Pain au Chocolat and Things More and Less Pleasant
They should have just called room service for the stupid pastries. Never mind that the hotel's weren't as good as those of the bakery down the street, never mind that Ben had finally grudgingly managed to pull himself out of bed and leave the room for them. The hotel's weren't bad. This was Paris, it was hard to find bad pastries. They were just being picky.
That was Abigail's first thought, as she came out of the bathroom, dressed only in a towel, and found Ian Howe sitting on the bed. We should have just called room service.
He was sitting on the bed -- not on the couch, not at the table, he had come into the bedroom, he was sitting on the bed -- and smiling coolly at her.
"You must have quite a lawyer, Mr. Howe," was all Abigail said after they had stared at one another for a few moments. Well, she had stared, and he had just kept smiling at her.
Ian laughed at that, a little, and there was something sweet about the laugh itself, about the way he ducked his head, as though he were self-conscious and she had just paid him a compliment. And then, as he looked up again, "Please don't," he said calmly, still smiling, and looked pointedly towards the hand she had behind her back, the one with her cell phone in it. Abigail saw again what he held in his hand, the gun, and she didn't know if the safety might be on or not, nor was there probably much sense in testing. She put the phone on the dresser.
Sweet was the right word for it, she decided as she regarded him for another couple of moments. Or it would have been, if she didn't know him, if he didn't have a gun in his hand, if he hadn't broken into their suite.
Broken in. That was something, too, how had he got in?
"How did you get in?" Abigail asked. She hadn't heard anything while she was in the bathroom.
And again, Ian just laughed a little. "Those keycard doors aren't really so difficult," he said casually. "Where's Ben?"
Which was when she heard the door to the suite open. "Abigail?" Ben called.
That, really, was remarkable timing.
"In here, Ben," Abigail answered. "Just leave the food on the table."
"Oh," she heard him say, and the way he said it made her grit her teeth and close her eyes so that Ian couldn't see her roll them... and so that she wouldn't have to look at Ian, because she could imagine the smirk he'd be giving her.
He was still holding the paper bag when he came into the bedroom.
"Hello, Ben," Ian said, with a little nod, and he was still just wearing that same casual, friendly smile.
Ben said nothing, just stared at Ian for a few moment.
"I told you to leave the pastries on the table," Abigail said.
Ben stared at her for a moment this time. Abigail sighed, reached into the bag, and took out a pastry. She picked at it a bit, in the silence.
Finally, "Ian," Ben said, his voice blank. He glanced at Abigail out of the corner of his eye.
That was when Abigail threw the pastry at Ian. Ben followed suit, throwing the bag, grabbed Abigail's arm, and pulled her through the bedroom door. There was a shout from Ian, one which they could easily have ignored, except that as they were running for the door of the suite, Abigail's towel came loose.
Personally, she could've handled a few people in the hallway seeing her naked -- if they even encountered anyone before she could fix it in the elevator, or on the stairs. But Ben, damn him, stopped, and looked from her to the door.
And then there was a click behind them, and Abigail saw Ben flinch, a little, as he looked back over the top of her head. So she looked back, too, and sure enough, there was Ian, and the click had probably been him turning the safety off, because the gun was pointing at them both.
"Please don't do that again," he said quietly.
"Ian, what do you want?" Ben asked. He sounded tired, sort of, despite the fact that they'd been awake for maybe an hour.
"Yes, Ian, what do you want?" Abigal asked, pulling the towel around herself again.
Ian smiled. "Just a few minutes of your time," he said smoothly.
At which Abigail snorted, and crossed her arms over her chest. Or would have, except that she hadn't fixed the towel very well, and it came loose again when she raised her arms. Ian's eyebrows went up a little, though his face didn't change otherwise. "Scheisse," Abigail muttered, adjusting the towel. Ben looked out the window as she did so, she saw from the corner of her eye. Ian didn't, just kept smiling at her. Which drew him a glare from Ben, though no one said anything.
Ian had, she noticed, caught her pastry. Or possibly picked it up, as he was still holding the gun in his right hand, and the pastry was in his left. This, for what felt like a number of reasons but may not have been so very many, irritated her. It looked like it was one of the pain au chocolat things that she had fallen so in love with their first day in Paris.
The gun remained where it was, but Ian seemed to notice what she was looking at, because he lifted his left hand, the one with the pain au chocolat in it, and took a bite. Never mind that he'd tried to murder them a few months ago, never mind that he'd just this morning broken into their room and threatened them, never mind even that she was fairly certain he'd been genuinely checking her out when her towel slipped, as opposed to just trying to annoy Ben. Now he was going to eat her damned pain au chocolat, and that was what really irritated her.
Stupid. Petty. But it was stupid and petty of her to have been glowering at him over it in the first place. So she supposed that she deserved it.
"Right," Ian said calmly, after he'd swallowed, and lifted the gun to point it into the air, showing them both as he clicked the safety on. "If you two will give me your word that you're not going to go anywhere, I'll put the gun away."
Abigail scoffed. Ben just kept glaring at Ian. Ian looked at them both calmly, the gun still in his hand.
At last, Abigail sighed. "Fine," she said grudgingly, and looked at Ben.
"Fine," Ben said, following suit.
Ian nodded. "Fine," he said as well, and closed the distance between himself and them, leaning over to set the gun down on the table.
There was a little bit of chocolate at the corner of Ian's mouth, and then, because she was feeling particularly petty, Abigail kissed him there. It was done suddenly, softly, and then she was sliding her tongue along that spot, too, which she didn't think had been part of the plan, but which wasn't entirely unpleasant. She tasted chocolate and sweet and skin. Ian gave a soft grunt, turned his head a little, and caught her lips -- lip, really, just her lower lip. He sucked at it, lightly, and when Abigail heard herself make a little quiet noise of her own, she felt his teeth there, too, tugging gently at her lip.
"It was supposed to be mine," was all Abigail said. At which Ian laughed, but it was not so sweet this time.
"Things don't always go the way you plan them, Abigail," Ian said, and something about the way he said her name, her name, makes her close her teeth on his skin. That bit of skin beneath his jaw, not quite at his adam's apple, a little above and a little to the side, she bites him there. He hissed in a way that gratified her, and as her lips slipped against his skin, she was surprised (even given the early hour) by how smooth it was. And she tasted, even against her tongue's memory of the chocolate and skin, some tang, a little hint of bitter. He'd only just shaved in the past hour or so, she knew suddenly.
And Ben wasn't staring anymore. She knew he must not have been, because there were arms closing around her waist, between her own body and Ian's. It was only when she felt how tightly those hands fit between them that she realized how close she and Ian were to one another. Which was something that made sense, given that she was just biting at his throat, but it hadn't registered fully.
And one of Ian's arms had gone around her, too, and she heard sounds, felt warmth beside her cheek, and turned to see that Ian was kissing Ben. It was a sight that surprised Abigail, or more precisely, it was a sight that she surprised herself in seeing, for she found that it was really a very erotic sight. She was even more pleased, though, when Ben's arms tightened around her in response, when he turned his head to kiss her, even as Ian was kissing him, kissing the side of his mouth.
The towel was starting to come loose again, Abigail realized. Which was probably all the jostling, the arms around her, Ben's and Ian's, and the movement, because even small movements can spell disaster where towels are concerned.
Ben brought one of his arms up, then, to push the still-damp locks of hair aside and kiss her shoulder. And she realized, as she found herself glancing at Ian and found him looking back at her, that Ben was very, very hard. And the look in Ian's eyes, the way that they were darker than she remembered them being, made her think that he might be, too.
Ian kissed her, then, a full-on proper kiss, his mouth pressed against hers. And Ben faltered from where he had been, his lips trailing along her shoulder, at the nape of her neck, on her back. She wondered -- half-wondered, in the way that you always thought things when someone was kissing you and doing it well, because Ian, she was finding, was no slouch when it came to kissing -- if he was feeling much the same watching Ian kiss her as she had felt watching Ian kiss him.
Well, for whatever it was worth, Ben was still holding her tightly, and he didn't seem to have got any less hard while he was watching them. And one of Ian's hands was on Abigail's waist, but the other, she wasn't sure where the other was -- which made her think that it might be somewhere on Ben. From the corner of her eye, she saw his arm, and realized that as he was kissing her, as Ian was kissing her, he was touching Ben's face, as well.
And then, suddenly, something seemed to ache, a little. And she realized that Ian had run his thumb over her nipple, which was hard already beneath the towel. It mostly felt pleasant, but there was the tiniest bit of an ache, too, and that's why she made a very low sound as she let her head drop against Ben's chest.
One of Ben's arms was still tight around her, but the other -- the other was moving. He stroked Ian's cheek briefly, she saw from the corner of her eye, and then his hand was back on her. Ben paused, then, and she realized what it is that he was hesitating for. His hand was on the towel, and she didn't say anything, just gave him the slightest nod, made a small, assenting sound. As he pulled the towel off of her, she brought her own hands up, and found that she was smiling as she unceremoniously pushed Ian's jacket open. Surprisingly, Ian not only let her do this, but he pulled his arms back and helped her, shrugging out of the jacket, even as he was moving closer to her, leaning against her and over her shoulder.
Abigail realized, suddenly, from what she saw when she turned her head, that he was kissing Ben. And judging from the fact that Ben had just given one of those quiet whimper-grunts of his, the ones that sounded masculine even though they shouldn't have, Ben was kissing Ian back.
Again, this was something that surprised her, in that she did not expect to find it nearly so erotic a sight as she did.
When fingers first slid along the soft skin beneath her navel, when a couple of fingers first slid into her, when a thumb brushed her clit and made her hiss, she wasn't sure whose they were. Having closed her eyes didn't help very much. The angle, though, the angle made her think that it was Ben, because he was behind her, and when she opened her eyes a little, she was right.
They were still kissing, and the smell of Ian was stronger than that of Ben. Ian had been up longer, Ian was more groomed, Ben had simply rolled out of bed and gone to the bakery. So Ben smelled vaguely like Paris streets and bakery and bed, and Ian smelled like aftershave and also vaguely of Paris streets, but better-groomed Paris streets. The fingers that were inside of her, the thumb that was rubbing at her clit and starting to send those tingling, jerking waves through her, that hand was Ben's. But the hand on her right breast, the one that was stroking again, rubbing and even pinching, a little, at her nipple, that was Ian's.
All three of them were making low sounds, now, grunts and sighs and things of that nature. And then Ben was kissing her, her temple, and she shuddered, just a little. There was the sound of mouth on skin, so Ian must be kissing Ben even as Ben was kissing her, and Ben was a little less hesitant, now, moving his hand. The other one, she didn't know where that one might be, because it wasn't on her, but it was mattering less and less, a great many things (if not everything) were mattering less and less as she felt herself stutter and jerk, become tighter in some places and come more and more apart in others.
There was a moment's pause after she came, a stillness that they all fell into for just a moment or two. And Abigail saw a chance, and took it, and slipped out from between the two of them, felt them staring at her as she walked back towards the bedroom.
"So," Abigail said, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the frame of the doorway (as though she always worked naked, as though naked and flushed and still panting, a little, were the standard dress code at the National Archives), "are you going to tell us what this is about, Ian?"
Ben was staring at her, his mouth slightly open, and frowning. But Ian, she thought, understood her, because he laughed, a little, and crossed his own arms, and gave her a grin that was very much an understanding one.
You had to take these opportunities as they came, after all.