Work Text:
Emma thought she knew the American reporter staying at the hotel from the moment he arrived. He was arrogant and self-involved, unobservant and crude, disloyal and far too reliant on alcohol to be a gentleman. Over time, though, he’d proven himself worthy of her respect. He cared so deeply about the people he spoke to, the people he spoke about on his radio program. Oh, yes, he walked about the town rather cavalierly, but he was very conscious of his own and everyone else’s position in the world.
In those moments in which he acted against his own self-interest, though, was where he’d earned her friendship. When he stayed all night with her and the old woman’s corpse during the bombing; when he’d held her as she wept for Billy and all he would never be; when he’d playfully offered to provide feedback for her party, and then stepped in to advise Freddie on Toby’s situation. Perhaps it was foolish of her, as many things over the previous months had been. But in her eyes, Joe O’Hara’s actions were rather worthy of admiration, even if he didn’t always make the right choice. Especially if he made the wrong choice for the right reasons.
And then he’d kissed her, and she had quite liked it. If she hadn’t had work to do, she realized later, she would have suggested finding someplace more private. It wasn’t ladylike or genteel, but he sparked a sort of elation and righteousness in her that made her want to take risks.
Since that night, they’d gone out a couple of times. Those nights always began and ended with a kiss and nothing more. A part of her, the childish, girlish part that had always had a romantic streak, wanted him to tell her that he loved her. She did her best to suppress that part of herself—maybe someday, in a time unmarred by the realities of war, they might be able to know love for each other. But needs must, after all, and at present they both simply needed a spot of fun. Their dates were lovely, yes, and they cared for each other. But all in all, she was fairly sure they offered each other a bit of comfort and contrast from the rest of their days, mired as they were in service to others.
Tonight, thought, she didn’t want it to just be a dear friendship. She didn’t want it to end in a kiss. She just wanted to feel what it was to be loved again.
They got back to the hotel later than they had planned. She’d phoned her father when she realized it would be awhile, and he seemed content with her plan—if anything, he seemed preoccupied with his own worries, which while concerning, at least opened up opportunities for her and Joe.
The rain had decided to make an appearance out of the blue. Joe wrapped his coat around her, and together they sped down the lane to find cover under the overhang by the back entrance. “Christ, it’s torrential,” he complained with a small shiver as they stepped out of the downpour.
She couldn’t help but laugh at the way that he still, after all this time, could be surprised by London weather. “I don’t think I can sleep after that mad escape. What were you thinking, having us run all the way back? We could have waited, you know.”
He smiled and removed his hat. “Yeah, but where’s the fun in that?”
It was that time again, where he leaned in to press his lips to hers and she consented heartily. But this time, she let her hands fall to his chest, and one eventually found its way to the back of his head, grasping gently at his hair.
He groaned at the touch, his mouth opening to hers, and she took the opportunity to run her tongue along his lower lip. For a moment, it served to spur him on, but then he paused and pulled his face back just a little bit, keeping their foreheads pressed together.
“Emma, you don’t have to—”
“But I want to.”
And there it was. There was the confession that she’d finally built up the courage to make to him. His surprise was written on his face, but he looked at her with such simultaneous pity and adoration that it nearly broke her heart.
“I can’t make you promises, Emma,” he whispered, an ache she couldn’t quite name sitting in his voice. “I don’t want you to do something you’ll regret in the morning.”
Emma smiled, recalling the words he’d said that she thought were so charming and honest and raw all at once. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that like you, I am not a fan of regrets.”
He stepped back and the pain he was apparently feeling was made clear. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I did to you what he did.”
She could have clutched at her own heart if it wouldn’t have been melodramatic. He knew her. He saw her. She had loved Freddie—and maybe a part of him would always love him, in one way or another—but this was something else. This was a kind of intimacy you couldn’t have when you’d spent your entire lives staring at each other from across the room. Joe understood her position, her status, her stakes. He saw the best in her.
Stepping forward, she took his hand in both of hers. “I’m not a Dresden doll, Joe. I won’t break.”
“I know that, I just…”
“Please, Joe. I want to be loved again.” Her voice cracked on the second to last word, and maybe that was what broke him, what melted his resolve. Maybe her vulnerability and her pain was the key to unveiling the man behind all of the silver-tongued bravado. Because, while avoiding the main hallways, they walked hand in hand up to his room and stepped in together.
He kissed her slowly, his hands resting on her hips for a while before moving to her jacket, unfastening the buttons at the front and slowly pushing it from her shoulders. He laid it on the chair by his desk, which she couldn’t help but think was terribly charming. How considerate of him not to tear at her clothes, not to discard them lazily on the floor.
The removal of their clothes was playfully tit for tat. He removed his coat and jacket, his tie and belt; she stepped out of her shoes and carefully removed her top, pulling it gently from her waistband. He unbuttoned his white shirt, beneath which he wore a vest that clung to his frame; she slipped her skirt down to the floor and nearly stopped breathing when he knelt in front of her to fetch it.
He sat her down on the bed and removed her stockings, slowly and one at a time. His hands held her legs with such delicacy that she worried for a moment that something was wrong with her. Reaching down to put on her hands on top of his, she begged his wordlessly to look her in the eyes. “Will you touch me, Joe? Properly, I mean.”
Something in that question made him try to tamp down a smirk. She gave him an expectant look, and he shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, I just—touching you properly wouldn’t involve removing your stockings, would it?”
The rest of the prelude flew by in a flurry of laughter and soft, unserious kisses. By the time they were naked and in bed together, they’d giggled themselves silly, and the levity was refreshing. This is how it’s supposed to be, she thought. It’s supposed to make you laugh. Make you happy.
He had braced himself over her, but he must have noticed the tension she was holding back. “I won’t hurt you,” he whispered, kissing her forehead. “I promise.”
When she spoke, her voice shook more than she intended. “I know. I’m fine, really.”
For a long moment, he looked into her eyes and searched for a lie, even though she was telling the truth. She knew it would be somewhat uncomfortable at first, and it would get better as they went on. But Joe wasn’t content with her reassurance, it seemed, because he cocked his head to the side and pursed his lips. “Would you let me try something?” he asked.
Furrowing her brow, she tried not to come off too harshly. “I really am fine, Joe.”
“I’m sure you are. But if you’d allow me, I’d like to make you feel better than fine.”
His eyes never left hers the entire time that he slowly shifted downward, until his face was at the level of her center. She shuddered even before he touched her, and that put a cheeky half-smile on his face as he pressed her thighs apart.
His lips peppered the crease between her leg and her torso with long, open-mouthed kisses that set Emma’s entire body aflame. He diligently gave his attention to both sides before placing his lips gently against the part of her that she only ever touched on accident for fear of what she would discover about herself if she took to long with it.
The kiss was swiftly, though still gently, replaced with his tongue, and Emma couldn’t help but throw her head back into the pillow and cry out his name.
“Do you want me to stop?” he whispered, his voice husky, licentious and tempted. Tempting.
She shut her eyes tight and shook her head. “No,” she said firmly. And then, more softly, “Please.”
It hadn’t been like this with Freddie. He’d touched her, yes, and he’d been gentle. But he hadn’t been so intimate. As Joe lay feasting between her legs, she could feel the same pleasurable sensation building up in her core. This was what sex was about.
Or so she had thought. That crescendo was all she had felt with Freddie. But suddenly, as Joe quickened his ministrations, lapping at her like a cat with cream, that crescendo hit a sort of peak and came crashing down all at once, flooding her senses and eliciting from her a sound that in any other context might have indicated pain. But she was not in pain; far from it. She was floating on a sea of ecstasy that had thus far been hidden from her, a mystery not for her eyes. And yet, here she was, delivered unto the experience at the wise and clever hands—or rather, tongue—of her American reporter.
He pushed himself back up so that they were aligned once again. His face was glistening with the remnants of her pleasure, and without thinking, she grabbed him by the back of the head and pulled him down to kiss her. It was, without a doubt, the filthiest kiss she’d ever experienced.
Joe moved down her jawline until he was kissing the tender spot below her ear. “Nectar of the gods,” he whispered, smearing his face across her neck. “Ambrosia.”
“Joe,” she whined, arching into him, filled with a different sort of need now. “Joe, please.”
He kissed her once more as he lined himself up to enter her, never glancing away, never blinking. His face changed as he sheathed himself within her, and Emma was surprised that it was not difficult to take him in. The way that he filled her was different—she felt stretched open to the stars and back—but she was so slick after what he’d done that it was just easy.
When he was buried in her to the hilt, he grunted, and she could see the displeasure with his own animality on his face. After a moment, he breathed in deeply through his nose. “Are you alright?” he asked, voice strained.
What a question! “Yes,” she whispered. “Could you—”
“Yes, anything, Emma, anything.”
“Move. Please start moving.”
And he did, slow and shallow at first, gradually deepening his thrusts as he watched her, appraised her ability and willingness to take him faster, deeper, harder. The bed creaked a bit beneath them, and they both chuckled, and he kissed her like he meant it. Like he loved her.
Every thrust was, regardless of its intensity, like he was grasping at her heart. She wanted him to hold her like this, to move inside of her like this, every day for the rest of their lives. It was the sort of thing that happened with girls, she knew; they fell head over heels after a man showed them a good time. But she was quite sure in that moment that she did love him, actually. Even if nothing ever came of this, even if he broke her heart, she loved him terribly.
It surprised her, it did, when she felt that flooding of her senses occur again without the same measure of crescendo. It was as sudden and exhilarating as a slap to the face, terrifying and galvanizing at the same time. Seeing her in the throes of pleasure changed the expression on Joe’s face from concentration to relief, to joy, to… love? God, she dared to hope it was love.
His climax came not long after, and she relished the weight of him as he collapsed atop her. She couldn’t help but smooth her hand across the back of his shoulder, and if she’d felt able to speak, she would have shushed him and cooed at him as he shivered in the aftermath of his efforts. When he regained control of himself again, he reached up to kiss her forehead and then roll over to the other side of the bed, taking her with him so that he could hold her in his arms.
They lay like that together for quite a bit of time—Emma wasn’t sure quite how long—until sleep came to claim her. As she drifted into the land of Nod, she could have sworn she heard him whispering.
“I do love you, Emma Garland. I truly do.”