The air was absolutely frigid and gusts of icy wind followed Bridget through the door as she ducked into the club, completely bypassing the line. Cupping her hands over her mouth, she breathed hot air onto her frozen fingers and made a beeline to the bar, ignoring the many stares. Or trying to. There were people pointing and phones being aimed her way. Nothing new, but Bridget had to bite her tongue to keep from bursting out in anger. Had they never seen a celebrity before? “Tequila on the rocks, please,” she demanded from the bartender, shooting the person next to her a glare. “What are you looking at?”
The Fifth Drink Before a Long Drive (Hooked Outlaw Queen, rated T)
For Day 6 of @oqfixitweek. Roni Day! Have a little implicit Hooked Outlaw Queen threesome that maybe I will flesh out one day and write properly...
The Fifth Drink Before a Long Drive
Roni doesn’t do relationships. She did, once, a long time ago and all it got her was heartbreak. There are many things she needs in life, but that? That’s not one of them. So she gave up on that part of her life, and threw herself into a different kind of a relationship: the tempestuous life of a small business owner, particularly one that runs a dive bar. Ironically, this means she gets involved in all sorts of relationships, as if knowing how to pour a beer means she’s an expert in psychotherapy and can solve all sorts of problems. Best she can do is cure your taste for a damn good burger and some top shelf alcohol. Nonetheless, her customers think she can give them advice, and she seemingly can’t resist trying to help out miserable people.
Unsurprisingly, that gets her into trouble more often than not. Such as joining with Henry Mills and Jacinda to try and take on that bitch Victoria Belfrey. She still doesn’t know what she was thinking, or how she got all stirred up just because of those two and Jacinda’s adorable little girl.
She knows a lot about Hyperion Heights, anyway, because everyone comes to Roni’s. She’s got good food and good alcohol and, well, she’s not stupid. She knows she’s attractive, and she knows more than a few of her patrons so choose to patronize her because her fine establishment because of her looks. So she’s got a bit of a pulse on the neighborhood, and so she’s heard plenty of things about the aloof Detective Weaver and she even knows a little about his beat cop-turned-detective partner.
Roni couldn’t tell you what it was about Detective James Rogers that made her watch out for him. Maybe it’s because she’s seen what Weaver’s done to his other partners, maybe it’s something about how both she and him are caught up in Henry and Jacinda’s rebellion against Belfrey. Whatever it is, she cautions him, and looks out for him, and somehow ends up spending more and more of her time with him.
And again, she’s not stupid, not blind. He’s an attractive man, Detective Rogers, wears his uniform well and has piercing blue eyes, and an accent. It’s a well kept secret of hers, but Roni is a sucker for a British accent. Just something about one <i>does</i> things to her, feels familiar even though she’s never dated a Brit a day in her life. But she doesn’t do relationships, doesn’t date, doesn’t really sleep around…
Perhaps that was her first mistake. It’s been awhile, a long time, actually, and somehow Rogers had stuck around after the little “resistance” meeting with Henry and Jacinda. Trading shots and stories about his time as a cop, his suspicions about Weaver and Belfrey (a match made in hell, Roni’s sure), and well.
He just looks so damn good in the dim light of her dive bar, slinging back another shot as she does the same. His lip glistens with alcohol, and she thinks she should clean that up for him. So she does, leans right over and sucks that lip between hers, kissing him and forgetting about anything else except his mouth and the warmth of his body against hers for a little while.
They keep it a secret, their nights together, because it’s nobody’s business what they do when everyone else is gone. (Even if she is doing things in her establishment she probably shouldn’t do, such as letting Rogers spread her out on her bartop like a meal to be devoured — and oh, does he ever devour her.) As such, exclusivity isn’t really their thing — though Roni knows he hasn’t been seeing anyone else, and neither has she. Honestly not many men catch her eye, and it’s rare that she wants to share any part of herself with anybody.
Which makes her attraction to Brian Reynard all the more surprising. He’s British, too, so maybe she has a type after all. But he’s different from Rogers, with his salted hair and neatly trimmed beard and sparkling blue eyes that draw her in, make her feel all sorts of things. Ridiculous, girlish, foolish things. She’s never seen him in Hyperion Heights before — she knows she would never forget seeing him. She’s not sure why he came into her bar, or what kept him coming back, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t happy about it.
He’s surprisingly easy to talk to, seems to understand her in ways she can’t even comprehend, gives just as good as he gets when she throws some of her patented sass his way, and she <i>likes</i> him. His sense of humor, his wit, his British accent and good looks. Something that apparently is much too obvious, as even James points it out one night when Brian is talking to Henry in a corner of the bar, and she is blatantly checking Brian out despite her best intentions. (He approves of what they’re doing, how they’re trying to fight Victoria Belfrey and save their neighborhood, and God if that doesn’t make him even more attractive to her.)
“You know, I wouldn’t be offended,” James says as he’s getting a refill on his soda. Off her confused glance, he explains, “If you wanted to end things between us. Don’t get me wrong, we have a lot of fun, but I can tell you’re interested in him. I wouldn’t want you to not pursue him just because of our… situation.”
Roni means to protest, to insist she doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but her eyes slide right back to Brian, and she knows it’s stupid to play dumb. But she does scoff, and shake her head, saying with a tiny shrug, “It’d never work. And I like our no-strings situation just fine.”
He looks at her as if he wants to say more, and she hates that he’s begun to read her so well, too. It unnerves her how much she opens up around these two men, even though James is nothing more than a warm and willing body she shares her bed with. What he does say, however, is, “Something else I wouldn’t mind is… if you wanted to share, so to speak.”
Her confusion is entirely real this time, her eyebrows furrowing together as she repeats, “Share?”
“Yeah. If you wanted to maybe… invite him sometime. To one our… meetings,” he says, pitching his voice so that there’s no way she could mistake his meaning.
Roni’s gasp is entirely involuntary. She’s never done that before, not even in her wilder days (though she got close a few times, it always ended up not happening). And maybe that’s why she says <i>Really?</i> in such an intrigued voice, the thought of a new adventure and perhaps particularly a new adventure with Brian, a man she feels such a connection to, igniting something in her.
“You’re not the only one who can recognize a handsome man when you see them,” James smirks at her, all smug charm, the sort of smirk that sets her insides twisting with desire.
So Roni throws back a shot, one more, just for courage. And then she’s walking straight over to Brian, smiling at Henry before setting her sights fully on the man she intends to proposition, leading him away with a coy, “Can I speak to you for a moment?”
He comes willingly, and Roni just barely catches Henry’s all-too-knowing grin or the way Brian rolls his eyes in response as she’s leading him away to the hallway that goes to her office. Interesting, she thinks, before she remembers why she’s there, what she’s after.
“This is probably going to sound a little strange, but… You see, Rogers and I are… a thing. A sort of friends-with-benefits kind of thing, I guess is what they call it. And, well, we thought maybe you could… join us. If you were interested.” It’s not the smoothest proposition ever, but it seems to work, has Brian’s eyes darkening and lowering to stare at her mouth.
“Well then,” he says finally, biting his lip, and Roni gets the express urge to do that for him, instead. A flash of heat skitters under her skin, sparking her nerves, and she wants to ride this man into the ground, Jesus Christ. “Sure. But can I ask one thing?”
Roni nods, because having questions could only be normal, and yet she’s completely taken off guard by his question.
“May I kiss you right now? Just the two of us?” he murmurs, a touch hopefully, and she might have laughed had it not stirred her desire further.
And oh, how could she ever deny him that?
Kissing Brian turns out to feel a lot like putting on a threadbare T-shirt, something you’ve had for a while and yet can’t throw away just yet, despite how worn it’s gotten. He feels familiar, and warm, homey, a feeling only enhanced by his woodsy scent. She wants to breathe him in, and hold him close, kiss him forever.
The kiss ends all too soon, has her wanting to pull him in for another, when he’s asking, “So shall I stick around once everyone’s gone, or do you and James want to do it another night?”
Roni blinks, not sure what he’s talking about, and then remembering. The threesome. “Oh, um. Stick around. Everyone should be leaving soon.” She shoves a hand through her curls, pushing them back off her face, telling herself to show some restraint and walk away from him.
Soon, she’ll get to have more of him, after all, and though waiting seems torturous now, she has a sneaking suspicion that it’s going to be one of the best nights of her life.
I gave up on doing my summer French homework. I don’t even care anymore and I hate it. Like school starts tomorrow and I already hate it. Why the fuck do I have to be a junior
Drop a DARE in my inbox and I HAVE to do it!
Smooch the first person on your dash: radiant-starlight
Rather he would have much rather preferred to not kiss someone
other than his beloved one, he had asked for a dare & a dare he
had received, & his honour would not accept him receeding on a
promise, even one as unnecessary as this.
With an embarrassed look in his eyes, he kissed the first person
he saw on the forehead ( the dare, after all, had not specified
where the smooch should be & perhaps he was outreaching the
limits of the dare, but he would rather do that than kiss another
intimately on the lips that was not his beloved one ), exclaiming
immediately afterward, "That was a dare, sorry!"
Red hue graced his cheeks from the embarrassing situation, feeling
quite bad for relaying such a random kiss on a stranger. He would
await whichever punishment, whether a slap across on the face or
a punch, he would receive.
