perfectly average
Rating: Explicit Pairing: Iyo Sky/Rhea Ripley CW: Gender/Sexual Divergence, Degradation (un-negotiated) Wordcount: 9k
Summary: All it takes is one favour for Iyo to develop an inappropriate workplace crush on Rhea that she stresses out far too much over. She stresses out far too much over everything, actually. If only there were some cure for that.
Warranty Administrator, declares her door plaque. Problems Department, it should say. Or how her predecessor, Shayna, put it: Shit-End-Of-The-Stick-ville.
The job doesn’t sound that bad on the tin, except for that it chews people up and spits them out with a ferocity that can’t be matched. It’s the ingratitude, Shayna had said, everyone thinks they know how our job is, but nobody actually does.
Before Shayna, no one had lasted longer than a year. Then, she had requested part-time hours and after trying to cram forty hours of work into twenty-four for six months, the powers that be finally decided to create a secondary full-time role to accompany Shayna.
Problem was, by the time that happened, Shayna was burnt. Iyo had only ever intended to help out a friend; not run for mayor of this little corner of hell, hidden away from polite eyes.
Rap-rap. A quick knock at her door, quiet enough that it’s trying to be polite.
Iyo cranes her neck to the side, leaning back on her chair and out the office’s sole window. Not to the outside - because she’s surrounded by four walls of beige concrete brick - but to the out there, a hallway with one burnt out fluorescent tube that’s been on the to-replace list for a month, its lone companion starting to flicker once every half hour or so. Blip-blip. An annoyance in her periphery.
Unfortunately for her, whoever is out there is leaning away, on the other side of the door between it and the supply closet-slash-bathroom, right before the hallway rounds a bend and heads down a step to the warehouse.
She’d been meaning to prop up a mirror in the corner to angle out so people would stop doing that. If this is Akira, bringing her incomplete forms with all end-user info uncollected save for a phone number and a first name, so she’ll have to cold call and interrogate on his behalf again. He’s one of her best friends, but she’s going to lose it.
“Come in,” Iyo calls out firmly.
The hinges squeak as the door swings in, a draft from the warehouse coming with it.
Behind is blonde hair, short but not that short, on a much taller, prettier frame than Iyo’s expecting.
It’s not Akira. It’s the new girl.
Well, new in relative terms. As in, has been here a year but Iyo hasn’t bothered to ask in what department. Their general turnover was so high for a while there was no point even learning new hires’ names. And when it comes to this girl - woman, Iyo amends, because she’s going to start to sound old if she describes her coworkers like that - she’s never made the trip to the Problems Department, so Iyo has to rack her brain. She’s not wearing her nametag, unhelpfully. The button-up tucked into her jeans doesn’t answer much on her role: she could fit in anywhere from IT to the Warehouse.
“Iyo?” The woman asks, like she herself is unsure if she’s in the right place. Her hair’s only just long enough for her to hide behind, the curtain of it intimidating to some, perhaps. Iyo doesn’t have enough free time to waste being nervous, though.
“Mhm,” Iyo goes, and turns back to her mountain of paperwork. The woman edges in, hovering in the door. Iyo hates that. “Sit. Close that behind you.”
She’s obedient, even if she can’t sit in the lone spare chair properly. Iyo notes the boot coming up to rest on the front lip of it - steel toes. Huh. The answer to one question, at least. Maybe she wasn’t hiding in the hallway blind spot intentionally - seems she walked in from the other direction. Warehouse folks don’t tend to have the sorts of problems Iyo can fix.
Odd.
Iyo rifles through her stacks of paper, organizing and re-organizing her priorities while this woman decides whether she wants to get down to the brass tacks or not. Where she’ll land in the stack depends wholly on how charitable Iyo’s feeling, which at the moment, isn’t very.
“So,” the woman says, like she’s waiting for instruction.
In return, Iyo swivels her chair, and her hips, propping her chin on her hand to look at her in her best annoyed look. The same one that gets Akira to at least buy her tea once a week.
Unfortunately, her unexpected visitor is much prettier than he is, and much more apologetically doe-eyed, so Iyo’s mouth twitches up despite herself.
“I’m not sure that we’ve met, actually. I’m Rhea?” she tries again, voice lilting up like Rhea’s uncertain if that truly is her name. “If you’re busy…”
“I am always busy, Rhea,” Iyo says sternly.
Rhea bites her lip. A flash of silver catches Iyo’s eye, her gaze tracking along the woman’s frenulum. Not policy-friendly, exactly, but then neither is the septum piercing that’s clearly flipped up out of sight. For all her job is dictated by rules, Iyo despises nothing more.
If Rhea sticks things out, it’s only a matter of time before those small licks of spirit get snuffed out. That prospect is enough to get Iyo to relax her shoulders and walk things back.
“Tell me what you need, please.”
For some reason, that’s what makes Rhea look away, her hand coming up to rub at the back of her neck self-consciously. “You know how we’re supposed to get delivery guys to sign for shit that got clearly fucked up on the way to us?”
Iyo blinks, and waits.
The other woman shifts around on the chair this way and that, looking around at the blank walls that make up Iyo’s 9-5 prison. No pictures, since there’s nothing to mount them to. Her lone shelf to the side of her desk isn’t much to look at either. Some reference materials, a binder full of policies, another full of contact information that’s eternally out-of-date despite Iyo’s best efforts. The only bit of personality at all is the solar-powered Maneki-neko acting as a bookstop. The fluorescents keep its arm beckoning.
Rhea makes eye contact with it, instead of Iyo. “One of the new guys didn’t do that.”
Warehouse damages aren’t really a warranty issue, Iyo wants to say, but it seems like Rhea already knows that. “How bad?” She asks instead.
“Two thousand in electronics, garbage.” That, she manages to offer succinctly. Iyo doesn’t know what her face is doing by the time Rhea glances down from the cat to her. “A forklift speared through everything on the pallet.”
“Oh.”
Iyo looks at her paperwork to get away from the woman’s sad turquoise eyes, wondering. That’s more of a write-off than can be worked with, right now. Why, then, is Rhea here, and not the worker in question whose job is at stake?
“I just got promoted to supe,” comes the explanation. “And the first vacation day I use…” There’s very little room for circumstance in Iyo’s world, but not none.
Iyo looks up at her Maneki-neko, and grabs down the list of contacts it safeguards. She hopes this won’t bite her in the ass.
//
A few days after the favour is pulled, a quiet and familiar knock pulls Iyo from her end of day tidy-up. 4 o’clock Friday, too late in the day to do much except organize for the next week’s chaos. Nobody in their right mind expects to start up new work right at the end, but there are some truly selfish people that work here.
Instead of saying anything, Iyo just makes a noise like a wounded animal, and is greeted with a laugh and the opening of her door. Rhea slides in and shuts it behind her, but stays standing. She learned quickly through her daily visits while the unspoken catastrophe was worked out.
This time around, the woman’s got her hi-vis on, name tag affixed to the vest. She’s covered in dust, hair a bit frizzy from the back-and-forth between the warehouse’s chill and the office’s moderate warmth. Her cheeks are a touch pink. “When do you normally take your lunch break?”
Iyo spins her chair fully around, crossing her legs in a hopefully casual manner. Really, she’s just trying to look open without actually being open. “Noon. I normally just stay here.” Once in a blue moon, she’ll pack a lunch that needs heating up, but as soon as she manages to get her turn at the microwave in the break room, she’s back to her office. She prefers it to sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the busy space, trying to field small talk with coworkers she doesn’t care about the weekend plans of.
Rhea leans back against the brick wall, stopping to consider something before speaking. “Can I buy you lunch next week? If you don’t like going out, I can have something brought in for you.” She worries her lip between her teeth again.
Ah. Iyo feels her face colour, crossing her legs more tightly before any ideas can be had by her brain. It’s just a thank you, clearly. Besides, brought in sounds an awful lot like a route to not eating together at all. That’s safe. Good.
“Maybe.” She tries to slowly swivel her chair back to its normal direction pointed 45 degrees away from the doorway.
The tall woman tilts her head, tracking Iyo’s movement. Not covert enough, then, but hopefully she just thinks Iyo is fidgety, and not - Iyo grabs the edge of her desk and pulls herself underneath it so she can uncross her legs safely - …disinterested. Anything but. That, too, is why she prefers the isolation. It does have the side effect of making her body react a bit overenthusiastically to mundanity, unfortunately.
“What do you like?” Rhea shifts off the wall, walking back into Iyo’s full focus and taking command of the chair which still has scuff marks from the last time the woman put her feet up on it. She does so again, leaning her elbow on her raised knee. It has the side effect of making Iyo feel terribly nervous, now that there’s no buffer of their actual work to busy herself with.
That same nervousness makes her draw a complete blank, mouth answering for her, “Anything you do.”
A grin ignites Rhea’s features, tongue poking out from between her teeth in an incongruously cute show.
Why did I say it like that!? Iyo thinks in a panic, looking down at her hands draped across her troublesome lap. What she meant to say was that she’d take Rhea’s recommendation.
She could laugh it off, blame a language barrier that still comes up from time to time, but she feels rooted to the spot, unable to say anything at all while Rhea says, “I’m the boss, huh?”
Beneath her hands, Iyo's cock twitches in the most irritatingly predictable way possible, the tight confines of her slacks doing nothing but adding extra torturous stimulation to the mix. Her face must be scarlet as she stammers through what should be a teasing rebuttal. “Can I trust you?"
Rhea leans forward, her boots coming off the chair so she can get in closer to Iyo's face, leaning across the desk playfully. "I'll take care of you. Tomorrow after work? I'll drive."
In the mess of that exchange, Iyo had somehow missed that she agreed to leaving here with Rhea. So much for her comfort zone. Little good it was doing, anyhow. Once Rhea started swinging by daily, it became little more than four walls of pure distraction, the work quietly piling up more with every moment Iyo spent staring at Rhea's pretty eyes and broad shoulders. The only saving grace, honestly, was that Rhea was just as busy, so her little trips didn't last long. Iyo's not sure what she's going to do when they're stuck at a table together for an hour, but that's tomorrow's problem. For the moment, all she has to do is nod, and say, "Looking forward to it."
//
It wasn't just a thank you. If it was, it would've been a one-and-done, but soon, it's a weekly event where Rhea picks up the tab and takes her to new places, circling ever further outward to the point that they're chasing the clock back. Even so, it gets easier to leave her desk with each trip. And with each trip, their conversations drift further and further from work. The second time, Rhea tells her about how godawful scared she was to drive a forklift at first. The sixth, and Iyo's telling Rhea all about her old competitive gymnastics aspirations.
Soon enough, every day they're not going out to lunch together, Rhea's slipping into Iyo's office to eat there. Iyo thinks about putting in an order request for a better chair for Rhea to commandeer, once she starts to notice the stiff way the younger woman moves about some days, a bad back and knees already starting to sneak up on her.
For the meantime, Iyo starts packing extra snacks like they've time travelled back to their school years, and keeps a bottle of painkillers in her drawer for the really bad days.
Her crush on Rhea is incredibly obvious. Once, Roxanne stops by during one of their lunch meetings to drop off Iyo's mail that she's been forgetting to collect from reception, and fixes them both with the most baffled look that turned quickly into a coy smile and an, "Interesting!" that has tortured her every waking moment since.
For all the teasing, though, Rhea never says anything that indicates she's aware. Now that Iyo's spending the time to pay attention, she seems friendly and borderline flirty with everyone, so Iyo's left to stew in it. She stares unseeingly at her paperwork, reads the same policy changes ten times over before they sink in, forgets to spell-check her emails, and responds tersely to internal communications.
Outside of work, she finds herself just as distracted. Iyo's forced to take home a fair bit because she's not catching up in the least, but when she does so, she spends most of the night daydreaming about the slender line of Rhea's fingers when she's clumsily holding chopsticks, or the rasp in her voice right after she laughs.
They have each other's numbers, but Iyo does her damnedest not to use it, in case she somehow reveals how infatuated she is. Sometimes it's very tempting, weekend nights feeling empty but for the blood thrumming through her, distracting Iyo with what-ifs that she suppresses with the press of a pillow across her hips.
Her willpower to resist the urge to relieve herself always flags close to empty by the time Monday morning rolls around, and Rhea texts her asking what she'd like from the cafe around the corner, replacing temptation with guilt and gratitude in equal measure. Iyo's just grateful she's managed to avoid masturbating to the thought of her friend - even if that means she hasn't managed to get off at all in what's fact approaching two months.
The past week has been especially difficult: the night before, she had been on the precipice of sleep when the thought of how much taller and stronger Rhea is than her crossed her mind. If Iyo were ever on the receiving end of her attention, she'd be little more than a toy for Rhea's amusement, her cock dwarfed by the size of Rhea's hands, pleasure wholly in the younger woman's control. In the end, by the time Iyo had fended off the imaginings, she had gotten maybe three hours sleep at most.
Rhea notices, not just from the extra large black tea Iyo had requested, but from the quiet slump of her shoulders when she drops it off. "You okay?" she asks, draping her hand across Iyo's shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze that wakes Iyo's groin, if not the rest of her.
In lieu of answering, Iyo gives her head a little shake, and reaches up to squeeze Rhea's hand with her own, trying to convey the depth of her appreciation that she doesn't have the mental energy to vocalize. She stares at her overflowing email inbox, not sure where to start. Instead of not-sleeping and thinking about that gentle hand wrapped around her, she should've been not-sleeping and working on beating the backlog into submission. Already she sees a couple from her biggest asshole of a product representative, arguing with her for the millionth time that the internal reference number she's supplied is formatted incorrectly.
She feels like such a sham, taking comfort from Rhea's kindness and perverting it into something it's not.
Why, because she's sad, and overwhelmed, and lonely? That's not an excuse to twist a friendship into fantasy.
Iyo doesn’t realize she’s started crying until Rhea wraps both her arms around Iyo's shoulders, leaning down to hug her from behind. She tries to wipe her tears away, embarrassed that her lack of sleep has her so out of control. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she says, trying to sound cheerful but failing.
Rhea hums and doesn't let go. She's warm and soft against Iyo's upper back, but more importantly than that, if Iyo closes her eyes, the smell of Rhea's perfume is almost enough to make her forget her exhaustion. The scent is woodsy yet light, reminding Iyo of the world outside of here. For a long while, she just breathes and enjoys the weight of Rhea's embrace, and the quiet understanding that comes with it.
Finally, Rhea pulls away, pressing a kiss to the top of Iyo's head as she does. The absence of her leaves Iyo feeling cold, alone, and horribly needy. The taller woman spins her chair carefully, and Iyo lets her, too tired to resist, or do anything aside from carefully drape her hands across her lap to try to obscure the worst of the effect Rhea has on her.
The woman's expression is hard to read. Her eyes are a touch sad, the corners of her mouth downturned. But if she knows, she's not jumped to accusation. "I'll order us something in today."
"I'm sorry," Iyo manages to say, hating how her voice cracks in the middle.
Rhea doesn't move, and Iyo can feel her gaze travel the length of her body, before flicking up, a soft smile playing within her eyes. "Nothing to be sorry for, chipmunk."
//
They make it all the way to Friday before Rhea brings it up. "What do you do for stress relief?" She questions, nibbling at the leftover crusts from her sandwich. Why she doesn't just eat them to begin with, Iyo doesn't know. Rhea's weirdly ritualistic about things sometimes. Between them, the younger woman's phone works its way through a playlist that they've assembled together bit by bit.
The question itself is harmless. The way she says it isn't. It's low and measured - interrogatory, not conversational. It was only a matter of time, really. Iyo spends every lunch break trying to avoid anything that could stir arousal, to middling success. The more she tries to keep to careful neutrality, the more daring Rhea seems to get. Case in point.
Iyo shrugs. Better than admitting she's got nothing, except thrice-weekly trips to the gym and watching her cat steal socks out of the hamper. "You?" She replies, trying to flip the conversation away from her.
Rhea doesn't take the bait, dropping her scraps back into tupperware. "You're single, right?"
Asking that after months of not-quite-flirting and spending all their free at-work time together is ridiculous. There's no way Rhea doesn't know the answer already. "Yes," Iyo admits anyway, twirling her fork through a mess of pasta, feeling cornered in her own domain.
"Been that way for long?" Rhea interrogates. She's not being mean on purpose. Iyo doesn't think so, anyway. She's got the tendency to be blunt sometimes, that's all, and this feels a lot like Rhea trying to circle around the subject of Iyo's sex life without outright saying, You need to get laid.
That’s what she’s getting at, though. And she’s right. The more wound up Iyo gets, the harder her job becomes, and the more out of hand it gets, the worse she feels about herself, and the more Rhea feels like an oasis to escape to. She’s in the middle of a spiral, but she can't exactly break it without feeling like a piece of shit, morally. "Two years." Iyo finally answers, leaving it at that, scooping food into her mouth to obscure her discomfort.
"Hmm." Rhea leans forward to fiddle with her phone, adding another couple of songs to the list. "You don't masturbate?"
Iyo nearly chokes. "You can't ask me that," she manages to cough out.
The younger woman looks nonplussed, only pushing over what's left of her can of soda to Iyo as a peace offering. "It's just us."
As if that matters. The answer is no, not since Rhea stepped foot in Iyo's office, and infrequently before then, courtesy of a lack of interest in anyone or anything in particular. Ironic. "Still at work," Iyo mumbles, taking the drink anyways, washing down the worst of the irritation. She hates that she can't even manage to look in Rhea's general direction, her eyes glued to the surface of her desk.
"You don't text back when we're not here, though." Rhea points out. Out of Iyo's periphery, she sees that Rhea's turning away now, and hears the scrape of Rhea's chair along the tile as she pushes herself back. "Are we ... real friends or work friends, or?" She asks, voice a touch uncertain.
Or, Iyo thinks, trying to sort her feelings into some semblance of order. The only reason Rhea would have to pursue this line of questioning is that she's seen Iyo fighting back an erection at least once, and in combination with her little melt down on Monday, has drawn her own conclusions about the cause.
Still. There's things that Iyo's nerves just can't abide by. "Anywhere else."
"Come to mine for drinks after work," Rhea parries seamlessly, like she'd been expecting that. Maybe she spends just as much time thinking of how to pick Iyo apart as Iyo spends trying not to think of Rhea. "You can crash if you want."
Iyo has no reason to say no. That’s a dream come true, and she's just a loser without any weekend plans. "Okay. I'd like that."
//
After Rhea texts her the address, Iyo really stops to consider what this is. For all she really knows, she’s going over to hang out and get interrogated in a nosy, but purely friendly way. Should she stop by a corner store to buy condoms? No. Yes. Maybe?
What if Rhea sees them and freaks out about Iyo’s lack of boundaries? …Why would she see them though? There’s not many circumstances that lead to Rhea getting Iyo’s wallet out of her pants that don’t also involve Iyo’s pants coming off. And in that case -
If she gets them, Iyo’s going to spend all night thinking about the fact that she’s got them. They’re going to burn a hole in her pocket, Tell-Tale Heart-style, erection pulsing in time with the paranoia. If it hadn’t been so long since she’d gotten laid, maybe she’d be able to carry some around casually with her without acting like a freak.
No. Iyo’s not buying condoms, because if Rhea’s inviting her over to have sex, then she should have some there. That’s what Iyo settles on, despite the absurdity.
She does go home to shower though, and change into a nicer set of clothes - and underwear. Iyo grabs a hair tie just in case she might need to put it back, sprays herself down with a little floral perfume, decides on two rounds of mouthwash, and even then hovers at the door wondering if she’s forgotten anything. Probably.
On the way, she picks up some mixers to be polite, snagging up a packet of gum on impulse. They’re drinking first, the slight mintyness is not going to last. Unless the drinking’s all a front, and Rhea’s going to immediately jump her - Rhea would never do that. Iyo’s brain is shot.
She drives carefully, circles the block twice, and then slowly makes her way up to Rhea’s door by exactly 6:30, the approximate time Iyo had given her two hours prior.
Iyo rings the bell, and waits for her doom.
//
Turns out Rhea’s got her beat by three months. Iyo doesn’t believe it, but there’s no reason at all for Rhea to lie when she’s drunk as a skunk, leaned up against Iyo’s shoulder, whispering warm confessions into her ear.
“No.” Iyo rejects it outright, stumbling through her outrage at such a sweet, pretty woman having such a dry spell. “You - no - no sex, how?”
Rhea laughs, pushing down high on Iyo’s thigh, propping herself up enough to finish off the rum and coke they’ve been passing back and forth. Mixing one drink seemed like less work than mixing two at the time. She leaves her hand there, the pressure spiralling deliciously outward until Iyo feels herself throb in response.
“No one interested, or no one interesting.” It sounds so poetic coming from Rhea’s pretty mouth. If Iyo said the same thing, it would be comically pathetic. Everything Rhea does is like magic; the exploratory flutter of her fingertips along Iyo’s inseam a textbook example of her allure.
Iyo looks down at them, not daring to move in case it disrupts the status quo. "I -," she starts to say, but she doesn't know how to finish. She wants to say that she’s been interested since the day Rhea walked into her office, and only got more so the more she got to know her. Wants to ask if Rhea’s hand smoothing its way over her zipper means that she's interested, too. “You masturbate though?” She asks instead, like an idiot.
This time, Iyo doesn’t have anything to hide behind. She’s trapped by her own clumsy words and eagerness on a couch, an arm’s length away from living torture. “You’re so cute,” Rhea leans in to breathe against her neck. “You wanna know what I think about, too?” The tip of her tongue dashes out on the word think, cresting against Iyo’s pulse like the lapping of the tide.
All the blood has left her head, dizziness spiralling around her vacant skull. Paradoxically, she yearns for another sweet gullet full of rum to distract from the burn of arousal through her veins. But that would mean getting up, and Rhea's hand being batted away from where she's toying with Iyo's fly, and most importantly, Iyo would immediately fall over - she can't feel her feet, no matter how much she tries to wiggle her pink-and-teal sock-clad toes. It's like she's abandoned all the parts of her body that Rhea isn't touching.
"Mhrm," Iyo says, late.
Rhea pulls her mouth away from Iyo's throat, where she was nuzzling as though physically prodding Iyo to push out each breath. Iyo sucks in a lungful in response to the smidgen of distance, nearly choking on it. The coy look in Rhea's eyes is fond, but still ultimately dangerous.
"I think about you." Rhea confesses. Her voice has taken on a rounder sound, accent at war with her tipsiness. Any other moment, her shyness would be trying to beat back the bluntness. Even in the office, she'd wormed her way around it, but the alcohol's done its number on her, too. "About your hands, how they'd feel on me. So soft, but so certain. Always wandering off to your crotch when you think I'm not paying attention."
"It's not like that!" Panic stabs through Iyo, insisting upon the truth. She wasn't ever touching with intention, just trying to obscure, suppress, punish for reacting like that to Rhea's mere presence around her. Flirtatious or not, Iyo should have more self control.
Rhea ignores her protest, fingers tracing along Iyo's jaw to tilt her attention towards fervid blues. How is she supposed to hide with Rhea looking at her like that? "Stop it. When do you ever do anything for yourself? I'm fucking flattered," she says, biting her lip momentarily before adding, "Turned on. Whatever." She strokes again over Iyo's zipper, and for all her determination to not let her hormones win this one, Iyo's cock rises up to meet her touch. "Do you whimper when you cum, chipmunk? That's always how I imagine it."
"I don't," Iyo starts to say, but stops, because that's not quite true. She doesn't when she's thinking of nothing, but if she were to think of Rhea - probably. "I don't know." She amends instead, unable to articulate herself any better.
"You really haven't touched yourself?" Rhea's hand stops moving, voice taking on a touch of wonder beneath the rasp. Iyo watches Rhea's gaze drift down her body to where she's tented in her cargos. There's a thought that visually crosses Rhea's face, realization sinking in that Iyo really has fought this. Before Rhea can pull her hand back, Iyo grabs at her wrist to keep her suspended somewhere between stopping her and spurring her on.
The most confusing part of this whole thing is that Rhea doesn't seem to think she's pitiful. A part of Iyo thought maybe things would go this way, but all hinged upon Rhea feeling bad for her obvious feelings and deciding to cut her a break. Something that would turn her one-hour intermissions of happiness Monday through Friday into an exercise in self-loathing, regretting losing something she really looks forward to and gets her through the day to that which she doesn't need, just... kind of wants, when she lets herself drift.
This isn't that. Rhea looks the same as always. An anxious woman wrapped in a veneer of confidence, staring at Iyo with tender, unspoken worry. Not pity, no.
"You are too special to me," Iyo clarifies, letting her grip go limp. Rhea lifts the smaller woman's fingertips to her mouth, kissing them sweetly. Iyo can feel the cool press of the septum piercing that Rhea usually flips up, bits of herself that are hidden away revealed to her here. There's so much else Iyo would like to discover of her.
"Can we find out together then?" Rhea asks, turning Iyo's hand over in hers to kiss the center of her palm. She trails kisses down to Iyo's wrist, tongue peeking out to touch along her arteries, heartbeat sing-songing against Rhea's lips.
"Yes please," Iyo whispers, the words finally easy to find.
Rhea grabs ahold of Iyo's knee, dragging her legs up onto the couch for the larger woman to settle between. Her movements are damn confident for someone who's been out of practice for two-years-and-three-months, but maybe she has thought about this a lot. Rhea focuses on two routes of attack. The first, finally pulling down the zipper on Iyo's pants, and the other, pushing her top up to expose the plane of her stomach and the swell of her chest beneath her bra. Rhea takes a moment to look while Iyo sheds the articles fully off, wiggling her hips and kicking til her pants clear her ankles, and lifting her arms helpfully so Rhea can drag the racerback bra off of her.
Then, Rhea smiles sunnily, pierced tongue peeking out of the corner of her mouth. "Just a sweet little thing, aren't you?" She teases, thumbs stroking along the side of Iyo's breasts. Her palms are a bit rough, general wear-and-tear from work and refusing to wear her gloves. They limit her fine motor control, she's said, but the callouses don't bother Iyo in the least. She's too distracted by Rhea's weight pressed carefully along Iyo's weeping length, for one. For two, the catch of Rhea's fingertips along her nipples is magnificent.
A little whine works its way from Iyo's throat, answering Rhea's earlier question, and earning her a delighted laugh. The sound makes Iyo's cock spring against Rhea's hip. "S-sorry," Iyo thinks to apologize for her oversensitivity, but Rhea only drags her teeth along the shell of Iyo's ear, jaw, throat, collarbone, breasts, down and down the plane of her too-tense stomach. Rhea's still fully dressed, it's not fair, but who is Iyo to complain when Rhea mouths over Iyo's lace briefs, nosing across the fabric.
"You smell good," Rhea murmurs, hooking her fingers carefully under the line of her underwear. It doesn't do much to shield Iyo from Rhea's view as is, but the thought of being completely bare to her sets her cock to leaking again, a pearlescent drop beading through the lace that Rhea doesn't hesitate to kiss away. Her tongue darts against her lips, eyes growing dark as she says, "And you taste better than I imagined."
Iyo could die. "You're embarrassing me, Rhea." She complains, feeling the world roll around her in so many directions. The second her head droops down flat against the couch, she gets lightheaded, so she grabs around for a throw pillow they'd thrown off, propping herself up enough that she can watch.
Rhea waits patiently, amused at Iyo's flustered preparations. "You're too fucking cute. Just say stop whenever, or rip on my hair, whatever works for you." Then she pulls, Iyo's half-hard length bobbing up towards her navel once free of its confines. She's modestly sized, so she doesn't expect any remark at all, but unexpectedly she hears, like through someone else's ears, "Oh, it's pretty."
"Pretty?" she parrots, not sure she heard that right. Rhea doesn't waste any time elaborating though, pressing her open mouth along Iyo's shaft, trailing down to her base, then all the way up, wetting her cock fully.
Maybe she should be offended by the mild debasement, but then Rhea's tongue is swirling around the weeping pink head of her cock, and she knows exactly how to use the barbell piercing she's got to her advantage, toying along Iyo's frenulum until she's weeping rivulets of precum, and then lapping it away. Rhea's eyes stay tracking her, but Iyo can barely stand to watch. She feels her cheeks and chest heat with the embarrassment of being on display, straining to contain her vocal reactions to Rhea's explorations.
Rhea's not so shy about that, letting out content, hungry hums that vibrate along Iyo's length when she grows to full mast - still humble, but Rhea does make a sultry growl of acknowledgement when it leaps with a mind of its own, smearing a bit of fluid across her cheek. Iyo would apologize, normally, but it's not an angry sound at all. Then, Rhea's taking the head fully into her mouth and sinking down around Iyo in one go. She stops only once her nose brushes Iyo's abdomen. Hot air caresses her as Rhea breathes steady through her nose, watching as Iyo's head lolls back.
"Rhea," Iyo breathes out in a rush, more air than sound leaving her. Despite herself, her hands gravitate down to fist through Rhea's hair. The shorter locks prickle against Iyo's palm when she presses down, pulling Rhea down the barest bit further until they are well and truly flush.
She opens her eyes, then, being caught hold by the storm in Rhea's. They've never been so dark. Once, nearly, when Rhea burst into Iyo's office on their shared lunch break, ranting over the regular managerial bleck that always vexed them both; that had been righteous anger. This? Iyo drops her hands away in a panic. In response, Rhea's nose wrinkles, and she drags herself back up with a wet pop and a hiss of breath, lipstick smudged around the edges already.
"You don't have to be gentle. Use me how you like," she directs, setting to work on her own belt buckle. The clink echoes in Iyo's ears, bouncing around the inside of her skull while she reels with her new reality. Thanking Rhea would probably sound stupid. Instead, Iyo grabs hold of Rhea's hip and shoulder, stabilizing her while the larger woman relieves herself of clothing that Iyo would rather see gone in full.
Without asking, Iyo grips the hem of Rhea's tank, dragging it up and over Rhea's head. The skin beneath is smooth and beautiful to Iyo's eyes, all new black-and-grey lines spiralling along the soft-but-angular flow of Rhea's body. Iyo reaches behind, unhooking Rhea's bra with one hand, the other teasing at the edge of Rhea's thong. She pushes it to the side, coating her fingers in the process with surprising ease. Something overcomes Iyo then. "Easy for me?" she questions, voice pitched low.
Rhea looks at her with amazement first, then sharp faux-annoyance that does little to obscure that she liked that; bats Iyo's hands away from her to divest herself of her underwear herself, unembarrassed to be revealed fully. "You would've cum in your pants if I hadn't taken pity on you."
"Mhm," Iyo agrees. No sense in arguing that. She already woke up most mornings to a humiliating mess. That she lasted as long as she did without cracking was a miracle. "But I'm not the one who touches herself to the thought of me at night." She smiles warmly, sliding her fingers back between Rhea's folds. Her thumb finds the engorged head of Rhea's clit, rolling against it with enough force that Rhea bucks against her hand, an airy grunt escaping her. "That's right, isn't it?"
To that, Rhea says nothing, a look of disbelief warring with poorly restrained pleasure all across her. Competition flashes through Rhea's eyes, before she pushes away from Iyo's prodding fingers to descend on Iyo's cock again. This time, there's a purpose behind her movements. While there's still a moment Rhea takes to lap at Iyo's weeping head, once she's satisfied, her hands take hold of Iyo's hips, bracing her.
When Iyo's fully inside, she barely brushes the back of Rhea's throat. That seems to be what Rhea really likes, though, because it's met with a pleased moan, Rhea's thighs squeezing together around nothing. She sets to work then, bobbing her head in a smooth, unhurried motion. Each time she bottoms out, Iyo gives a shallow thrust so her cockhead kisses as deep as it can, earning a grateful shudder each time. Rhea swallows around her, pressing her piercing down to the base of Iyo's cock, where her balls are beginning to tense.
Iyo's hands return to Rhea's hair, gripping down hard to control Rhea's ascent back up. Too fast, and she'd lose it right then and there. Rhea's eyes flick up knowingly. She holds where Iyo needs her, breath fanning along the twitching length of her cock. But, because she's still remembering Iyo's comment, Rhea hollows her cheeks out around the tip, sucking until Iyo begs. "Stop it! Please!"
Rhea pulls back, a string of saliva connecting her mouth to the underside of Iyo's cock for a moment. She looks far too smug, the only tenderness on her face within the soft upward curve of her lips, makeup smeared from the attention she’s doted on Iyo. “You’re not going to last once you’re inside me, are you?”
Not for a moment. In fact, even with Rhea off of her, Iyo’s exerting all the control she has left to not simply lose it right there from the heat of Rhea’s gaze alone. To sheathe herself in the woman’s cunt? The thought is beyond belief. She shakes her head regretfully. “I can use my mouth,” she offers instead. “Please." Iyo thinks to add, because she'll be upset if she doesn't get Rhea's thighs around her head, actually. Important that Rhea knows that.
As reward, Rhea kisses her. For some reason, Iyo hadn't expected it. The press of Rhea's mouth is sweet and eager, teeth dragging softly around Iyo's bottom lip. Iyo won't tease over the emotion that spills through it. She'd be a hypocrite to - for all she'd reigned herself in from many prospective fantasies of Rhea, kissing her is one thing Iyo's spent sleepless hours wrecked over. Iyo deepens the kiss, pushing Rhea's mouth open with her tongue. The taste of herself catches her slightly off-guard, but the salty bitterness isn't entirely unpleasant when muddled together with the remaining sweetness of their shared rum and coke. Still, she needs to remember to thank Rhea very genuinely after this.
Rhea's the first to break away, visibly thinking for a second. Iyo's about to recline and just ask her to sit on Iyo's face, her neck be damned, but then Rhea turns and shifts back, presenting her glistening folds to Iyo before going back to nosing at Iyo's scarlet, overexcited cock. "Gonna keep this warm for you. Try not to finish," Rhea says, kissing along the side.
Iyo wants to whimper, but Rhea will laugh at her if she does, so she buries the sound in Rhea's cunt. She's tongue deep inside her in a moment, Rhea's hips pressing back against her. The taste of her is so much better than the taste of Iyo. Life's not fair. Rhea's got a warm taste to her, not exactly sweet, but wholly pleasant anyhow. Iyo thumbs at Rhea's clit, rubbing down along her folds periodically to keep everything soft and wet. She takes her time fucking Rhea with her tongue, pressing hard and slow into her, dragging a rasp of breath out of Rhea each time.
The whole time, the larger woman stays true to her word, keeping Iyo's cock tucked between her lips. Thankfully, aside from the vibrations of sound and the movement of breath across Iyo, Rhea doesn't do too much more. While it's distracting, Iyo can still work like this. For the sake of her pride, she needs Rhea to cum first, no matter what. Her fingers trade places with her tongue, sucking at Rhea's swollen clit, swirling her tongue in a steady pattern that has Rhea's thighs beginning to tremble.
Iyo pushes two fingers into Rhea, stroking slick along her walls deep enough that she determines quickly she can add a third. The extra stretch is noted by a moan and a hard swallow around her cock that has Iyo feeling dizzy. She has to close her eyes to keep herself from thrusting into Rhea's mouth, focusing instead on the soft resistance of Rhea's walls against her fingertips, and the radiant heat of Rhea's cunt against Iyo's face. Within Rhea, Iyo fingers along a particularly soft ridge of flesh, earning her a breathless groan as Rhea releases Iyo's cock, muscles fluttering.
"There. Please," Rhea begs, arching into the angle Iyo needs. She sucks down hard on Rhea's clit in response, prodding her tongue against it in rhythm with her strokes. That's what it takes for Rhea's thighs to clamp down on either side of her head, the taller woman grinding her soaking cunt against Iyo's face while her orgasm rolls through her. Iyo needs to breathe and all, but makes no complaint until the aftershocks start to abate. Then, she smacks Rhea across the rump once, hard.
"Off," Iyo says, muffled by the flesh in her way.
Rhea laughs, and pulls back. The slick covering her face cools quickly, and she must look a mess, but Rhea doesn't mind, turning to steal a kiss from her almost as soon as Iyo seems to have caught her breath. "Good job not cumming yet, stallion. How's your jaw?" she whispers, kissing along Iyo's throat and collarbone. Fingers wandering down to her chest, too, rubbing along the soft swell of her breasts.
"Fine," Iyo lies, feeling the soreness set in now that she's not distracted. She's absolutely out of practice, but she'll get used to it again. If Rhea lets her, anyway. She's not going to ask where they're at with each other right yet, especially not with her head still fogged and her cock screaming. She may very well open her mouth and immediately ask Rhea to marry her.
"Mm." Rhea's fingers trail lower and lower until she's taking hold of Iyo's cock. She's gentle about it, keeping her in hand while she kisses Iyo sweetly, guiding Iyo to sit up on the couch. "Cool if I ride you?"
Iyo nods, letting Rhea push on her shoulders, climbing onto her lap carefully. Rhea's weight feels fantastic, knees digging into the couch to either side of Iyo's thighs.
Iyo's brain catches up to her with Rhea's cunt hovering mere inches from her. “Do you have a condom?” she asks unsexily before Rhea can sink down to take her. The younger woman stalls like she, too, got caught up in the haze.
“Um.” Oh right. Two years and three months of dry spell. But still, Rhea seems like a prepared woman who knows what she wants, so surely - “I may have overestimated your size,” she finishes, shyly.
Thunder sounds through Iyo’s ears, her body sending all sorts of mixed signals at the behest of her brain. While the split second of shame is enough to wilt Iyo’s erection, her stomach rolls pleasantly and her mouth goes dry.
A garbled sound leaves her, right as Rhea goes moon-eyed and rushes out, “You’re perfect!”
Iyo’s cock is so confused. Noting its owner’s deep-seated arousal, it perks back up for a moment, only to recall that she’s been insulted, flopping against her thigh again. At least it retains a sense of dignity that the rest of Iyo lacks. “Huh,” she finally manages to say, the two of them staring down at it in wonder. Iyo feels her cheeks colour with mortification. That's never happened to her before.
"Shit. Sorry, baby." Rhea apologizes, giving Iyo a kiss that she doesn't react to, brain fogged over. "I didn't mean it like that-"
"I liked it, though?" Iyo says, cupping her shaft and giving it a pull that gets it to stir, but not much more. She's going to need to think hard on the way Rhea's voice dipped when she said those words, later on in private, when it doesn't matter if her body gets confused over the imagined degradation. For now, though... "I might need some help getting it back."
Rhea blushes like that's the dirtiest thing they've said or done to each other across the whole of the night. Asking for a bit of a fluff doesn't seem that bad, all things considered, but there's Rhea's hand shyly replacing hers, rolling her foreskin beneath her palm and not looking at Iyo. "You're really beautiful," Rhea says, directed down towards Iyo's lap more than the woman herself. "And sweet in ways you don't realize. I really, really like you, Iyo."
Iyo's stomach swims. Before she knows it, she's hauling Rhea in for a kiss, all but ignoring the stroke of Rhea's fingers. The alcohol surges back through Iyo's veins, muddling her reaction time to the swipe of Rhea's tongue against hers, numbing the feel of the bite which follows it. The praise ping-pongs around her skull, pulse thudding heavily behind. Rhea likes her. Really, really. Likes her enough to trace the edge of her nail along Iyo's glans, coaxing precum back out to coat her strokes. Reaches down to her own cunt, coating her fingertips with her own slick to rub along it when that's not enough.
Pulls away from Iyo's mouth to look at her, eyes wet, and asks, a little scared, "Do you-"
Iyo's cock gallops back into position at that. Eager, at least, to prove her words true. "Yes. I like you so much, Rhea," she insists, kissing her harder. Rhea moans into her mouth, the hand still slick with her arousal stroking Iyo's hair away from her face. Rhea shifts her hips forward a bit, bringing her cunt closer to Iyo. She rubs the tip of Iyo's cock between her folds, teasing Iyo's cockhead against her clit. She breathes brokenly into Rhea's mouth, devoting herself fully to the kiss to avoid thrusting against her too soon.
They haven't addressed the issue, though. Iyo's mouth stills, wondering at once what on earth they're doing with each other.
“Iyo.” Rhea senses the hesitation, lacing her fingers through the long, dark mess of Iyo’s hair. “Don't worry about it. I want your cock in me.”
“But-,” Iyo protests. Even with the cool-down time afforded to her, semi finally having grown to something worth being referred to as a hard-on at all, she’s maybe a dozen strokes away from completion. She's not sure she's going to be able to pull out once she's inside Rhea, the thought of it making her shiver.
This time, Rhea’s not so soft about directing Iyo, her hand gripping around the smaller woman’s jaw and throat. She silences Iyo with a brief kiss, even as her nails press red crescents to the soft, pulpy flesh beneath Iyo’s ears. “I want your cum in me,” Rhea amends, finding Iyo’s cock between them and guiding it up between her folds. “You can manage that.”
Oh, can she ever.
With that, Iyo does finally whimper, a piteous sound she can't manage to be embarrassed by any longer. Instead, she grips Rhea's hips, and sinks her onto Iyo's cock with one smooth, easy slide. She drives to bottom out in the wet heat of Rhea's cunt, meeting the slightest bit of resistance before Rhea tilts back slightly, burying the rest of her.
She's molten hot, feeling so much more intense around Iyo's cock than her fingers. Her walls flutter just right, Iyo biting down hard on her own lip, clenching down on Rhea's pelvis to stop from tipping over the edge. Iyo pants out with the exertion of not erupting, Rhea's breathy sigh of pleasure not helping at all. "Oh fuck, I can feel you throbbing. Are you okay, baby?" It's genuine, and so much worse than the heady feeling Rhea's kind-of insults when it comes to Iyo's hormones running rampant.
Why aren't we breeding her? her body seems to scream, thighs twitching with the desire to let loose. Because I will not be a minuteman, Iyo argues back internally, her dignity if nothing else enough to keep her going.
"Say something, or I'm gonna move," Rhea threatens, her walls squeezing down. Iyo's got her pretty riled up, too.
"Feels good," Iyo manages to wheeze. "I think you can ride me now."
The younger woman smirks, pulling Iyo in for a quick peck. "Okay. Let me know if you want me to stop, but you can let loose whenever, it's fine."
Iyo nods, but clenches her abs against it anyhow. If not for Rhea, because she wants to enjoy this, too. So she takes deep breaths, watching Rhea's body lift up off her cock, only to sink back down on it. The second time, she buries herself against Rhea's chest, kissing along her breasts as she speeds up. Rhea's thighs are trembling, sweat beading on her skin. The salt on Iyo's tongue grounds her.
Rhea moans, half-air, half-sound whenever Iyo thrusts up to meet her at the last moment. She can feel her balls drawing tight. Despite her best efforts to prolong things, it's not going to last much longer. She whimpers out, "Slow. Close." and miraculously, Rhea does listen. Iyo fumbles between them, rubbing at Rhea's clit while busying herself with sucking one of Rhea's nipples into her mouth, teeth grazing it.
"Oh," Rhea gasps, her hips sinking down fully onto Iyo despite the warning. It's right there, any more little movement or sound and she'll be gone. She thumbs over Rhea's chest, fingers rolling around the younger woman's clit furiously. Around her, Rhea's walls are fluttering fast, straining not to buck her hips any further.
Iyo bites down lightly around Rhea's breast, flicking the pierced nipple with her tongue. She hears a choked sob, then feels Rhea squeeze down around her, spasming as she tips over the edge. Rhea's arms snake around Iyo's shoulders, pulling her tight. Her muscles all pull taut, and then she cries out, "Fuck, cum in me," voice cracking with her orgasm. Her cunt pulses hard around Iyo, and despite taking all of three minutes, that's all Iyo really needed to prove.
She lifts Rhea's hips, then pushes up against her, hard. Iyo's hips jerk, reacting to the peak cresting over her before her brain does. Her entire lower body seems to seize up, a rush of heat flowing through her cock. Iyo's vision swims, eyes watering from the intensity of the feeling. It's too much for her to make any sound at all, despite the strain in her vocal cords signalling that they're trying desperately to. And then she's coming in earnest, spilling inside Rhea long and hard, hips straining to bury her to the hilt in Rhea's warmth. She can feel her cum pooling inside Rhea, slipping around her cock as Rhea's walls milk Iyo through it. Her cock jerks, managing to proudly spurt a few times more, until she's completely spent, and her hips are too weak to hold her up any longer.
Iyo collapses against Rhea in a heap, the larger woman crumpling onto her right back. Both of them are breathing hard through it, but miraculously, Iyo finds herself first. "That was... nice," she pants, feeling like her heart is going to beat out of her chest, "Thank you."
"Fuck," Rhea mutters as she eases Iyo's cock out of her, a trail of white following it to pool on Iyo's lower stomach. "Anytime you need it, I'm down." Then, a pause while she stares at the puddle of semen on Iyo, dipping her finger in it to draw a swirl. She adds on, "Or any other kind of stress relief, really."
Iyo joins her in staring at the mess on her body. They’ll have a lot of things to talk about once they’re sober, probably, but for now, with the room spinning and Rhea drawing little hearts against Iyo's skin with their cum, all she can really think to say is, "I think we are real friends, now."
//
When Monday morning rolls around, Iyo meets Rhea at the warehouse man door with an extra-large coffee and a kiss out of eyeshot. Rhea eyes the clear cup of juice Iyo’s gotten for herself, hiding her smirk behind her hand. “You taste fine,” she says quietly. Mirth cuts through her tone regardless.
Iyo shrugs. A bit of extra Vitamin C couldn’t hurt. More importantly, she’s got some work to do on her endurance, but she’s nothing if not determined. “Next time will be better,” she declares solemnly, and sips away.
