back from it.
“I think,” she purrs, more than a hint of mischief in her tone. “That since we have so much making up to do with each other, we should each get one night where we get to pick the make-up sex.”
My eyes widen as I gape wordlessly at this woman who is beyond my wildest dreams, and she seems amused with my expression, slipping ten fingers through my hair to cradle my neck as she continues in a low, seductive voice.
“Like, for example, to make up for the fact that you’re a controlling control freak with a secret wife, I think I should tie you to the bed with a strap-on around your hips and ride you until I’m spent, so I can show you just how well I can take care of myself without any help from you.”
Honestly, I think I black out for a second. My brain feels like it’s short circuiting from all the earthshattering images inundating my mind—the way her firm, perfect breasts will bounce when faces me, the way her firm, perfect ass will bounce when she chooses to tease me even more by facing away, the way her abs clench and quiver when she gets close. At first, she’ll keep up the charade that she’s just using me for her own pleasure, so her hands will roam her own body. They’ll tangle in her hair, play with her own nipples, sloppily circle her clit—but after an orgasm or two, she won’t be able to pretend any longer, and she’ll start grasping at me, not just for support, but for intimacy. She’ll claw at my shoulders, paw my breasts, even run her nails down my thighs if her angle allows. After a while, she’ll stop insisting I keep still and let me overtly roll and pump my hips to draw more pleasure from us both, until she starts to meet my rhythm, and her riding me turns into a joint effort. Eventually, she’ll get so sensitive, even a little sore, that the toy will be too much for her and she’ll decide to ride my face instead. If she’s feeling gracious, she might even untie my hands so I can feel her while I taste her.
Who could ask for anything more? Truly, it sounds more like that should be my make-up sex, not the other way around.
“And I’m…not supposed to like that?”
She reacts with a teasing smirk. “The point isn’t that you’re not supposed to like it. The point is, it doesn’t matter if you like it—it only matters that I do.”
Waverly dances her fingertips across my collarbone, but makes sincere, caring eye contact, the kind she makes when she’s searching for consent, or lack thereof.
“Would that be okay with you?”
If she hadn’t broken my brain with her proposal, I might have come up with a witty retort for just how okay I am with it, but instead, I rather ineloquently reply, “Yes. Very that, very—yes.”
“Yeah?” she grins back.
“Yes. Everything you just said. God. Fuck.”
A fire starts to burn between my legs as I imagine the exquisite torture of getting to watch her without getting to touch her. Christ, and I’ll get to hear her, too, and Waverly’s sounds are—fuck. I’m fucked. I might even come more than she does.
“How many times do you think you can get yourself off before you can’t take any more?” I gulp, closing my eyes, pushing and pulling the flesh of her ass so her hips start to undulate, her center rocking against my navel. Her breath hitches audibly, and she rests her forehead against mine.
“Who knows? I’m nothing if not an overachiever.”
I wish I could say I’m not so pathetic that I actually whimper at that, but in my defense, Waverly fucking Earp is grinding in my lap, seducing me, so, if that’s not a reason to whimper, I can’t think of one. If nothing else, she doesn’t seem bothered by my desperate moans; she kisses me hard, swallowing every sound I make until she pulls away, eyes hooded and dark.
“What do you want for your make-up sex, Officer Haught?”
I sigh breathily, still palming her upper thighs, trying in vain to get her hips to move against me, to bring her pleasure, even through all our layers of clothing, but she stays still, so I cut to the chase, hoping my honesty will move things along. “Fuck. I just wanna go down on you all night long.”
I surge forward to suck at her pulse point, but she leans out of my reach.
“Wait, seriously?”
Pouting, I nod, still futilely chasing her skin.
“I just offered you a chance to ask for any kind of sex you want, and you wanna spend another night just watching me come?”
To my surprise, Waverly looks genuinely shocked by this. It’s like she doesn’t know me at all, and I can’t help but laugh a little.
“Waves, have you ever seen yourself come?” I chuckle huskily. “God, baby, it’s like…if Niagara Falls were in the Grand Canyon, and then the northern lights were visible above it. Times a zillion. It’s basically too much beauty for the human brain to fully process, and to see it, and know that I’m the one who gets to do that to you? Who gets to make that happen? It’s…it’s everything.”
Even that doesn’t cover it, though, but Waverly’s beaming at me like a fool in love, so hopefully I conveyed at least half of the glory which is making Waverly Earp come.
“Only you, baby,” she utters, and it sounds like an act of worship. “No one else gets to make me come like that; no one else could make me come like that. It’s only you.”
“I like the sound of that,” I murmur against her lips before pressing in for another feverish kiss.
Then, it occurs to me what I just said.
“Sorry,” I cringe, pulling away. “That sounded gross and possessive, didn’t it?”
But my immaculate genius appears perplexed, her eyebrows furrowed as she studies my face.
“I mean, you’re your own person. You don’t belong to me, and me being all smug about how only I get to make you come—it’s not exactly cute, or kind to you. Kinda feels like something Champ would say.”
My concern, though, is only met with a wry chuckle.
“Sweetie, if you added up every single orgasm I ever had with Champ, it still wouldn’t be half as good as any one orgasm you’ve ever given me.”
A swell of pride starts filling my chest, but I resist it, rolling my eyes instead. “That’s not the point. Sure, it’s…good to know, I guess, but still. I don’t want you to think I’m like that. Like I think I own you, or you belong to me, or anything.”
“Of course I don’t think that,” my cutie promises, taking my face in both of her small, unstoppable hands. “I know you don’t think of me like that. I know you respect me just as much as you love me. You respect me, and you support me, and you are so, so patient and understanding with me. And you get this look in your eyes, when you—God, Nicole, sometimes you look at me like I’m a miracle, and it’s so…overwhelming. It makes me feel like I can fly at the same time that it scares the bejeezus out of me.”
I can’t stop the grin that spreads across my face any more than I can stop my cells from dividing. “You make me feel the same way, pretty girl.”
“So let me make you feel good,” she pouts in a way that I absolutely, definitely will not be able to say no to. “Please, baby? Please let me show you how much I want you.”
She seals the deal by rolling her hips down at a very different angle than before, an angle which puts a delicious friction against my pubic bone and makes it all the more impossible for me to deny her anything. If she asked me for a million dollars, I’d already be wearing a ski mask and on my way to pull a bank job.
“Well,” I croak, my voice cracking like a goddamn teenage boy. “I just said I wanted to go down on you; I didn’t say you couldn’t go down on me at the same time.”
A shiver runs down Waverly’s spine, but not the one that tells me she needs her bonus blanket, the one that tells me she can taste me on her tongue. “We haven’t done that for a while.”
“Which seems criminal, frankly.”
She releases a breathy laugh before clearing her throat, and I know all too well that a verbal contract is about to follow. God, I love my neurotic little nerd, I love her with all the blood in my veins and all the breath in my lungs and I will love her till the day I die, or maybe even longer if the afterlife turns out to be a thing.
“So,” she summarizes, her voice still thick with arousal, yet steady as she confirms the details. “For my make-up sex, I’ll ride you till I’m sore and you’re begging, and for your make-up sex, we’ll eat each other out till we pass out on top of each other. Are we both okay with that, or is there anything you want to talk about or establish first?”
Oh, man, I’d kill and die a million times over for this woman.
“I have one request,” I brave, but she exhales, as if relieved I’ve asked for something.
“During your make-up sex…will you wear my Stetson?”
Waverly groans, rocking her hips forward in a presumably unconscious move, because unlike previous motions, she doesn’t angle downward, and ends up grinding herself against my abdomen again.
Still, it draws a low moan from my throat.
“Yes, Officer Haught, I will wear your Stetson. And you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because I’m yours.”
Once again, my baser instincts take over, and I practically growl at her words. “You need to be naked like, two days ago.”
“Yeah, okay,” Waverly husks. “But is it okay if we save the scenes for later, and tonight we just…play it by ear? Because I’m really, really happy you’re alive, and to be honest, I just want to feel you.”
Already unbuttoning her shirt, I nod into her now fully-exposed cleavage. “You read my mind, Waves.”
Despite the somewhat odd angle for her, her hand is in my pants within a minute, her fingers gliding through my folds as I suck greedily on her breasts.
“You’re so wet for me,” she groans into my ear, collecting my arousal and circling my clit with it.
“Always,” I gasp, clumsier than usual as I frantically work to undo her jeans and get my fingers inside her. “Just for you.”
Our lips meet in an eager, sloppy kiss, our need for each other so visceral and inexorable that our first climaxes of the night come right there and then, perched precariously on the couch, still almost fully dressed, her soft, perfect hair curtaining both our faces. Our releases arrive one right after the other, so close it’s hard to tell who starts first, and they become bound up together—we become bound up together, absorbing and exchanging our passion for each other.
As we come down from our highs, Waverly grows increasingly frantic. It breaks me out of my post-orgasmic haze, because usually, it takes her at least few seconds to recover before she’s ready again—except, once my mind returns to my body, I realize that it doesn’t seem like she’s trying to start things back up quite yet. She’s clawing at me, clinging to me, pecking kisses to every inch of my skin she can reach, peeling off my shirt and knocking my bra askew so she can press her torso flush to mine and burrow her face in my hair.
Taken aback, I wrap my arms tightly around her, kissing her shoulder, stroking her hair, gently rocking her. I don’t know exactly where this is coming from, but I have an inkling, and moreover, it doesn’t really matter why. Soothing her, supporting her, serving her—it has rapidly become the salient reason for my existence.
At first I’m content to merely hold her and be held by her, but once I feel the tears sliding down her cheeks and onto my skin, I can’t stay quiet.
“Waves—”
“I almost lost you,” she sobs, her breath hot against my temple, still trying to draw me closer.
Biting back my own tears, I keep my touch firm and sure, scratching her scalp lightly with my nails in the way that always calms me down, swaying our bodies in that slow rhythm that always calms her down.
“You didn’t, Waverly.”
“I could have. I almost did,” she echoes, her hand fisting against my shoulder.
“I’m right here, my love,” I remind her, digging my face into the side of hers.
“Don’t leave me,” she pleads, barely audible, but soul-crushing all the same. “Please, don’t ever leave me.”
“I won’t,” I pledge, solemn and stalwart. “Not if I can help it.”
“Take me to bed.”
We move to the bed for round two, and three, and so on. I lose track, and I lose track of time, too—we’re at it for hours, probably, but who knows, who cares. We worship each other, cherish each other, and at first, it’s emotional and heavy such that it almost feels like gravity. Like if we stop, the world will, too. But every touch, every mark, every breath serves to remind us, serves as proof of life—proof of our individual lives, as well as our life together, and so slowly but surely, the reminders stack up, and our urgency dwindles. Soon, as we grow sweaty and sore and sated, it feels less vital and more luxurious, and we keep going because we can, because we can bask in the glory of each other.
Eventually, though, even my little Energizer bunny starts to fatigue, and she curls up on top of me like a perfect postcoital blanket, our legs still intertwined, her head resting comfortably on my chest, listening to my heart rate calm down following our marathon activities, and I think this might be my favorite place in the universe.
I use the last of my energy and wherewithal to stretch down and pull the heaviest, warmest duvet over both our bodies, hoping my heat will keep my perennially-cold girlfriend from shivering through the night without her usual heap of blankets. I tuck us in, then slide my hands under the covers, down Waverly’s taut, strong obliques, and settle them atop the delicious downcurve of her ass.
“Home sweet home,” I murmur contently, and she shakes a bit with sleepy laughter.
“D’you hafta go to work tomorrow?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Gonna quit my job and devote my life to fucking you.”
“Don’t tempt me, babe,” she replies drowsily, shifting her body ever-so-slightly, but enough that her warm, sticky thigh presses in against my still-dripping center, and we moan in tandem.
“Tease.”
I feel, rather than see, the naughty smirk spread across Waverly’s face from where it’s nestled in my chest, and she rolls her thigh again, this time with purpose.
My insatiable overachiever.
I respond in kind, of course, because when life gives you Waverly Earp, you do whatever the fuck Waverly Earp wants. Slotting my leg between hers, we grind against each other in a jerky, wearied rhythm until, by some miracle, we bring each other to yet another peak. Then, we truly, totally collapse, both falling asleep before our muscles finish twitching or our breath is fully caught, our skin stuck together with sweat.
And I swear, if this isn’t heaven, then righteousness ain’t worth it.
----
Waverly’s POV
When I wake up, it’s early. Like, stupid early. The first rays of dawn are creeping in through the curtains, casting a faint, purplish-grey haze over the room, and I blink blearily as I try to pinpoint why on Earth I’m awake.
It doesn’t take long.
Usually, especially given our incongruent sleeping temperatures, Nicole and I snuggle together for a while at bedtime, but roll away when one of us actually intends to sleep. Sometimes we’ll keep holding hands under my mountain of blankets, because we’re adorable, but by and large, we sleep peacefully on our respective sides of the bed, then come together again once we wake up in the morning. It’s the ideal arrangement for us both.
After our extra special bonus round last night, however, we did not roll away from each other; I didn’t even roll off of her, so I’ve been sleeping spread out on top of her, our bodies separated by only a drying layer of sweat and slick, meaning I can feel, and hear, my baby’s heart pounding in her chest.
She grows fitful in her sleep, her hands clenching and unclenching around the curve of my waist, her body jerking and twitching intermittently. She moans, and whimpers, and whines—and thanks in equal parts to our voracious sex life and much-too-frequent close encounters with death, I thought I’d memorized and catalogued every moan, whimper, and whine in Nicole’s lexicon, be it from pleasure or pain, but these ones are new.
They sound…scared.
I hesitate; I’ve never seen Nicole have a nightmare before. I’ve never even really seen her act scared, so I’m not sure if I should wake her up or let her be.
But when I raise my head up and see my favorite face contorted in agony and fear, it shatters my soul, and I become determined to make it better. I reach up, smoothing my thumb over her cute little worry wrinkle, gently shushing her in between firm kisses to her impeccable jawline.
“Wake up, sweetie,” I soothe. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”
Luckily, even in my somnolent state, I have the foresight to brace myself against Nicole’s shoulders, because she jolts awake with enough force that she would have otherwise knocked me clean off the bed.
“Whoa, whoa,” I coo, gently coaxing her back down again the mattress. “You’re okay. You were just having a bad dream.”
But the lulling words don’t appear to mean much to her, and no sooner does the faraway, dazed look in her eyes start to dissipate than it is instantly replaced with sheer panic, and she flings her arms around me, apologizing profusely and needlessly.
“I’m so sorry, Waves. Jesus, fuck, I’m so sorry.”
Deeply flummoxed, I resort to stroking her hair and reassuring her in soft, dulcet tones, “Hey, hey. It’s okay, it’s fine. You’re safe, I’m safe. It was a dream, it wasn’t real.”
Nicole gulps audibly, still clinging to me like it’s the only thing keeping us alive. “Yeah. Just a dream.”
“D’you wanna talk about it?” I offer, knowing already what the answer will be.
“No,” Nicole responds instantly, predictably. “It’s okay. I’m okay. But…can you stay here? I like feeling you above me.”
I frown, doubtful. “I’m not crushing you?”
“Baby, Calamity Jane weighs more than you. Although she isn’t nearly as comfy as you when she decides to sleep on my chest.”
Chuckling, I settle further into the embrace, resuming my prior position by curling my head against Nicole’s sternum, listening intently to the gradually relaxing (but still faster than normal) heartbeat beneath that flawless ivory skin.
“You don’t have bad dreams that often. I didn’t know whether to wake you up or not.”
“Sorry,” Nicole mutters sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I feel the body beneath me as it flinches, followed by its deep rumbling as it says, “Still. Sorry.”
“I’m not mad. I just want to know how to take care of you. I like to take care of you, and if you—okay, so when I have a bad dream, I like to be woken up. I don’t want to suffer through it if I don’t have to. But Wynonna, she…I don’t know. She’d rather suffer through it, I guess, and I don’t understand it, but I know that about her, so even though it sucks, and I hate it, I just have to let her suffer, because that’s how she prefers it, and if I do anything else, she gets mad at me, and I—”
“Baby,” Nicole interjects. “I really wanna hear you out, but I’m still super sleepy, and you’re kinda rambling, so can we please table this conversation until we’ve slept a few more hours?”
I blush furiously. “Yeah. Of course. Sorry.”
Adjusting my weight, I prepare to move off of her, give her space to sleep peacefully, but I’m abruptly halted by two strong arms intently tightening their grip around my waist.
“If you’re about to roll off me for your own comfort, I can live with that—but if you’re thinking you should do it for my benefit, I’d really prefer if you didn’t.”
Her request is quintessential Nicole—always ready to meet me where I am with benevolence and sensitivity, never pushing, while still patiently and kindly letting me know where she stands.
I don’t know what I did to deserve someone who loves me like this; certainly it must be some kind of mistake, and soon enough she’ll leave me like everyone else does, but I’m content to enjoy it while it lasts.
Reaching back, I guide her arms further down my body, informing her, “Well, when you had your nightmare, your hands had drifted dangerously high. Maybe you should be more diligent about keeping them on my butt, where they belong. Then you won’t have bad dreams.”
Nicole eagerly rectifies the situation, her hands attaching to my ass like magnets.
“You’re a genius,” she manages to mumble before, presumably, falling asleep.
Meanwhile, I lay awake for a little while longer, pressing my ear to her heart, counting each beat as evidence that she’s here, she’s alive and she’s here. Her heart still beats, and at least for now, it beats for me.