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The way he touches her feels like a revelation. Not because she’s never been touched like this, but because with every press of his fingertips to her skin, he sighs into her, long and sweet, as though he’s unburdening himself with every glance of her body.
It’s as though she’s been waiting for this touch.
It’d not been particularly romantic, how they’d fallen into bed. She’d brought back takeout after work, the two of them content to watch television and wait for Jonathan to bring the kids back from the movies. It was something they did often, using the children’s friendship as an excuse to be around one another.
It had started innocently enough: Hopper stealing potato chips off of her plate, she flicking at him with each pilfered chip. But then she’d stopped him, grabbed his wrist amidst gentle laughter, and she watched as his breath hitched and then ceased. She’d stopped laughing then, feeling him tense, and let her thumb linger over the pulse point in his wrist.
A rerun of the Mary Tyler Moore tittered on the television.
“Joyce…”
“Hop,” she’d reached across with one hand, placing her plate and then his on the coffee table. It didn’t feel like jumping off a cliff, but rather like stepping softly across a threshold, “You should kiss me, now.”
And so he had.
Gently at first, seemingly testing the waters, but she wasn’t having that, not at all. Joyce had taken it upon herself to straddle his lap, fit his face between her hands and had kissed him, deeply and properly.
She’d half led, half-dragged him down the hallway, on rubbery legs. Now, in her untidy bedroom, he manages to unhook her bra with only two tries and one hand, and she laughs breathlessly into his mouth after he murmurs, “Still got it.”
If she’d known this was going to happen tonight—and she tried not to think of it at all, tried not to hope for it—she would have worn something other than plain gray cotton undergarments. Though, Jim doesn’t seem to mind, not in the slightest, as he takes a step back, closer to her bed, and surveys the body before him.
“Christ, Joyce,” he says, voice sounding rough and unused.
She doesn’t know what to do with her hands. “What?”
“Noth-nothing, you look, god, you look…” he drags a hand over his nose, mouth, his beard. “Better than anything I’ve ever…”
Joyce feels doubly naked, standing topless before him, knowing that he’s thought of this too. She’d hoped—but you can’t ever really be sure until you’re in bed with someone, that they ever wanted to go to bed with you, she knows—and having that knowledge makes her feel both vulnerable and somehow absurdly powerful. Her chest feels full with the force of it.
“Just… yeah,” he says, face open and delighted. He laughs, once, and shakes his head, as though he can’t believe what he’s seeing.
Joyce flushes, knows she can’t help it, because the last time someone looked at her like this…
No, she can’t remember the last time someone looked at her like this; maybe no one has. She feels her heart in her throat and something molten in her belly, and her head is spinning with everything she’s even wanted to do to him. And she’s had plenty of time to think about that.
Somewhere between high school graduation and him reappearing in her life, she’s thought about every filthy thing she could do to this man. Before, it was all a fantasy; something just out of reach that made her feel alight, scandalous, sexy. But now, with him standing before her, looking at her in wonder, it’s infinitely better than anything her mind had conjured.
This is real, this is right, this is something she’s wanted for longer than she’s really allowed herself to accept.
“Jim,” she tries, because she feels attractive but admittedly awkward, standing with her breasts out in the middle of her dimly-lit bedroom. He’s feet away from her, still surveying her skin, and she’s not sure she knows what her next move should be.
No one’s ever looked at her like this.
He takes two steps forward, still fully clothed, and takes her biceps in either of his hands. “Are you… not are you sure, because I know you’re sure, you wouldn’t… I know you wouldn’t.” He wets his lips with his tongue and breathes out a steadying breath, his eyes falling shut. His palm comes up to smooth over his mouth, his beard, the very act seeimingly pulling the words out of him. “This isn’t going to be something I put away.”
Joyce swallows, acknowledges what he’s saying for what it is: massive. She’s not sure she ever understood it before now, but the realization floods over her like a wave: he’s all or nothing in everything, including her. Jim Hopper has had some generic fucks—everyone in the damned town knows that—but this isn’t anywhere in the vicinity of something like that.
She’s not sure how she feels about that—a bit on the spot, to be sure, at having something stated so plainly without preempt. The notion that he’s sure about the two of them, but mostly about her, fills her with a puffy sort of pride. This is something that he wants. The thought knocks her a bit off kilter. The sense of power and pride war with her slight insecurity, to be giving herself over, finally, to someone she genuinely wants to become entirely immersed in.
Her left hand lifts, pulling his right hand away from her arm and moving it—shakily, but so surely—to her breast. An affirmation that her words would mirror his own, if she could speak. But it bowls her over, the immensity of it all, what this means, between the two of them.
Their mutual history speaks of so much pain and loss, that she very nearly can’t imagine them creating something beautiful together. Her heart hammers, and her skin pricks with gooseflesh and she wants to be touched so badly she can damn-near feel it in her teeth.
Jim raises both his brows simultaneously and she smiles in return, and then he’s kissing her again.
The mother in her reminds her that they have perhaps an hour and a half and that’s not nearly enough time to have all of this play out as she’d like it to. She wants this to unfold over weeks and months, the two of them in a bed for ages and ages. But she’s never been shy about acknowledging reality; she’s a mother of two and he’s just adopted a child and she wants him inside of her this instant, and who gives a damn how long they have?
As long as they have a moment together, this moment, it’s enough. It has to be.
And she knows, full-well, that first times are so rarely perfect; there’s no sense in putting any pressure on this. She doesn’t need to.
Joyce takes a breath, deeply, and lets go of everything—any preconceived notion she had about what this might be like. She owes it to herself, and to him, to be in the moment.
Go with the flow for once in your damned life, she tells herself, as she gives herself over to the tide that is Jim Hopper.
It’s all a bit chaotic, his mouth glancing over her cheekbone as she fumbles with shaky hands on his buttons. She’s never hated flannel so much as she does in this moment, fighting with slick plastic, trying to force it through tiny holes. Her mouth purses, and she grunts, tearing her mouth form his with a frustrated, little huff.
“Hop, Hop, take it off, I can’t.”
He takes a wobbly step back, bottom lip caught between his teeth; he’s trying not to laugh at her.
“Shut up!” she whines, mouth twisting into a tiny smile that cannot be helped. “I could rip it open or you could save yourself having to buy another flannel shirt and take it off because my fingers won’t just…”
“Too excited?” he jokes, but he does as told, and quickly.
She rolls her eyes, so fully that it’s theatrical and he barks another laugh at seeing it.
“Okay, c’mon,” Joyce cajoles, voice flat and seemingly unmoved. But it’s the truth, she is excited. What little functioning space left in her mind is occupied with not giving into fits of premonition. She wants the surprise of it, wants each moment to unfold independent of any fantasy.
Jim shakes his head, smiling, and shucks off the top half of his clothing.
Better, she thinks, much better. Taking a step forward, she reaches out and brushes against his right nipple, delighting in the full body shiver that wracks him. He’s as keyed up as she is, and the realization spurs her on, bringing her mouth to his chest and testing the texture there. The hiss of air that he emits bolsters up her confidence another notch and Joyce dips her head to the left, taking his nipple gently between her teeth.
“I,” he begins to say, and then he laughs, short little staccato bursts, shock evident in his tone, his frame.
“I, christ,” and maybe no one has done this for him before, or maybe they have, but Joyce wants to hear that delighted burst of awe from him, so she bites carefully down.
“Jesus!”
His hands flutter at her elbows, at her hips, as though they don’t know where to land. There’s a ticking clock in Joyce’s head, counting down the moments until their solitude will be interrupted. They don’t have time for patience; they don’t have time to let him discover every bit of her body, they don’t have time for the sincere words and deliberate gestures that the moment truly calls for.
That she needs.
What they have time for is a quick fuck.
And all she really wants right now, aside from an overt confirmation that this isn’t ending—which he’s already given her—is skin on skin, sweat. She wants to know what he tastes like.
“Good,” she says on a breath and her fingers come alive with kinetic energy. Her index finger slides between the leather overlap and his belt and pulls it free, makes quick work of the buckle and slicks the accessory through the loops in his trousers. It drops to the floor with a jangle and a thunk, the sounds somehow making the moment seem sharper, more real.
Jim unbuttons his jeans and lets them fall, tries to kick them away and instead falls back on the bed, looking to her almost as though he’s never done this before. It’s a charming thought, so innocent and silly, but she likes it, that he’s so eager to get undressed for her that he’s forgotten how his limbs work.
She lets her loose jeans pool at the floor and toes easily out of her socks as he lifts his hips and gets rid of his boxer briefs. It feels all fast-forward, but she’ll take this over anything else.
His hair is askew in a way that makes her want to burn down to ashes; she steps forward because her fingers belong there, in his hair. He catches her, large, warm hands around her hips as short nails scratch against his scalp. His lips find the tender skin above her navel, kissing her there, short little dots of pecks.
The kisses tickle, and so she squirms and laughs, but he wraps his arms around her hips and swivels around so that he can lay her out on the bed. Index fingers skim beneath the waistband of her underwear and he maneuvers them off.
He looms over her for a moment, before his eyes flash and he manages to stoop down onto his knees. “Okay?” he asks, his warm palms already moving to part her thighs.
She appreciates the gesture, appreciates him asking, and perhaps her hand scraping at what skin she can reach is too much, but he doesn’t even really need the hint before he dips his head.
The first pass of his tongue is almost nothing, but he returns with a stronger press. She melts back into the softness of the bed, her hips not bucking but pressing luxuriously up, into the heat. Her fingers can’t help but weave back into his hair; she doesn’t care if it’s wanton, she arches into his mouth.
He hums, and the vibrations have her pressing his face away for a moment.
“Good, but… too much,” she rasps, and he nods, leaving a wet kiss on her thigh before leaning back in. He slides between her folds easily, slips upwards, teases her clit gently. It’s just enough to tease, to shiver her right up against the edge without pushing her over. She might think it’s expert, if she could think, but her mind is a haze of pleasant static and heat.
When he slides a finger into her, her right hand slaps at the sheets; it’s strangely like being tickled, pleasant until it’s effusive and overwhelming. Joyce grinds down and then shimmies up and away, and he follows her, gentling his strokes, massaging her clitoris with every few movements. The pleasure is just short of painful, and when she begins keening, Jim slides up, elbows settling on the bed.
“Y’okay?” He’s holding her, awkwardly, at the foot of the bed.
“Mmm,” Joyce sighs, eyes peeling open. “Okay.”
She twists, half-crawling up the bed until her head lands on a pillow; he follows, a tad more lumbering, but completely charming. Jim tucks his arm beneath his head, mirroring her, his face morphing into relaxed bliss.
Pursing her lips, she smiles coquettishly and with no warning, reaches across and takes him in hand. His breath hisses as he sucks in air between this teeth and she gives a silent laugh. His eyes fall closed and then blink drunkenly open.
“Okaaaay,” he says and with a slight jostle manages to kiss her.
“One sec,” comes her rushed whisper, and she removes her hand, twisting towards the bedside table. There’s a curse as she knocks a bottle of aspirin to the floor, but when she turns back, it’s with a small bottle of lubricant in hand. “Success!”
Joyce balances on her hip and slicks him up, her palm slow over the length of him. Jim’s jaw goes slack, caught between a grin and a groan, and he peeks one eye open to glance at her; their gazes meet.
“Never in a million years,” he manages.
“Really?”
He shakes his head as he shivers, “One-ah those ‘too good to be true’ things.”
She times her next stroke with the elongated “Ohhhh,” of acknowledgement that she breathes. The pad of her thumb sweeps over the slit in his cock, stays there, back and forth, for a moment, before his abdominals tense and his entire body jerks.
“Good?” Joyce asks as she lightens her touch.
“Fuck, yes. Of course, are you—” and he stops speaking altogether when she dips her fingers beneath and slick over his sac.
Joyce feel aroused and delighted and silly and full to the brim with gratitude. Making him feel good is making her feel incredible, and somehow, like the thrum of her own heart, she knows he feels the same way. It’s in every sound he makes, every way in which their bodies press together.
“Christ, sweet christ,” he grits, before securing his fingers around her wrist, bringing a stop to her strokes. “Naw-yet,” he slurs and turns remarkably quickly, covering her body with his own. Her head reaches up off of the pillow to meet him halfway, accepting his kiss as she falls back.
The thumb that sweeps over her cheek is feather-light, and Joyce is torn between an overwhelming tenderness and a desire for him to touch her with firm deliberation. She wants everything from him, all at once. It’s maddening.
He rearranged his body gently, half-on top, half off, and kisses her, languidly. The taste of herself on his tongue isn’t subtle at all, and she relishes in the delicate filthiness. She reaches between them once more, fingertips glancing off the tip of his cock.
He pulls off, blows a breath up into his own face, steadying and calming. “Condom?”
For a moment, she panics. She never really thought about that; Bob always did, and she’s not sure where the condoms would be in the first place. She’d gone through the house after what happened in November, can’t recall coming across any.
“One sec,” Jim says and rolls away, a wave of cold air racing over her body, causing gooseflesh. She pushes herself up onto her elbows and watches as he rummages in his jeans, coming away with his wallet, triumphant as though it’s a gold medal. “I think I have,” and he digs into the billfold and pulls out a beat up foil packet.
The light in the room is dim, so he squints hard down at the perforated packaging. “Not! Expired!” he crows and weakly pumps the fist with it into the air.
She rolls her eyes and falls back against the pillows, grateful that he still carries a condom, placated that it’s been in there so long that he thought it might have expired.
When he settles between her thighs, he’s grinning goofily at her, and it sends her into a fit of giggles. Her left palm comes up to cover her mouth, but he shakes his head. Jim is laughing too as he peels her hand away and pecks her goofily.
“Kay?” he asks.
“Mmmhmm,” she hums and nods once as he fumbles onto one elbow and guides himself inside.
There’s a twinge—it’s been awhile—and he must read it on her face because he pauses, leans in and drags the tip of his nose back and forth across hers. She lifts her mouth to his face, touches his chin.
“Okay,” her words gust across his cheek.
“Okay,” he reiterates. He drops a kiss on the tip of her nose, and moves.
“Oh,” she breathes, startled by the intensity of the movement.. They stare at each other, his pupils blown wide, searching. Her legs scrabble against the small of his back, slip around to his thighs, his calves, finding the exact position in which they work best.
He ducks his mouth to hers, their lips smearing together and then apart, their bodies jostled by the force of his thrusts. Joyce’s hands meander from his shoulders to find purchase at the curve of his ass. His mouth finds the spot beneath her left ear and he bites, gently.
When she blinks her eyes open, she finds him staring at her, and she fights the urge to glance away. He’s so open, so full of everything, that she’s not quite sure she can handle it. He shifts his right knee and her mind blanks as his body presses into her clit, friction against it, over and over. “Yes,” she gasps and hitches up her hips, begins meeting him more intently with every thrust.
“Yes, yeah,” Joyce says against his mouth. He grunts back, right hand slipping around to palm her thigh, hitch her up higher as he thrusts just a bit deeper.
Their chests move against one another, slick with sweat and without a thought, she brings her left hand up to tease her own nipple. He notices, his thrusts stuttering, gives a chuckle, “Fuck, yes.” She’s laughing too, mouth falling open, and her lip is between his teeth, another soft bite, the slightest pressure.
Her back arches, and Joyce is pressing up into him, getting as much of his skin against her own as possible. She feels alight, as though she’s about to sizzle up and evaporate away beneath him. Stretched too thin, filled too full, the exquisite edge between pleasure and too much. She keens, shakes her face away and finds herself sinking her teeth into the meat of his shoulder.
A distant, primal part of her brain whispers at her about how lovely that bruise would bloom.
“Fuck, Joyce,” he grits, and she feels him shiver, close. The friction is wonderful, and she’s drinking in the needy sounds he’s making, but she’s close too. She helps herself along, leaves her left hand clutched around his neck, fingernails in his hair, and reaches down with her right.
That too causes his rhythm to falter, another “fuck” to fall from his lips, and then his hips pick up the pace and he shifts to his other elbow, holding himself aloft while he reaches down and takes her nipple between thumb and forefinger. It’s awkward and fumbling in a way she doesn’t much care about, because his lips are moving against hers and she’s coming, rolling quakes of her body that makes her pelvis buck and her throat close.
Jim falls into her arching neck, her body pulling at him, and he comes with a short moan, the bridge of his nose sliding over the cut of her jaw before he stops at the corner of her mouth and presses there. “Joyce, god... Joyce.”
Her breath comes back in little sips, and her blood slows back to it’s normal pace, and she’s not sure who reaches for whom first, but she finds herself being held. Their skin grows tacky, but they don’t move, both shaken by the brilliance in what they’ve done, and quite not sure where to place it just yet.
When his fingers begin caressing her feather light up and down her bicep, she feels compelled to speak.
“Long time coming,” she mentions, and it’s sadder than she intended, tinged with grey, something heavy.
But his mouth touches the top of her head and he snuggles down into her.
“Long time,” he agrees and brings her in as close as he can. “Long, long time.” His tone is lighter, freer, and it makes her believe that maybe this won’t be as hard as she’s assuming it will be. The two of them, how could it be anything other than difficult.
She can hear words floating in from the living room. A joke, a canned laugh track. Mary Tyler Moore seems years away as she rests in his arms, comforted, sated and feeling steadier than she has in some time.
Joyce tips her head back, manages to catch his eye and he smiles at her, something unfolding over his face like the dawn. It’s gorgeous, and she takes a moment before speaking, because she realizes that she’s the one that put that smile there. “Kids’ll be back soon.”
“Yeah.” He drops another kiss on the top of her head, then one on the curve of her shoulder. “We should get up.”
“Yes,” she confirms, drifting, the slightest bit, and tips her head back so that it’s cushioned by the curve of his neck.
He sighs, and he manages to work a small quilt out from beneath the both of them. Jim flicks it and it lands, covering most of their tangled legs. “Maybe just ten more minutes.”
“Ten more minutes,” she confirms, relieved that she gets to bask in this for just a bit longer. Joyce stretches her legs out, then slides her bottom leg between his, feeling completely unravelled and warmly undone.
And when he curls their bodies perfectly together, her brain forms a half-baked idea that maybe this could be good, for the both of them. Maybe this could be something real.
Reality can wait ten damned minutes.