Takes one to know one | Rhett Abbott/Reader
Rhett couldn’t play your games anymore, he needs you to know he lost.
word count: 1.5K warnings: none
note Find this fic on AO3 #hi haven’t written anything or been kissed in a long time. Sighs. Anyways happy yearner Rhett for those who celebrate. Mentions of God and subtly comparing love to religion. English isn’t my first language btw, hope you like it ^_^ !
While the moonlight couldn’t compete with the white lights turning the rodeo into a spectacle, only his reddening face looking at the ground once his eyes find you in the crowd. He fixes his hat before raising for your challenge, he licks his lips thinking it would distract you from noticing a smile on his face.
It was your favorite game, lowering your head, rising your eyebrows along with the corners of your lips and nodding once just to let him know you see him. That he’s doing a good job at not letting you see how his hand grips on his waist, how his breathing weights on his chest when you’re locked on his eyes.
You wore a tight long-sleeved shirt which color could be stained with wine and it wouldn’t show a difference. Dark red, maroon, Rhett knew about colors. It’s the type of detail it would make you compare it to a certain wine brand or his bruised hands after riding. Type of detail that doesn’t escape your ability to continue chatting. He shouldn’t be thinking about this. Semi-finals had caught him on a cold night. Bull was rougher. His mind could’ve lingered a little longer on the top if it weren’t for the red lipstick painted on your face. The lights started to dim, and people began to fade.
Rhett’s questioned where would you go after this on the tip of his tongue but he was betrayed by his own body the moment he had you only meters away from him. People walking around your bodies like a river softening stones. His shoulders falling once your steps got you closer to him. He froze, keeping in mind the way your father whispered in your ear before the rodeo. He caught your mother’s disapproving eyes staring up and down and calculating just how much of a man he was that couldn’t measure to be even remotely deserving of capturing your eyes. He waited on you to make a move. Not as tough as people made him out to be.
Some say you reap what you sow. And your little eye game riled up his mind beyond forming any coherent word as you got closer. Maybe it was the moon dancing over the side you brushed your hair behind your ear. Maybe his breathing finally stopped and he had you confused with an angel all those years ago.
His clothes stuck to his body from the sweat, bringing out his broad shoulders and tightening around his chest. You swallowed, keeping posture before trying to meet his eyes but he was nowhere to be found. His gaze wandered the floor below and his fingers trailed his brown leather jacket. Boots tapping the dry sand he stood above, there wasn’t any escape and doe eyes stared at you caught on the brightness of your presence.
Then your greetings came as a whisper. Pride on his mouth was spit to the ground before he did something he’d be scared not to regret.
“Not bad,” you insisted as a wry smile adorned his face. As his features could be detailed closer and the skin below your nose tarnished hot from his breath. It was only a matter of time before he got so close he could see behind your façade. Shivers went down your spine steading you to the ground. Focusing on his eyes and the dim light reflecting distracted you from noticing them tracing your mouth. Pink painted his nose and cheeks as the wind blushed his face.
“Expected more” he recited with a low voice, while the grip on his jacket tightened. The results were enough for next round and the thought circles his mind as birds preying, he had been just enough, not good nor great. He swallows the thought before taking a pause to let the mix of hay, sweat and vanilla fill his lungs. The last scent makes him travel to the first and only time he had enough audacity to dare his nose trail the skin below your jaw. A grin lights his face remembering, like yours when it happened.
The kind of games that you played with him worked too well. The small balancing of your torso in place, waltzing to yourself before him, impatient. Something was between you two for years since you’ve started as a nurse in town. You faking you didn’t know what you were doing when you licked your lips staring him with a frown, confusing and intoxicating. It started to poison him the moment he saw you standing on the bleachers tonight. Losing temped him.
There hadn’t been a day now where the thought of tasting you wasn’t the only thought in mind. His family played dumb. Misplacing a plate on the fridge when he caught a bird outside the window that you told him about its legs automatically clamping on branches when they sleep so they don’t fall, his smile only raised concerns to his mother that he was slowly losing it. When you wore a dress tight on your torso and loose on your hips, cut a little above your knees, spotting him staring and smiled, making him miss the door on the store to end up on a wall, Perry only laughed. Now, jeans hugging your legs, arms behind your back, acting all innocent for him, his stupid causing a grin on you.
“Stop that” only making you frown from his stern shaking voice. “What are we doing?”
“What do you mean,” you tilted your head. Amusing yourself with the idea of riling him up without even a touch. The saintly woman you ought to be couldn’t let herself enjoy knowing the effect you had on him. He never stood a change under your voice, your gaze. Delighted by the desperate sight of a man finding little interest in praying to God, pleading to you.
“You know what I mean, sweetheart,” he held his fingers close to your waist, never quite reaching. “Once we do this, I don’t want nothing else”
He was tortured by your ever addicting laugh. Rhett should grab you but his hands stood still, he never waited on permission but any word from you could bring him to ruin. Anger filled his cheeks red trying to find the joke of of having him wrapped around your fingers.
“I want you,” consumed by the loss of his mind, surrendering himself to you. His hands began to shake in place, once you lowered your head to see them. Frowning further.
“What about Maria?” it came as a whisper again, tainted with mistrust. The first time he didn’t hear a gambler tone, or followed up by a topic changing the leading of the conversation as he caught you doing when he tried to flirt with you out front. He did once, thought he could get you easily. Then he got to know you and learned you loved proving people wrong about their expectations of you. It only made you stronger than smoking. He was the one frowning now, searching for the confident foe he made you out to be.
“What about her?”
“You’ve been in love with her since forever,” you reached for his fingers with yours, not reaching his palm. “When she looks at you, you’ll be done with me”
“Was a high-school crush,” he holds your fingers to lead them to his chest, not trying to hide the trembling of his hands. His heart raced on your palm and his eyes traveled from your golden rings adorning your hands to your eyes focusing on him. “I can’t anymore, I know I ain’t much. God’s honest truth that is. But I want all of you”
Rough voice against your tender lips. The tip of your noses lightly finding each other. Your eyebrows relaxed once under his eyes and the pressing of your lips goes unnoticed by the shadow casted from his hat. He takes it off with his free hand, when the right still steadies above your own. Daring to brush his thumb to bring you back. You begin to move your head softly. His head rested on the right side of his neck now, almost bowing.
“I should kiss that grin out of your face,” you manage to say and what kind of man was he to stop you.
“Should’ve done it sooner” before resting his hat on your head and reaching for your ear between his index and middle finger and allowing his thumb to play around your smiling cheek. He sighs when he realizes your free hand reaching for the back of his neck and bringing him closer.
“I hate you” was the last thing he heard before your lips greet his. Slowly finding your way against his mouth. He could taste the lipstick before you opened your mouth to taste his tongue.
The sweetest con often comes in the idea of an indefinite place of faith by someone else’s hands. His, bruised in purple and green with scratches he often downplayed their severity to calm you down, rough and slightly dirty fingers traced a path on the edge of your cheeks. The Rhett Abbott from everyone’s eyes could be careless, couldn’t be more different than the one whose hands slightly tremble when holding your face. You pretend not to notice how he crumbles from touching you, how his eyes tempest blue underneath your gaze.
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