Beautiful
Characters/Pairings: Ari Levinson x curvy!Millennial female!reader Word Count: 4.4k Summary: A special weekend with your new boyfriend Ari makes you think seriously about what you mean to him and how you see yourself.
Content Warnings: modern AU; early but established relationship; reader grappling with body image insecurities/relationship insecurities; use of endearment (beautiful); lingerie; explicit smut (oral: female receiving, face sitting); overstimulation
Author Notes: The second to last story for the Valensmut fest! This was inspired a lovely little gif @biteofcherry sent to my askbox two years ago. I had a lot of half-ideas for how to write something for it, but nothing that truly sparked and caught fire until @vonalyn helped inspire something that was just too irresistible an idea for me to not write it, so I hope I've done the story the justice I wanted to.
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“Valentines Day weekend,” Ari starts, and there’s a quick, excited flare that bursts through your chest.
“Yeah?” you ask, trying to play it cool, then take another bite of your pasta.
“I have to go to Denver for work.”
“Oh.” Your heart drops to the bottom of your stomach. “That’s totally fine.” You quickly give the tightest, best smile you can, and then focus back on your plate.
“Fine?”
“Yeah, no big deal.”
You hadn’t been getting excited in any way over the fact that this was the first year you were going to actually be with someone in any kind of real way for the holiday. Nope. Things were still very new. Barely a relationship. If it lasted, you could spend the holiday together next year.
“I know Denver’s not usually the dream destination, but I thought you’d be at least a little excited.”
You blink up at him. “Um, I guess I’m excited for you? Take a picture of the crazy horse for me?”
Ari frowns. Then he laughs. “Beautiful, no,” he reaches across the table for your hand. “You’ve gotta come with me.”
“Oh,” you feel heat rise up your neck, and drop your gaze again.
He leans forward while pulling your hand close to his chest. “It’s Valentines Day weekend, you can’t think I’d want to spend it without you.”
It’s a level of earnestness you still have trouble calibrating. Ari’s gaze doesn’t drop, his thumb working little circles over your knuckles like he’s trying to memorize the bones and tendons beneath your skin. You will never get used to it. Not the awe or the attention, the fact that he just gives it so freely to you.
You try to keep your voice steady. “Aren’t you going to be busy up to your eyeballs with, like, whatever it is architects do?”
Ari grins. “I’ll be working, sure. But I’ll finish up site visits in the mornings, then we can go do whatever people do in Denver. Or, you know…” He pulls your hand up so he can press a warm kiss to your wrist, and you try desperately not to melt immediately. “We could just stay in the hotel room. I booked a suite with a view. There’s even a fireplace.”
You try to swallow, and nearly choke instead. “You already booked it?”
Ari shakes his head, the smile softening around the edges. “Only the hotel. I wanted to make sure you could come before I bought tickets. If you can’t miss work, I’ve got to go out Wednesday but you can come Thursday or Friday night, as long as you’re there for the weekend, that’s all that matters. We’ll fly home together Monday, since it falls over Presidents Day weekend this year.”
You purse your lips together, trying to look thoughtful, but the part of you that’s been so carefully pacing itself—don’t get too eager, don’t get ahead of yourself, don’t assume you’re wanted—wants to climb into his lap and say yes, yes to anything, yes to a bleak Denver February, because it’s with him.
Instead you give him a slow, careful smile. “Sure, Denver. I should have the hours, and we’re usually light in February. I may not be able to swing Wednesday, but probably Thursday.”
Ari beams. “Text me tomorrow as soon as you clear it with your boss.” He’s so open, so easy, it almost breaks you. The way he lifts your hand to his lips again, reverent. It’s not entirely clear whether the gesture is about you or about him, like maybe he’s grateful for being allowed to adore somebody this straightforwardly. Either way, you try to receive it, to let it land. You try not to think about how, if you’d ever had to design a person for yourself, you wouldn’t have had the audacity to sketch out the veritable greek god that sits across from you.
“What’s this?” Ari asks, coming into the bathroom as you’re just putting the finishing touches on your makeup.
You glance over, then almost drop your mascara when you see he’s holding up the modest piece of lingerie—a teddy.
“Where did you—? How did you—?” It was nothing too flashy, but something that you felt like you might feel confident enough in to wear this weekend with Ari. Maybe. But it was supposed to be tucked away in the zippered pocket of your suitcase—partly as a surprise, but partly in case you couldn’t muster the gumption this weekend to trot yourself out on display for him.
Ari smiles, wickedly. “I was shamelessly trying to hide one of my shirts in your luggage to take home—isn’t that one of the perks I’m supposed to spoil you with as your boyfriend?”
Swoops of butterflies.
This man.
He comes up behind you and you catch his eyes in the mirror, the gleam in them, the entirely unsubtle, delighted flirty mischief. You’re not sure if you’ll ever get used to the way Ari looks at you, especially when you’re not even in the outfit yet.
“I didn’t know if I’d—if you’d—”
He loops a hand around your waist and presses a kiss just below your ear. “The only thing that would disappoint me about this,” he murmurs, “is if you didn’t wear it.”
He starts kissing his way down the side of your neck, the brush of his beard sending up a tiny parade of goosebumps along your skin. You laugh, try to squirm away, but his arms cage you in, broad and insistent. “Ari,” you gasp, “we’ll be late for the museum. Remember? The whole reason we got out of bed this morning?”
He grins into your pulse. “My only plan today is to be with you. Everything else is a footnote.” The look he gives you in the mirror is pure hunger, softened by a kind of wonder as if he can’t quite believe you’re real. “Now that I know this was in your suitcase the whole time, how am I supposed to think about paintings or sculpture or even breakfast?”
You make a show of rolling your eyes, but your heart is pounding so hard you can hear it in your ears. “You’re hopeless.”
“Damn right I’m hopeless when it comes to you.” His hand tightens, gently, on your waist. “You don’t have to wear it, of course,” he murmurs, voice muffled against your skin. “But if you wanted to, I might actually die.”
Your eyes flutter closed as he kisses your neck again. “Ari,” you nearly moan.
“You decide, museum or a morning here, I’ll go back out and wait, and when you come out to join me, whatever you’re wearing will determine the experience I will happily facilitate as your doting and dutiful boyfriend.”
He smiles warmly at you in the mirror’s reflection before pressing a quick kiss to your temple and then exiting the bathroom.
You bite your lip, weighing the options. This is how it’s always been between you and Ari: a careful negotiation between the allure of his certainty and your own ingrained skepticism. From the beginning, he clocked your wariness—how you read every compliment as possibly ironic or, worse, as an act of charity. You’d been slow, not because you didn’t want him, but because it seemed cosmically impossible that he wanted you.
Still, he met your pace. If you pulled away, he waited, hands gentle, eyes steady. If you wanted him, he came to you like you were gravity. He told you what he wanted—your hands, your mouth, your laugh. Sometimes he said it in words, sometimes with the weight and heat of his body pressed to yours. You’ve been dating for months, and you are beginning to believe that this is real. He never hesitates to touch you—not in public, in private, with friends, alone. He’s direct with his feelings. But years of not being the desirable one is hard work to unlearn.
It’s not that you haven’t had sex before—god, no, Ari’s appetite for you is prodigious, and you have learned things about your own body and the sheer power of longing you didn’t think possible from a man who looks at you like you’re a whole constellation. But lingerie was new, and with it came all the crusted-over narratives from years of body shame, the ones you thought you’d shed in your mid-twenties but always managed to drag along by a thread, a kind of tattered emotional security blanket. Have you ever felt beautiful, truly beautiful, exposed?
With Ari, yes, your heart says. And your gut agrees.
You look in the mirror at the the girl you’ve known for years: thick through the arms and hips, a jaw too soft for angles. But your cheeks are glowing and your eyes sparkle, and you realize, abruptly, that you look happy.
There is a fizzing anticipation now—not just the memory of Ari’s lips, but the invitation in his words, the dare of intimacy without holding back. You reach for the scrap of black silk and lace, finger the tag, and press it tight against your chest. There’s a shiver—not fear, exactly, but the feeling of standing on a high diving board, toes curling over the edge, looking down at the impossible blue below.
You step out of your jeans and toss your t-shirt across the room with a confidence you don’t quite possess yet, underwear and bra coming off quickly as well. The teddy slips on easily, a soft statement of delicate but calculated desire spelled out in lace and silk. You inspect the fit—there’s nowhere to hide, curves pooled and displayed, but instead of humiliation, you feel almost electric. This is not the body you were supposed to have, according to the magazines, but it’s the body you’ve had since the day you and Ari met.
You take a full, bracing breath and step out of the bathroom.
Ari is sitting on the edge of the bed, phone in hand but not looking at it, gaze already drawn and fixed to the doorframe at the first click of the knob. He stands. The world tilts slightly with the force of his attention. You have to grab the jamb to steady yourself, which is either mortifying or thrilling or both.
Ari closes the gap between you in three strides, slow enough that you could step back if you wanted, but you don’t want to, not at all. His eyes flick up and down, reverent and a little wild, hands hovering at your hips as if asking permission with every micro-movement. When he breathes it’s a little ragged, and he says your name in a voice that makes you feel newly invented.
For a full ten seconds he just looks at you. Not scanning for flaws, not searching for argument, just taking you in fully, and finally letting his hands trace your waist as though it’s holy work. “You are so fucking gorgeous,” he says, almost helpless.
If you could bottle this moment, you would: his breathing, the way he’s fighting the urge to speak but can’t help it, the look of overwhelming want. His fingertips are shaking a little as he slips them under the thin straps, then drops his forehead to your shoulder and just stands there, holding you.
You giggle, unexpected and high-pitched. “Ari, you’re making a scene.”
He brings his lips to your temple, your cheek. “Good,” he growls, smiling.
You cluck your tongue, but you can feel your face heating. The nerves are dissipating, melting out through your skin, ovrtaken by something molten and exhilarating. You lean up, press your lips to his neck, and savor the way it makes him shudder.
He hands move down over your waist, then under your thighs, and suddenly the floor drops away and you’re in his arms. He carries you with no visible strain, and deposits you in the center of the bed with a deliberate reverence. The sheets are cool and crisp beneath your bare skin. He sits on the edge, arms bracketing you, tracing his palm up your thigh, over your hip, to the small of your back.
“You,” he says again, shaking his head, as if you have upended the entire order of things. “I don’t think you have the faintest idea what you do to me.”
You do, a little, but only because he makes it so obvious. Even now, his hands can’t stop touching you. He pushes your hair back, kisses your collarbone, your jaw, and when his mouth finds yours it’s half-hungry, half grateful, like he’s thankful for something you did not realize mattered so much. You let him, and you let yourself, too. The whole bed rocks with the intensity of his worship, and you realize—hushed and dazzling—that there is nowhere else in the world, possibly the entire universe, that you want to be. The memory of old shames, all the careful, reticent years, dissolve in the heat of his mouth on your skin.
He slides a palm down your thigh and back up, pausing to thumb a lace edge with such focus it’s almost comical, as if reading a map written in touch. When he shifts, his jeans creak and you realize Ari is trying and failing to keep himself composed, the hard line of him pressing against the fly.
“I’m sorry,” he breathes, “I want to slow down, but you—” and then he’s kissing you again, but this time it’s with an edge, your name half-growled against your mouth, his hand a hot stripe across your ribcage. You reach for his shirt, tug upward, and Ari laughs into the kiss and obligingly peels it off, tossing it behind him. You savor the view as always: Ari’s golden tanned skin, the muscle of his shoulders, the hair over his chest and the trail down to his manhood cock.
Ari’s hands are on your shoulders, then your hips, guiding you back to the mattress. He lowers you with a gentleness that only makes the hunger more acute, kissing you all the while—with an urgency that infects your whole body. You’re aware of your heart, your skin, the press of his chest hair against your breasts through the lattice of black lace. You’re aware of the heat of his breath, the way his hands cup your thighs as if nothing in the world matters more than the exact give of your flesh beneath his palms.
And then, with a suddenness that’s almost comical, he breaks the kiss, leans back, and rolls, so you’re straddling him, knees bracketing his waist. Ari grins up at you, a wildness in his eyes. You feel suddenly, alarmingly exposed, perched over him in your tiny slip of nothing. But then Ari’s hands are back, running with purpose over your thighs, and then he’s bracing you by the hips, sliding you further upward, until your knees are on either side of his shoulders. The world pivots, every point of contact suddenly the precise axis of your need. He’s looking up at you, mouth already open, eyes almost black with intent.
And then, in that voice that’s all velvet and steel, Ari says, “Please sit on my face.” Like it’s not even possible to be embarrassed, like it’s the most obvious idea in the world, like you hadn’t ever considered it because you didn’t think you could possibly be the kind of person someone would want that much. He says it again, slower, each word a benediction: “Sit. On. My. Face.”
You blink, heat flooding your face—no one’s ever asked you for this, not so directly, so greedily. Ari doesn’t ask, though, so much as he demands, invites, wants. So he waits for you, hands gentle but insistent, the axis on which the universe turns. He licks his lower lip, and the sight is so obscene and so beautiful that you have to bite back a gasp.
You hover for a moment, uncertain—you in your ridiculous lace, the ceiling fan spinning lazily overhead, the daylight too honest in the window, until Ari’s hands tighten, just a bit, and he says, “I need to have you like this.”
And just like that, your last reservations dissolve—not because Ari is goading or pressuring, but because he means it. He wants you, all of you, with such ferocity that the only possible answer is yes. So you let yourself slide into place, guided by his hands, knees pressed into the sheets, thighs tensing as you hover above him. He looks up at you with devotion, hands smoothing the curve of your ass, the insistent flex and squeeze, and then he’s pulling you down, gently, no half-steps, mouth finding you through the silk first, a decisive kiss, and then pushing it aside, one thumb, and you’re bared.
The first contact is so tender it nearly buckles your knees, but Ari holds you steady, flattening his tongue, a careful, patient sweep, indicating he’ll play the long game. Then he grows bolder. He licks, then sucks, suck, sucks until you gasp and roll your hips forward, meeting that hunger head-on—then something opens up inside him, and he buries his face in your cunt.
Ari’s builds a rhythm of furious generosity; he’s greedy for it, yes, but not rushing, and every time you shiver, he murmurs these little words of encouragement, half-lost in the press of your thighs against his ears. You’re undone. The ceiling vanishes, the Colorado morning outside the window fades to a watercolor blur, and the only thing real is the trace of tongue and teeth and devotion.
You grip the headboard—no, you’re white-knuckling it, gasping something that might be his name or just a prayer. Ari’s hands aren’t gentle anymore; they’re greedy, molding your legs around his head with full intent. He doesn’t let up, not for air, not for a reprieve, and you want it that way, all the way, his eyes closed in rapture, like he can taste your soul.
You’ve been eaten out before—been eaten out by him before—but never like this. Every nerve ending in your body sings with electricity. You ride it, your brain flickering between arousal and laughter and disbelief and awe, until your breath is ragged and your voice is nearly gone.
He brings you to the edge and holds you there, again and again, until you’re babbling his name, a litany, the wet suck of his mouth a punctuation mark. There’s a moment where you think you might cry, the feeling is so intense, but instead you arch your back, pulling at his hair, and Ari makes a sound—delighted, greedy—grabs you harder, and just like that you come, shuddering so hard you’re certain you’ll leave a dent in the mattress.
But Ari doesn’t stop, tongue coaxing you to a second, smaller aftershock, hands gentling as though he knows that too much might tip you right off the planet. For a bright, trembling minute, you lose the thread of all language; you just hang there, open and panting and amazed that you are still in your body, much less staring down at the man you love, whose whole jaw is slick with your arousal, his eyes filled with the kind of pride usually reserved for Olympic gold medalists.
Fuck.
The man you love?
Ari’s hands slide under your thighs and, with an indulgence of gentleness, he lowers you to the mattress. You expect him to collect your body to his, tuck your face into his neck and maybe mumble some praise against the top of your head, but instead—he shifts, one knee on the bed, and then shoulders his way back between your legs like he’s clearing a path through the world.
You are about to protest, to tell him you’re already more than spent, that you might actually vaporize if he doesn’t let you recover, but you never get the words out. He’s planted himself between your knees, wide palms pushing your thighs apart and anchoring you as if you might try to escape. Like you could, even if you wanted to.
He’s merciless this time. You keep expecting him to slow, to ease off, to let you down gently, but he devours you, tongue and lips and whole face buried in the heart of you. The sensation is more intense now, and every nerve ending lights up with raw, electric pleasure. The overload is so complete your body can’t keep up; your hands scrabble at the sheets, your knees clamp hard around his head, and you curse, helpless, every word a rush of disbelief and wild joy. He pulls you apart and fastens you back together, again and again, each pass of his mouth intentional and deft. He’s not just eating you out, he’s consuming every atom you can offer, like you’re the only meal he’ll ever get.
You come again—harder, sharper—and it’s so much you sob, just a little, into your forearm, tears hot and unwelcome but somehow perfectly right. Ari never lets up. He holds you open, reverent, face wet with your need, tongue pushing you into a fourth, blinding orgasm. By the time he finally pauses, his cheek pressed to the inside of your thigh, your whole body is a jumbled mess.
Your breath is still coming in ragged tides, and your vision is streaked at the edges with the afterburn of ecstasy. But the moment your body slackens, Ari’s hands regrip with intent, and you realize—with a stab of terror and awe—that he is nowhere near done with you.
You try to wriggle away, or at least signal surrender, but Ari responds with a low, animal hum, so deep you feel it vibrating through the muscle of your thigh, and pins your hips down with a sweet, inexorable force.
Ari’s mouth returns to you, so greedy and thorough you realize that nothing on earth will slow him except your absolute depletion. He wants you ruined, wants you delirious and molten and incoherent. The only sounds in the room are your hoarse whines and the obscene, wet music of his mouth. When you try to catch your breath, he pulls you even closer, arms like iron bars under your legs, hands digging into your hips like he could wear you as a second skin. He doesn’t say a word, but everything about the way he eats you reads as a promise and a warning: he’s not finished until you’re empty, trembling, boneless. Maybe not even then.
You have no memory of ever feeling so helpless in the best possible way, all self-consciousness stripped away by the relentless, gracious violence of his devotion. You start laughing midway through the fifth, sixth, seventh wave—gasping, “I can’t—I can’t—” but Ari only redoubles, pulling every last shudder from you. When you finally fall limp, sobbing silently, the world reduced to a damp whiteout of spent pleasure, he cradles you like a prince rescuing a glass slipper.
Your bones feel unstrung, muscles flickering with the afterimage of climax. You fit perfectly in the crook of his body, cheek mashed against the warm, sweat-sticky skin of his chest. He breathes you in for a while, as if you’re some rare flower that might vanish if he blinks.
You don’t talk at first. You float on the leftover waves of pleasure, feeling the burn of your own thighs, the weirdly delightful chill of air on your wet skin, the thudding of Ari’s heart next to your cheek like a language you’re starting to learn. For a while he holds you that way, cradled in the safety of his ridiculous embrace, and lets you drift. Fingers play the vertebrae of your spine, gentle, one by one, as if your bones are a musical instrument and he’s determined to coax every note.
Eventually, your vision returns, embarrassment trying and failing to find oxygen in the thick air. Ari is still there, of course; he never leaves. “Hey,” he murmurs, kissing your temple, “are you alive in there?”
“No,” you say. “Ghost haunting you now.” Your voice is shredded, sore, so you croak it out, exhausted and elated. Ari’s answering laughter floods into the hollow between your collarbones, and you feel it like a soft animal curled in your ribs. He tucks you in tighter, wraps the sheet around your legs, drapes a tender, solicitous arm across your midsection like a shield.
Minutes pass. You’re not compelled to talk, which is one of the best parts of being with him. The silence isn’t expectant or loaded, just soft, feathered with the little sounds of breathing and heartbeat and, from the street below, the white noise of Denver plowing its way through late winter.
You press your ear to his chest, listen. Underneath the thick, dull rush of his pulse you can hear, distantly, the sound of his stomach rumbling.
“We… missed breakfast,” you mumble.
“You did, I didn’t.” He snorts, the sound reverberating through both of your bodies. “That was my breakfast, Beautiful. I could eat you every day for the rest of my life and never want for anything else.”
You try not to laugh, but the absurdity, the sincerity, it undoes you. Ari tips your chin up with a finger, then kisses you, gentle and lingering, as if you are a secret he means to keep. When he pulls away, he looks so smug it’s almost criminal.
You snort. “I’ve seen the amounts of food you consume to stay alive.”
He grins and shakes his head. “I guess that’s what room service is for then.” He stretches to the side, dragging you with him to keep you splayed half over his chest, retangling his long legs with yours under the sheets as he reaches for the phone on the bedside table. You arrange your cheek against the fuzz of his pec and let the slow, narcotic thump of his heart lull you back into you post-coital trance while he rattles off a long, impressive order that you miss the end of for falling asleep.
um 🥹
On some level there's always at least a whisper of some part of me in the reader characters I write, but I put a lot of what I would hope to find in a partner/relationship into this reader and this architect!Ari.
Heart divider was made by @firefly-graphics.
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