Work Text:
Colin Bridgerton knows two things to be true:
- He is in love with Penelope Featherington
- He is a fucking imbecile
It is Christmas Eve at Aubrey Hall. Penelope has spent every Christmas with Colin and his family since she was fourteen, but he missed the last two for reasons he does not want to think about or he will be flooded with guilt and regret (the first - his ex Marina bullied him into spending Christmas with her family - they were awful and so was she and the whole thing had been an utter disaster - they broke up shortly after; the second - he missed his connecting flight home from Bali and spent Christmas Day in Doha airport trying not to cry on FaceTime to his family - he vowed he would never miss a Christmas at home after that).
He had arrived back in England from Chile three days ago, and bummed a lift with Eloise and Penelope from London to Kent. The girls had stuffed the car full of gifts and booze and Colin’s jetlagged arse and hurtled down the A2 (Eloise is an appalling driver - usually Colin would have offered but he was so loopy from sleep deprivation that he would have been more of a liability than Eloise. Penelope cannot drive).
Colin had passed out almost immediately, and woken to the sound of Silent Night and something else, something beautiful and euphoric and sweet as the trumpets of heaven, and for a moment he thought he was still dreaming but he wasn’t. Penelope was singing.
And it was weird, because rationally he could hear she was sort of imperfect, a little off-key at points, but in that moment he could not imagine a more beautiful sound, and even though he could not see her face, just her halo of red curls spilling over her shoulders and the headrest in front of him, he could exactly picture how her mouth looked, how her eyes would be dreamy and hazy, and he realised fuck, I’ve loved her for so long.
Which was inconvenient, given Penelope is a) five years younger than him; b) his (extremely territorial and frankly slightly scary) little sister’s best friend, not to mention c) his best friend (really, if he thinks about it, she is, isn’t she? She’s who he calls when he’s homesick and the first person he sees when he gets back from his travels) and d) has never given him any indication ever that she cares about him in any form beyond the usual platonic (if flirty - Colin is a flirt, no two ways about it, and he has always enjoyed flirting with Penelope the most, likes to make her giggle and roll her eyes and blush) ways.
He knew it immediately, certainly, in the way he knew that the sky is blue and that grass is green and that Kate will win Pall Mall despite Anthony’s attempts to cheat and that Colin will have to fight Gregory for the last piece of cheese on Christmas Day.
But his pathetic brain tried to fight it, attempted to push it away. He threw darts at the board and each one bounced off uselessly: it was just the jet lag making him punchy (it was not the jet lag); it was because he hadn’t had sex in six months and she looked so fucking adorable in that Christmas tree jumper and he was just horny (well, he was horny, but he had spent a lifetime fighting erections around Penelope, and really the jumper was pretty ugly so it was not that either); it was because her voice was so nice (he couldn’t even pretend with that one - Ave Maria came on and she hit a note so off that it made him wince).
He loves her. He loves her terrible singing, and the face she pulls when she thinks he’s being an idiot, and the way her hair goes kind of frizzy when she gets angry. He loves how her legs look in the black tights she always wears, and he loves her strange, powerful brain, and the way she’ll listen to him moan about his life for the exact right amount of time for him to feel heard before she tells him to pull himself together. He loves her.
Eloise tried to change the song, but Colin couldn’t bear for Penelope to stop singing (even if she was at that moment massacring the hymn) and he lurched forward between the two front seats to bat Eloise’s hand away, almost garotting himself on his seatbelt as he did so.
“What the fuck is your problem, weirdo?” Eloise asked, as Colin settled back down, massaging the spot on his neck where his seatbelt almost decapitated him.
“I - I like this one,” he said. “And Penelope was enjoying it.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t enjoying hearing Penelope enjoy it,” Eloise grumbled.
“No need to be so cunty, El, Jesus,” Colin snapped and immediately regretted it. That was too far, and totally out of proportion - Eloise and Pen were always like this with each other, lovingly ribbing. Penelope did not need Colin’s protection from her - he wasn’t quite sure where it had come from. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “Sorry, Eloise.”
“Yeah, you should be,” Eloise said sharply. “I’m going to let that go because you’re jetlagged and also I can’t punch you in the head whilst I’m driving.”
Penelope turned to look at him and the sight of her with her nose scrunched up made him feel like he’d been winded. God, she was beautiful. Had she always been this beautiful? Like an actual doll, basically, her cheeks rosy because El had the heating turned up way too high and her lips pinker than usual with the lipstick she must have been wearing.
“Dude, are you OK?” There was genuine concern across her face.
Dude. He wanted to open the car door and throw himself out.
He mumbled something about yeah, yeah, probably the jetlag, and pretended to fall back to sleep for the rest of the journey.
That was three days ago. He’s been in love with Penelope for three days, and so far it’s not gone… great.
It’s not really three days, though, is it? He is realising that it’s potentially more like forever that he’s loved her. And it’s kind of a scary thought, because if he’s missed this fundamental and obvious truth about himself then what else is he missing?
He supposes it is probably because there is no-one else in his life like Penelope (no-one else in the world like her), and their relationship is unlike any other he’s experienced. He thinks it’s like how there’s no way to know if the way you see colour is the same as other people - that your yellow is the same yellow as the next person’s; maybe theirs is more green than yours, or maybe it’s even freakier, like purple or red or something. There is no point of reference - nothing to compare it to, no shared, fixed understanding of the concept of yellow that translates. It’s just… yellow. He cannot imagine the world without it, and cannot imagine it in any other shade.
Penelope is just Penelope . His love for her just… is.
So he’s just finding it really hard to be normal. Because his entire world has suddenly realigned itself, a solar system reoriented around a new sun. He spends three days staring at her across rooms and sort of standing weirdly by her side, a little closer than is normal, and laughing too loudly at her jokes. She stares at him as if he’s gone insane, which he almost certainly has.
But now it is Christmas Eve, and it is time for his favourite, best tradition. Once the rest of the family has trotted off to bed, Penelope and Colin go into the front room, put on The Muppets Christmas Carol (even though they already watched it earlier that day with the rest of the family - it is their favourite) and wrap presents together in the glowing light of the Christmas tree, sitting on the soft Persian rug.
But it is all awkward and strange because Colin is being awkward and strange, isn’t he? He can hardly look at her without his cock twitching and his heart aching, so they mostly watch the film silently, barely singing along and hardly quoting any of the lines to each other as they usually would.
The film ends, and they keep wrapping up their gifts, the air painfully awkward.
Then Colin notices Penelope hiding one of the gift bags behind her back.
“What’s that one?” he asks her, in an attempt to act like a normal man and not some half-crazed, lovesick teenager. They are friends. He can be her friend and be in love with her and everything can be normal, right?
“It’s - it’s nothing,” she mutters.
He frowns. “Well, it must be something, or you wouldn’t be being so weird. Why won’t you show me?”
“Will you drop it?” she asks sharply.
“C’mon, show me,” he says, crawling towards her, his blood starting to race. He stops on his hands and knees before her, a grin on his face. This feels more normal - Colin and Pen, bantering and teasing.
Her eyes go wide, wary and reproachful. She knows what is about to happen as well as he does. “Colin, don’t,” she says hotly, holding the bag behind her back.
He doesn’t listen. His hands fly to her waist and immediately start tickling and pinching. She shrieks and wriggles, trying to get away from him but he’s bigger than her and quicker, and she cannot escape him.
They’ve done this since they were kids - playfighting and tickling. He has always loved watching her wriggle and get red in the face, though of course he is always careful not to hurt her - she really is so very little, and he is so very big.
He manages to get an arm around her and grabs the bag, half collapsed on top of her. His fingers find the tag on the bag string, and he sees his name written in Penelope’s careful, pretty handwriting.
“It’s for me?” he asks with a frown. “Why weren’t you going to give it to me?”
She is bright red now. “It’s not - it’s not right. I have something else - a back-up. It’s stupid.”
“Can’t you just give me both?” he asks, with a silly, charming grin.
Penelope does not smile back. In fact, she looks genuinely upset. “No, OK?” she snaps. “Please just drop it.”
Colin pulls away from her, surprised at the sudden sharpness of her tone - she never snaps at him, not ever.
He drops the bag and tries to sit back upright.
But Colin Bridgerton is an imbecile, because as he tries to get back up, he kneels on the scissors and it feels like stepping on a Lego, a pain so excruciating that he yelps and launches himself forward away from the offending object and lands directly on Penelope.
And it is not a gentle fall. The way he twists, if he put his hands out to break his fall he would have had to press them directly against her breasts, so instead he just… doesn’t, and Penelope’s body ends up breaking his fall instead.
He collapses bodily on top of her, all the air coming out of him in a whoomp noise, and from the position she is lying - reclining back on her elbows, her legs parted - he ends up nestled fully on top of her as if they are -
All his weight is on her. Like, all of it. His face has landed somewhere near her hair, his face buried in a cloud of sweet-smelling curls. She smells like orange blossom, like the Jo Malone bottle currently sitting in Colin’s pile of gifts for her.
And he waits for her to wriggle and push him off but instead she - she moans.
More of a breathy whimper, actually, and it is, frankly, pornographic. There is no mistaking it, and something hot and sparkly starts to fizz in him, laughter bubbling in his throat.
So he doesn’t get off her. He just lifts his head. “Pen, did you just-”
Her face is red, scrunched up, her eyes shut. “ Shut up,” she breathes.
Delight flutters through him at her reaction, something fizzling and crackling under his skin. He cannot help the wicked smile that breaks across his face. “Oh my god, you like it? You like me squashing you?”
“Please, shut up,” she says faintly, her eyes still closed and her head turned to the side. Her cheeks are a vibrant, delicious red, and he can see blue veins threading beneath the paler skin of her throat.
For the first time in three days he feels like himself - like flirty, obscene Colin, the one who lives to make Penelope blush and squirm (and the thought of her squirming with her soft body beneath his is pretty appealing, somehow, because he is just a man, really, and he cannot help the Pavlovian response to a moan of that kind).
“You’re getting off on it, aren’t you?” he taunts, and she groans this time, somewhere between embarrassment and arousal, and it is all the more horny for the hint of shame that runs through it. “Come on, Pen, you can tell me,” he tells her, rolling his body against hers. He knows he is playing a dangerous game here, because she is so beautifully soft and plush beneath him that he is already bricked up and she’ll feel it soon, but he cannot help teasing her, wants to know all the little noises she might make.
Her face screws up and she bites her lip, and even though she looks like an adorable, angry kitten, he can tell she is trying to control her reactions and he doesn’t want that. He wants more of those moans, those achy, delicious little moans.
“Tell me you like it, Pen,” he says. “Tell me you like me crushing you like this,” he smiles, “and I’ll keep doing it.”
A whimper escapes through her teeth. “I like it, Colin,” she whispers. He grins, victory flooding through him.
He drops his head back down and starts to wriggle against her and he’s laughing but she’s not. He pushes more of his weight into her and she gasps, and Colin thinks that it is perhaps his favourite sound in the world, maybe even nicer than her singing, so he does it again, presses more of his body into her, and he’s still laughing, but it isn’t funny, not really, he just feels… giddy, like he is in free-fall, like when Anthony used to push him on the swings when he was a kid and he would go so high he was sure he would loop all the way around the frame, so high he would turn upside-down.
Her little hands press against his pecs, as if she’s about to push him away - this is what he expects she will do, what she usually does when they playfight - except she doesn’t push him. She just holds him - cupping him almost - and then she says more, more, and the laughter fades.
Everything fades, actually. Everything except her body, so little and soft and pillow-like beneath him, and the orange-flower scent of her curls, his mouth full of them, the way they glow almost blue in the strange dead light of the cinema screen.
“More,” she whispers, and it sounds so helpless, as if she would rather be saying anything else in the world but she cannot stop herself, and the sound of it untethers him - the swing flies high, higher, and he is upside-fucking-down now, isn’t he?
He doesn’t understand what is happening or why it is happening, but Penelope is getting off on Colin crushing her, and Colin is fairly certain he would do just about anything to get Penelope off.
“I’ll give you more, Pen,” he says, his words raw and shivering. His hands slide down to her tight-clad legs and he shifts them further apart, nestles himself closer. He skims up her thighs (surely he cannot be allowed to touch her like this? Surely she will stop him) and shoves up her little skirt, and it’s not easy with how they are crushed together like this, but he manages to hitch it up to her waist so there is nothing between them but black stretchy nylon and his jeans.
Everything feels thick and hushed, sparking like TV static, her desperate breaths crackling in his ear, sending goosebumps down his neck. His hands thread through her hair, cradling her head so he is surrounding her, but her face is turned away from his, her eyes squeezed shut, as if it is too overwhelming.
He drops his entire weight onto her.
The breath gets pushed out of her lungs in a gust, and she emits the sweetest, filthiest moan. He wonders where she learned to moan like that - has she been watching porn? Or is this just how dirty she is naturally? “Like that?” he asks, and he sounds drunker than he should be from two mugs of mulled wine. Her breasts feel amazing crushed against his chest like this, and for a moment he is lost in the sensation of her around him, so plush and warm. Why has he not been touching her like this for years ?
“Mm-hm,” she says, the noise muffled into his shoulder.
They stay like that for a moment, until he is sure she must be running out of oxygen and he lifts off her a fraction, hollowing his body away from hers so she can suck in a deep breath. Her face is so close to his neck that he feels the inhale, and he wonders if she can smell his aftershave, his shampoo, wonders if he smells as good to her as she does to him.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he murmurs, without thinking (he is an imbecile, and he loves her, and he does not want to think. He just wants to feel her. He wants to keep swinging - higher and higher and higher).
“C-Colin?” she says, uncertainly - and she should be uncertain, because the part of his brain that is still working logically knows that this is bonkers - batshit fucking crazy, in fact.
“It’s alright, angel,” he says, soft as he can. “Let me. Just let me.” His hand slides back down to her thigh, and he strokes her gently, trying to be soothing. “I’ve got you, Pen.”
She gives a little whimper, which Colin chooses to take as a yes, and he hitches her thighs around him. Then he drops his hips and thrusts his hard, jean-clad cock against her warm centre.
She lets out another desperate moan and this time he joins her, harmonising in pleasure at the delicious friction. She feels unbelievably hot, even through the thick material of his jeans, and he imagines what it would feel like to stuff his bare cock into that heat. What kind of moan will she make then?
He slowly begins to grind himself into her, pressing himself as close as he can, his hips fucking her into the floor. She moans every time he makes contact with her, and though he has her pretty well pinned down she is still able to rub herself against him. “You like being trapped like this, angel?” he grunts (because they are so close now that his lungs are squashed, too).
“Mm-hm,” she manages to huff, and he wants to ask her more - wants to know why she likes this, in fact he wants to know Penelope’s every why , if he is honest, wants to delve into her brain and pull out every single one of her whys - but he doesn’t want to break out of this precious, crackling moment, doesn’t want to ruin it by dissecting it.
And he really, really wants to watch her come.
Her hands are still clutching at her chest, but he gets the idea to grab her wrists and tug them above her head, pinning them to the carpet. She really likes that and lets out a cry that’s definitely, properly too loud. Fuck. If someone finds them here they’ll have to stop, and if they stop before he gets to see Penelope come he might actually kill himself. And then whoever interrupted them.
So he does something insane, and holds both of her tiny little wrists (she is so small, isn’t she? Has she always been so little?) in one of his hands, and presses his other hand over her mouth. Her eyes fly open at that, wide and panicked, and for a moment he is filled with the horrifying feeling that he has misread her, has misread this, that he’s stepped over a line - but then her eyes roll back and her eyelashes flutter and she sort of melts underneath him. Her body, already so soft and perfect, becomes unbelievably pliant beneath his. The thighs that were wrapped around him fall limp, spreading her open even wider for him, and though her moans are muffled now he can feel them against his palm, which is even better somehow.
His cock strains against his jeans painfully, so hard the metal zipper presses into him through his boxers. And he thinks he’s starting to get it, starting to understand why this is unravelling her so badly, because she looks so helpless pinned under him, so perfect and pretty and trapped, her face getting redder and redder, and he has the idea that he could do anything to her like this, anything, and she would let him, but she also couldn’t stop him, either. And he knows that thought is awful, sick, and of course he would never do anything to her she didn’t want - but she does want this, doesn’t she? That’s the whole fucking point. Moans rumbling into his hand, her body soft and open and desperate, the burning heat between her thighs. She wants to be trapped and pinned and made to take it, and the fact that sweet little Penelope wants something so dark and filthy is making him lose his fucking mind.
He lifts off her for a second so she can draw in another deep gasp of air, then presses back down. His hips are bucking sharply into her, as if he is trying to fuck her through the floor, and the friction feels amazing. “You’re taking me so well, angel,” he murmurs, mouth hot on her ear. “Such a little thing, aren’t you?”
She whines prettily into his palm, and he watches as tears glitter like diamonds on her lashes. For some reason he’s not going to think too much about, this kind of makes him harder, but he takes his hand away from her mouth. “You OK? It still feels good?”
“Yes,” she gasps. So these are happy tears (his cock gets even harder at that, which is something of a relief - he is not a complete monster, then). “I wanna come.”
His hips mindlessly jerk into her. “Fuck. OK, angel. I’ve got you,” he says, and the hand that was covering her mouth he now shoves between their bodies. His fingers find the waist of her tights, fighting with the elastic and their closeness to stuff his hand in there. “I’ll touch you, but you have to promise to be quiet.”
“I promise,” she sobs, and he nods. His fingers crawl over her lower belly (and god it feels good, so plump and heaving with her desperate moans) and to her knicker-covered mound. He can feel her heat through her cotton pants, and though he would like to luxuriate in this moment, the moment he was finally getting to touch Penelope Featherington’s perfect cunt, he knows she needs him urgently, and he wants nothing more than to give her what she needs. He yanks aside the cotton, and stuffs his fingers into her.
He gives her two at once, and maybe it is too much - she is so little, after all - but she is dripping wet and desperate enough to take it. He slides into her without friction, and she lets out the most pornographic moan yet, and he needs her very badly to shut up but all his hands are busy, so he does the only thing he can and crushes his mouth to hers.
And it is not the tender, romantic first kiss he has been fantasising about for, oh, all of three days - it is hard and sloppy, his tongue shoved in her mouth like he wants to eat her whole (all in all, not his best work) - but it feels right. Kissing Penelope, he realises, is what he was born for.
Keeping his body pressed close, he plunges his fingers in and out of her. It is awkward like this, his arm trapped between them and bound by her tights, but she seems to like it, whimpering against his tongue as he pushes in deep. “There you go, angel,” he breathes into her mouth. “Taking it so well, aren’t you? So warm and wet around my fingers.” He sounds insane, he thinks - but then this is insane - he is fingering Penelope Featherington on the floor of his family cinema room on Christmas Eve, and he loves her. He almost starts laughing at how absurd this all is, but he doesn’t want to upset her and really, he is too fucking horny to laugh anyway.
He twists his wrist a little to brush his thumb against her clit, sucking the moan directly out of her mouth and then biting down hard on her lip to make her squirm. When she arches her back into him, her tits pressing further into his chest, he feels a warm, sparkling satisfaction at how good he seems to be at this, how well he is able to unpick her.
He rubs circles around her clit with the flat pad of his thumb, and her body starts to shake beneath him. “So sensitive,” he murmurs. “So needy.”
He doesn’t know what possesses him to say the next bit. He supposes he needs to know that she is enjoying this because it is him , them. “Have you imagined this, Pen? Have you thought about my body on top of yours? My fingers buried in this tight little cunt?”
“Colin,” she whines into his mouth, and he keeps thrusting, keeps circling, as she gasps for breath.
“Tell me, angel,” he breathes, and starts rubbing a little faster, a little harder, watching her face closely to see how she reacts. “Tell me you’ve thought about it.”
She moans, her body writhing, and her eyes squeeze shut. “Yes,” she spits out reluctantly. “I - I think about it.”
A grin spreads across his face, the sparkling static exploding in his chest. She looks vaguely humiliated by the fact that he has forced her to admit this, but he hardly cares - he just kisses the expression off her face and rewards her with a third finger.
She whines but she kisses him back, doesn’t she? She keeps wriggling underneath him, keeps begging and moaning and taking him deeper. “Colin,” she gasps, and he lifts up a little to let her breathe again before crushing back down. She starts to say it over and over - Colin Colin Colin Colin - and her cheeks turns an adorable deep pink and her face screws up prettily and -
“Fuck, you’re coming,” he chokes out, breathless from the effort of plunging into her. “That’s it, angel, come on my fingers, take it, fucking take it - “
She lets out a perfect, sweet cry (sweeter than any moan yet, sweeter than her singing, sweeter than anything) and he kisses her through it, his tongue dancing with hers, and it tastes so good he doesn’t want it to stop.
So he doesn’t stop. He keeps fucking her through it, feeling her perfect silky pussy gush and clamp down on his fingers at the overstimulation as her orgasm fades but his rubbing doesn’t. Her clit feels swollen and hard beneath his thumb, and when he rubs it she squirms and wriggles beneath him as if she’s trying to escape the sensation. Her thighs tense up, squeezing his waist, her arms twisting as though she wants to pull away from his grip.
“Colin,” she begs, reproach and desperation in her voice.
“It’s OK,” he says, softly, and his eyes find hers. He wants her to surrender completely - to know she can trust him entirely. He wants to pull her apart and hold the pieces safe in his arms, and he wants her to know that he will always, always keep her safe. “I’ve got you. I promise.”
For a moment she just stares at him, her beautiful blue eyes searching his. Then she stops fighting him, her arms stilling and her thighs falling open once more. He sees it on her face - submission. Surrender. Trust.
And it is so, so beautiful.
“Fuck, Pen,” he groans. “You’re perfect, aren’t you?” He can’t help what spills from his lips. “So perfect for me, angel. Give me one more. I know you can do it. One more.” He rubs harder, his thrusts steady, methodical and ceaseless, dragging pleasure out of her. She whimpers and he feels like he can’t take his mouth away from hers, like he is addicted to the sound of her moans, the taste of them. “Are you gonna come again?” he murmurs, as she starts to shake and contract around his hand. She only mewls and and arches her body towards his as the next orgasm washes over her. “Fucking perfect, perfect,” he practically sobs against her. “Love you, you’re so perfect.”
He’s so out of his mind that he hardly realises what he’s said, and she’s crying out loud enough that perhaps she hasn’t heard him at all anyway, but for some reason once it’s fallen from his lips the throbbing in his cock becomes desperately, unavoidably urgent. So the moment he is satisfied he has wrung out every last drop of her pleasure, he pulls his hands out of her tights and lifts off of her finally, kneeling up between her limp, spread thighs.
His fingers scrabble at his jeans, tearing them open and freeing his aching cock. “Pen,” he groans, as he quickly strokes his shaft. His orgasm approaches quickly, burning through him like a forest fire.
She looks up at him, her eyes wide and still breathing heavily, and she nods.
With a low, guttural groan he comes, spattering her black tights with ropes of his cum, decorating her belly and thighs like ribbons of snow as he fucks his hand jerkily.
He collapses back onto his heels, gripping his softening cock, gulping in air.
They stare at each other, breathing hard.
“Colin…” Penelope says, her eyes wary. Her cheeks are still flushed a perfect pink - god, how he wants to kiss them.
“Pen.”
“That was weird.”
“Was it?”
“Wasn’t it?”
They both stare at each other for a moment, silently.
“Pen, it was… hot,” he says. “That was really fucking hot. Did you not like it…?” Panic shudders through him.
“It felt really good,” she says quickly, and the panic subsides a little.
“For me, too.”
She manages a small smile, and they are both quiet again.
“I know what I liked about it, but what… why do you like it?” he asks. He has been desperate to know since her first pornstar moan.
She swallows, and blinks up at him. “I just… I never get to feel small. You know what Mum was like growing up,” she says quickly, and Colin nods. He knows how Portia used to talk about Penelope’s body, constantly putting the family on diets (in fact, he would quite like to kill Portia most of the time, a fact he tries to keep to himself - she is still Penelope’s mother, after all).
“So,” she goes on. “When we play-fight, I always feel… small. Safe. Delicate, kind of, like you could break me if you wanted, but you never would. You never do.”
Colin stares at her for a moment, his heart in his throat. He makes her feel like that?
“But… I know it’s… it’s not normal,” she continues.
He shrugs, and realises that he is still holding his flaccid cock. He quickly tucks himself away and leans sideways, propping himself up on one arm. “I don’t really care about normal, I guess. It was fucking sexy, Pen. You’re fucking sexy.”
Her cheeks flush red and shifts her hips up, wriggling out of her ruined, cum-covered tights. He watches her strip them off and then tug her rucked-up skirt down over her thighs. She curls up, her arms wrapping around her knees, and she suddenly looks very small and scared. He wants very badly to kiss her, to pull her into his arms, but he is afraid of scaring her off.
“You don’t have to…” she says, in a very quiet voice.
“Don’t have to what?” He feels totally lost, bereft all of a sudden. He wishes he could have her beneath him again, tucked safely under his body. He understood her better then, he thinks.
“Pretend.”
“I’m pretending?” He squints at her.
Her eyes slide away from his. “I don’t know. I don’t know what’s happening, actually.”
Colin is an imbecile. He hasn’t said the most important bit yet. “Oh - Pen, I love you,” he says quickly. “I - I forgot to say that bit.”
She looks at him sharply. “What?”
He smiles at her. God, it feels unbelievably freeing to finally say it - the swing has swung all the way around. He almost starts laughing again but he assesses that this would not be the correct move. “I love you. Probably always have, actually.”
Her pretty mouth drops open - he can see her tongue wet and pink inside, wants to suck it badly. “You love me.” She sounds bewildered.
“Yes. I only just realised it, which is, you know, completely my bad,” he say, clearing his throat. “But now I know it, it seems totally fucking obvious. Because… duh.” He smacks his forehead. She stares at him as if he’s gone mad, which… “But you know, Pen and Colin. Colin and Pen. It’s us. We were made for each other, I think.”
He finishes, slightly breathless, and she looks at him, eyes wide. Then suddenly she turns over and crawls away. He watches her gorgeous arse wiggling, tries to focus on that rather than the rather-mildly-slightly-just-a-little-bit-concerning fact that he has just professed his love and she hasn’t said it back.
But then she is on her knees in front of him and shoving something into his hands. He stares at it stupidly for a moment. It is a book.
Each page is a photo. Meals, restaurants, parks. All of Colin’s favourite places, the things he misses most when he’s away, the things he spends hours on the phone talking to Penelope about late at night in foreign hotel rooms. The places he drags Penelope to the moment his flight touches down.
“It’s for when you’re travelling,” she says. “To help you keep home with you, wherever you are.”
He turns to the last page, and there is a picture of them. Colin and Pen, a selfie they took on Hampstead Heath last winter. Penelope is holding the phone, and Colin is kissing her cheek. They look like a couple, and Colin cannot believe he did not realise until now that he loved her, because this photo makes it seem so obvious.
“Pen?” he says, and her face seems to bend and blur before his eyes, tears distorting her perfection.
“I love you, too,” she says softly, biting her lip in a way that makes his cock twitch. “For a while, actually. I was going to give you this, and tell you how I felt, but I lost my nerve.”
She barely gets it out all the way before he is on her, kissing her with all the tenderness and need he had been too wild for earlier. His arms wrap around her, kissing her breathless, his heart thudding out of his chest. He loves her. She loves him. Colin and Pen.
And soon the kissing turns hot, searing, and Colin’s hands cannot help how they tug at her jumper, her skirt, how he strips her until she is bare and flickering in the light of the TV screen and the ugly multicolour Christmas lights his mother insists on having on the tree. He pauses for a breath on his knees above her, watching her skin flash purple and blue and green and red and yellow. She is so small and delicious laid out under the tree for him, her beauty so overwhelming that his mouth runs dry, his hands shaking as he tears off his clothes - beautiful wide eyes, the heavy fullness of her tits, the way her hips and thighs spread and spill. And so much soft, creamy flesh that he wants to bury himself into, white as snow and just as perfect.
He thinks he had it right - she is angelic.
“Turn over, angel,” he growls - actually growls it, which surprises even him, but he is filled with a kind of possessive longing that makes his chest ache.
He is practically drooling like a feral dog when she rolls onto her stomach, her arse presented to him. He is so hard again already - bafflingly hard, given how recently he just came - but she is also so wet, so when he props himself over her and slides himself inside her hot, dripping little pussy, there is almost no friction - which feels right, somehow, like her body is made for him, just like her heart and her mind and everything else.
And then he drops his weight down on her, and she lets out one of her perfect porn star moans as the air is crushed from her lungs. Colin groans against her hair as he ruts into her tight hole, delighting in the pillowing flesh he is buried in, her arse cheeks against his pelvis.
“That’s right,” he murmurs, his whole body surrounding hers as he fucks her slow and deep, both of them flushed pink and slick with sweat as he drives into her over and over. She moans and whimpers and mewls for him, far too loudly but he’s stopped caring at this point. “Sing for me, angel.”
The next morning, Colin is very glad that of all his siblings, it is Benedict who finds them stark naked, asleep under the tree.