Seduction 101
A very happy 18th birthday to @smilerforyou
Seduction 101
Madge unfolds her legs to rest them on the coffee table and for the next ten minutes, Gale is completely oblivious to what’s happening on screen.
All he can focus on are her legs, long and toned and bare. He imagines starting at her feet, then kissing his way up her calves, her knees, her thighs to the tiny shorts she’s wearing tonight, sliding those shorts down her legs and then starting his exploration all over again. He imagines those legs wrapped around him as she lies beneath him, writhing and moaning. He imagines kneeling in front of her, draping her leg over his shoulder and using his mouth to pleasure her as water cascades down from the shower.
“Can you pause it?”
“Huh?” Gale comes back to reality with a jump as Madge’s hand rests on his arm. The episode has ended and the next is about to begin. Sometimes Madge likes to pause between episodes so they can dissect what just happened. If that’s the case, he’s fucked because he has no idea.
“I just want to use your bathroom,” Madge says.
“Sure.” Gale grabs the remote and pauses while Madge skips lightly down the hall. He leans his head back against the couch and breathes slowly to get himself under control. He needs to do something about this growing infatuation with Madge. He’s going to ask her out. Tonight. When she gets back.
He jumps off the couch, gathers his empty beer bottle and Madge’s wine glass and takes them into the kitchen. The lasagne dish is soaking in the sink, so he scrubs it out and puts into into the dishwasher, then gets himself a beer and pours another glass of wine for Madge.
Gale is not quite sure how they got to this point. When he had moved into this apartment a year ago, shortly after breaking up with Katniss, he had not been at all pleased to find that her snobby, rich friend lived across the hall. Nor had Madge been happy to see him. But somehow, despite themselves, they had managed to become friends. He happily admits this was down to Madge being a sweet and kind person whose shyness he had mistaken for snobbishness. Their friendship had flourished in the intervening year, and even survived his foolish, inebriated attempt at making Katniss jealous by hitting on Madge after he had learned Katniss had been quietly seeing Peeta Mellark since she’d dumped Gale.
Now his favorite thing to do is hang out with Madge, making dinner together, talking about their day and watching Netflix together. He just wishes that instead of curling up at the end of the couch, Madge would curl up against him, and that instead of saying goodnight and going back to her own apartment at the end of the night, he would carry her to his bed.
He sits back down on the couch, but he’s so nervous his leg is jiggling. So he stands and paces instead. Then he sits again.
For the past few weeks, he’s been obsessing over what Madge had said to him the night she’d turned him down. At the time, he’d felt so stupid and embarrassed he hadn’t given it much thought, but now it plays on his mind constantly. “I don’t want to be just a one-night hook up,” she had told him. It is that tantalizing ‘just’ that he obsesses over. What did that just mean? Did she want something more with him? Was she open to dating him? Did she like him?
Of course that was eight months ago, and maybe she had changed her mind and just wants to be friends now. Maybe asking her out is a huge mistake that will ruin their friendship.
Gale jumps off the couch and paces again. Shit. Now he doesn’t know what to do.
No, he does. He’ll ask Madge out to dinner. Or better yet, he’ll cook something himself. Properly cook something from scratch, not just reheat a lasagne his mother sent him home with. He’ll set the table, light candles, flowers, the works. Madge will love it. He’ll romance her the right way, here in his own apartment. Where luckily, his bedroom is twenty feet away.
Satisfied with his plan, Gale sits again and waits.
Madge still isn’t back. He checks his watch. It’s been ten minutes. That is strange. Normally, she’s pretty quick. If she needs a longer time in the bathroom, she makes an excuse and goes back to her own place. What’s she doing?
He jumps up from the couch goes into the hallway. His bathroom door is open, Madge’s shoes lie on the ground in front of it. He frowns and looks into the empty bathroom. “Madge?”
There’s no reply, but he sees something else lying at the corner of the hall. He steps closer and picks up Madge’s sweater. Two more steps and retrieves her shorts from the ground.
His bedroom door is ajar, soft light spills out. There’s something hanging on the door handle. He lifts it up, Madge’s tank top.
Gale’s mind is in overdrive. He has all the pieces and he thinks he sees the picture, but he can’t be right. Because if he is…Holy shit!
“Madge?” He knocks on his door before pushing it open gently and stepping into the room.
“No! Wait! Shit! Stop!” Madge’s panicked voice calls. “Don’t look. Turn around.”
He catches sight of a blur leaping from bed before he turns around and faces the door. A naked blur? It happens too fast to tell. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Shit, this was so stupid. I’m sorry. I can’t believe I tried to do that. Please, just forget it. ”
“Tried to do what?”
There’s a long moment of silence, and when Madge does speak, her voice is muffled. “Tried to seduce you.”
Gale whips around to stare at her.
Madge is wearing a t-shirt belonging to him; the bottom just skimming the tops of her thighs. Her face is ducked, and buried in her hands. If Gale thought it was bad when Madge was wearing her tiny shorts, it had nothing on how it feels so see her dressed in only his t-shirt.
“Are you naked under that?” he blurts out. He immediately winces at how stupid that question is, but it’s impossible to think straight right now when all the blood from his brain is flowing south.
“No,” Madge says with a whimper. “I have things on.”
“Things?” His voice cracks like a pubescent teenage boy. Jesus.
“Can you please just get me my clothes, so I can get dressed and go home and kill myself,” Madge pleads.
Gale looks at the bundle of clothing in his hands and drops them onto the ground. He takes a couple of steps closer to Madge. “Why did you change your mind?” He grasps her wrists gently.
Reluctantly she lowers her hands but she’s still refusing to look at him, still hiding behind the curtain of her hair. “Because it’s so embarrassing. I thought I could do sexy and seductive, but I can’t. It was a dumb idea.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Gale releases her hands and instead pushes her hair away from her face before cupping her cheeks and tilting her face to look up at him. “Madge, does it help to know that I was planning on seducing you too?”
“What?”
“I was going to ask you out, or cook dinner or something first. You know, be a gentleman,” Gale says. “But I like your direct approach better.”
Madge cracks a smile. “Were you going to drape yourself across my bed in sexy lingerie too? Because I wouldn’t recommend it. It feels really stupid.”
Gale laughs. Then because he can’t wait a second longer, he leans down and kisses her. Madge responds immediately, pressing herself against him and winding her fingers through his hair to pull him closer.
His hands drop lower, down her back to cup her ass before sliding under the hem of her shirt.
Madge pulls away with a gasp. “You don’t waste time,” she giggles. She gives him a push, so he stumbles and falls backwards onto the bed. “Shirt off.”
Gale happily obliges by whipping of his shirt before she has even finished issuing the command. “Your turn.”
She bites her lips nervously, but pulls the shirt off to reveal the lacy red lingerie beneath.
“Holy wow,” Gale groans, pulling her towards him and kissing her again. She sinks onto his lap, her legs wrapping around his waist. Their lips fuse together again. Gale flips them so she’s lying beneath him. He takes a moment to drink her in before he begins his worship of her body.
He starts at her feet.
