Whether it's her actions - that soft brush of lips on his thumb, the graze of her tongue against his skin - or her words, Steve does blush this time. The innuendo might not be intended (though he doubts that, knowing Peggy as he does), but it's still there, heavy in between them. He smiles a little, despite himself.
"Didn't have the money to bet." His shoulders shift in a partial shrug. "But I still liked watching 'em. Bucky'd bet sometimes; he was more into that sort of thing than I was." You know. Riding.
So responsible; so stalwart. She could have written his answer on a piece of paper and hidden it under the mattress like a twisted bet of her own. Still. Poverty is no guarantee of such things. Plenty bet themselves into holes they can't crawl out of it. Not Steve, naturally. But she'd wondered — oh, maybe he splashed out one afternoon. Took a chance. Chased an impulse. The kinds of details that never make it into dry personnel files.
"Of course he was," Peggy drawls. Inhabiting both meanings at once. And perhaps a little perplexed to be lying back-to-chest with a man only to have him murmur sweet nothings about his best friend. But that's Steve, isn't it? Brimming over with loyalty and love. Perplexity erodes into affection.
"If our leaves ever match up," she breathes the words without much conviction, "we'll go to Newmarket. I heard they recently started the races back up again. Civilian morale and all that. I'll spot you a few quid."
Steve's made private bets with Bucky - a few pennies here and there - but his frivolous spending has always tended more towards baseball games and trips to Coney Island. He'd rather scrounge up enough to watch a Dodgers game than throw it away betting on the horses; he's always loved the camaraderie of a baseball game, the communal roar of a crowd, the crunch of peanut shells and popcorn underfoot. Races are nice, but as a New Yorker, baseball is in his blood.
Bucky would probably chide him for talking about his best friend when he's got a girl in his arms - classic Steve, still incapable of talking to women even after he's already won one over - but every girl but Peggy has always been more interested in Bucky than him. Doesn't mean he loves Peggy any less, or that, heaven forbid, he wishes Bucky were there instead.
"I'm surprised they have any jockeys left to ride the horses." Dear god, why isn't he just kissing her already?
Dear God, she thinks, why isn't he just kissing me already?
But never let it be said that Peggy is the sort to laze about and wait for others to do the hard work. Even in this, she understands some elbow grease may be required — albeit of the emotional sort. A little push, that's all.
She could drone on about the lack of variety in the jockeys and horses that do make it to the venue. She could talk about how betting's restricted, anyway, so you have to seek out underground bookies. She could talk about how the Jockey Club pushed hard to resume races to support rural employment.
Instead: "How about you and I make a wager? Right now."
Peggy shakes her fingers free from his hand and tips her chin — nudging her jaw against his palm as she peeks under the blanket. Checking her watch, it seems.
Steve tries not to let out a small disappointed noise when Peggy moves her head; it's not like he's not touching her, after all, he's just not touching her lips. The more important thing is that she's still ensconced in his arms and shows no sign of changing that position anytime soon.
"Hm." He lets his head drop a little, so that his lips brush against the nape of her neck when he speaks. See? He can escalate things, too. "Eight hours, give or take." He has absolutely no basis for this guess, which is probably on the low side; he's much more interested in what the forfeit will be.
—Oh. Those scant words against the back of her neck send a shiver down her spine. She can feel her skin tighten in a bright, cascading pattern. It's such a small thing, but her eyes flutter shut and she rolls her shoulders. Back, back, back into him.
Eight hours from now puts them just shy of eleven o'clock. All night and then some. Peggy half-suspects they might be stuck for longer. While Steve is (perhaps) the most prized asset currently in this unmarked, unnamed base — the forecast is a long one and she'd already given a heads up over radio to prioritize the more populated out-buildings first once the weather eventually does clear.
"If we're down here longer than eight hours, I win. If we're out sooner than that, you win. The loser owes the winner the fulfilment of one favour. Or — a wish, perhaps. To be determined at the end of the bet."
It's not like they're in truly life-threatening danger here; they've got rations, and even the cold isn't deadly. So it's hardly as if they're betting on a matter of life or death - if that were indeed the case, Steve wouldn't be waiting calmly for rescue. But for now, he's more than willing to have a bit of privacy with Peggy, though the conditions aren't exactly ideal.
"It's a bet," and this time, there's an unmistakable peck of lips against her skin to seal the deal. It seems as if Steve's emboldened by drawing a reaction out of her like it's a prize.
It's maddening to both be circling the same reality. Peggy clocks the small kiss and swallows the next frisson with a modicum of control — and thinks about whether she should simply turn in his arms and confront him face to face. Eye to eye.
But no. That's not the game, is it? She's still stuck thinking about what incremental steps she might take to encourage him to meet her in the middle. So she lifts her hand, tilts her wrist in such a way that shows him the current time — subtly pressing back against his body as she twists to let the clock face be more legible.
Smug: "I've got all night to imagine my winnings."
Kissing Peggy would be too easy (though it simultaneously feels impossible); they've bound themselves to the convoluted steps of this dance, and new they have to see it through to the end, bit by torturous bit. She presses back against him, he shifts his arm to keep her close and tight. Every action has an opposite and equal reaction, until it suddenly doesn't.
"Longer than that, if you're right." He wonders what kind of thoughts are running through Peggy's head, if they're as salacious as his own. It's hard to think about anything else while they're slotted together like this, playing their little games.
"—Oh," she murmurs her response, "I've got every intention of having my ask decided before dawn. Even if it won't be official until noon."
At the earliest. Christ, but they could be in here for a long time. Hours upon hours with nothing but each other, some infiltration plans, and this creaky cot. It's this thought that suddenly ratchets her heart rate higher — pulse suddenly quick in her throat. Before now, the time horizon on their banter had always felt woefully short. Always another mission to get to. Always another day to save. But tonight...
Well. The yawning chasm of possibility hits harder than it had earlier. Peggy's arm drops and she pulls it back under the blanket. Because Steve now secures her against him, there's little slack available to her. She reaches for his wrist, fingers closing what distance they can. Fingertips not quite meeting. Two can play the scheme of eliding distance between them as she hikes his arm higher, closer. Like drawing a quilt up her body, she tucks his palm against the buckle of her uniform coat.
"Should I be worried?" As if Steve hasn't had extensive dreams about being wholly at Peggy's mercy. The very tone of her voice is something sly and calculating, something that holds wicked promise in its depths. He shifts incrementally against her, still fighting his body's natural response to both the close quarters and his own increasingly ribald thoughts.
It's a battle he knows he's destined to lose, especially when Peggy pulls his hand up to the buckle of her coat. He's determined to be a gentleman, but she's equally determined to have him be less than gentlemanly, or so it would seem. He runs his thumb over the cool metal as it warms to his body heat, inhales against the skin of her neck. Undoing the buckle seems counter to the purpose of keeping Peggy warm, and if asked, that's why he lingers over it, and certainly not to draw out his teasing just that much longer.
Here it is, she thinks. The Rubicon, or the place where willful blindness sheds its scales. No single action thus far has strained the most literal definition of what's happening on this cot — barring maybe, maybe a few errant kisses on his thumb; on her nape. They have equal opportunity in these tense next seconds to clear their throats and hunker down and wrap each other in a chaste bear hug. They could settle for heat, alone. They probably should. Doesn't matter whether it's eight hours or eighty: crossing this line risks heaps and heaps of complications. More than they've already navigated so far with accidental brushes and lingering looks.
She fints it maddening how slight the pressure is from above metal and wool and silk. Sensation muffled to the point where she doesn't even know it's his thumb tracing the buckle — letting her own imagination run with myriad possibilities. A knuckle? His index finger? Middle finger? Both?
Her next swallow is hard. Something in the pit of her stomach reacting to the wind change in Steve's behaviour, like he's right on that edge of giving up on being coy. So Peggy gives him a shove.
"Perhaps." Perhaps you should be worried. "Don't you trust me?"
"More than anyone." Another one of those painfully earnest confessions that's wholly at odds with the veiled innuendo and circumspect touches of their situation, but Steve can't bring himself to be coy about this one thing, at least. To compensate, he adds: "Doesn't mean I don't know how your mind works." And oh, he loves how twisty and devious her mind can be, even when (especially when?) it ultimately leads to his downfall.
Now his lips find their way to her earlobe, and there's another kiss there - still chaste, but closer to straddling the edge of it. He undoes the buckle, slides his hand in under the jacket - hesitates only a moment before he moves his hand up over her heart to feel her pulse, warm and steady beneath his palm. "Peggy," he whispers reverently against her skin, her name like a benediction.
Already, her next breath catches in the back of her throat. Before the dull clink of the undone buckle and before his kiss — because when all is said in done, is there anything more titillating than being known. And in the fell swoop of two complimentary statements, Steve proves he knows her intimately. Their trust is sacrosanct, yes, but neither of them are ever to be underestimated. One can always assume the best intentions — but those best intentions aren't always innocent.
They certainly aren't right now, right this second, as his palm settles high and warm against her chest. Sandwiched between coat and shirt. And she can feel a faint, pleasant flush creeping up her neck and curling onto her cheeks. Warm, indeed.
She should say something smart. She should say something responsible. She should lay out some fine, reasonable expectation — heavy petting, perhaps, and up to here. Technically, there's a so-called Act of God bearing down on their operationally signicant position.
Instead, a dark thrill haunting the lower notes, she says: "I know you run hot, but—"
Peggy grabs lightly at the curve of his bicep. Not to stop or hinder or direct him any further but just to grab onto him. To anchor herself in that same arm that reaches around her. To hold him tight. Lock him to her. To steady her courage as she squirms backward — her two knees squeezing the one of his he'd nudged between them earlier. A slightly more innocent gesture, once upon a time.
Steve's counting on Peggy to be the responsible one - to say when and if she wants him to stop, even though she's the one egging him on in the first place. They're careening toward mutually assured destruction with nothing and no one to stop them, now that there's a blizzard bearing down on them and hours upon hours of time alone.
"Am I?" He grins against her neck, and there's something surprisingly wolfish about it, not that she can see it. "Even though it was in the files?" They're rapidly crossing into undiscovered territory for the research that's been conducted on him, and Peggy is more than welcome to make her own observations, though perhaps not to share them with others. There's nothing scientific about the way his thumb just barely grazes the curve of a still-clothed breast, or the way his hips roll forward against her. Indeed, it's harder to maintain his razor thin grip on his self-control.
Their current configuration is a double-edged sword. Turned away from him, she can let her expression go slack — lips parting — when his words fall against her neck. When the one-dull pressure of his thumb is suddenly far, far more in focus despite his still-light touch. No, there was nothing in his medical files or psych evals about his paradoxically gallant fervour.
Peggy could have guessed, of course. Did guess. Had watched, observed, eyed him across all manner of fields and bunkers and strategy tables. Not every suspicion she has of him got represented on paper. Some she keeps only for herself, locked tight in the place she only visits when she feels safe enough to dally with her — frustrations. She isn't surprised when he smiles against her skin or picks up the loose threads of a game she started. If anything, he only proves her hypothesis right. Crack the blushing boy scout, and you dig into the devotion and passion and action beneath. So it's always been. In some ways, the way to seduce Steve Rogers is the same way you pick a fight: give him something to strive against.
Well-worked muscles along her lower stomach, her hips, her thighs tighten at his forward momentum. Whatever heat he's sharing with her is now well-rivaled by her own blood and a blooming, growing warmth. Her nails dig into his shirt-sleeve as she resists an instinct to take his hand and plant it. Far, far more enjoyable to let him loose and see were he spins.
"I suspect," she breathes the words, "we've hit a level of data-gathering not fit for triplicate."
And then one mere graze of his thumb, no different from the few that came before it, somehow steals differntly over her nervous system and pulls a voiced sigh out of her throat. She'd feel embarrassed for how needy it sounds — except she knows her need must match his. They're in this pit together.
"Steve—" Each phoneme its own distinct sound. She says his name like she wants something. Like she's got follow-up, if only he'll ask.
There are certain physical things about Steve that only exist in hypothesis, and possibly only in the fevered mind of one Howard Stark. Obviously Steve isn't sharing any of the data he's managed to collect, as it were, in those far few between moments of privacy, some of the only measurements they hadn't taken when he was under observation. Everything about him is more sensitive, for example, and so there is the definite stirring of something even though her nails are blunted by the barrier of cloth.
At least, he thinks, this will never end up in any of his files.
What's true for Steve is true for Peggy: in this case, they only serve to egg each other on, to challenge each other to new heights. Usually, Peggy's common sense prevails and keeps them from anything too hazardous; right now, there's no such guarantee. Steve doesn't know where this might be headed, but he's well and truly got the bit between his teeth now, as it were, and there's no stopping him.
"Hm?" As if she could say his name like that and not expect him to ask. He stills his thumb, to see what might happen next - to see if she'll voice her need, if she'll find some way to retaliate against him. He waits for her reply with bated breath.
Sod the blizzard beyond the doors; Steve's thumb stilling against her breast — falling motionless — is the more consequential natural disaster at this very second. Peggy swallows a petulant sound that never quite makes it past a breathy start. But her body must outpace her tongue because her shoulders flex and shimmy in a way that nearly shouts don't you dare stop.
Retaliation does come — swift and instinctive, as she rolls her hips backward in vengeance. Like a whip-quick desire to inflict upon him tenfold what he's inflicted upon her.
But rather than use her voice to do anything helpful like direct him back to work or articulate her desire or god forbid tell Steve what simply trading barbs with him does to her insides — she puffs out a rather ornery: "Guard rotations. Shift changes and body counts. Go on, then."
All said in a tone equivalent to grabbing onto his collar and challenging him to perform under pressure. Under distraction.
Part of Steve wants to obstinately pull his hand out from Peggy's jacket during his recitation, just to make some sort of obscure point - what point exactly, he's not sure. But he's a little afraid that if he does that, she'll pull away entirely and buckle her jacket back up and things will be completely ruined, because frankly, Steve constantly expects to be one short step away from disaster in any interaction with Peggy (or any other woman).
It honestly doesn't occur to him that he could do whatever he wants; that's simply not part of the rules of their unspoken game, just like kissing her isn't. He doesn't have to keep reciting the plans for her - didn't have to the first time, let alone the next six - but it's Peggy, and doing what she says is mandatory (right up until it isn't).
So he moves back up to the shell of her ear and whispers the guard rotations to her in a low tone, not unlike he's whispering sweet nothings. Peggy probably would enjoy the movements of German soldiers more than she would his clumsy attempts at seduction, anyway.
So, it isn't quite what the goal she'd had in mind. His thumb remains as-is — present but unmoving. A light, hardly-there reminder of the kinds of boundaries they're skirting together. Peggy isn't even certain she wants to push him further. No, that's a lie, she absolutely wants to push him further — what she can't decide is how much sweeter it might be to instead linger in this quiet, playful space.
The cold is long, long forgotten. All her attention has narrowed down to the erased distance between their bodies. That, and the way his words — dry and practical in subtance — shoot down her spine and spread through her lower belly. Steve's wrong, of course. German soldier movements are the least interesting part of how he whispers in her ear. Rather, it's his sly strategy she likes best.
Peggy doesn't stop him. She lets him exhaust the entire list. Hell — she prompts for additional details, lightly tapping his elbow to spur him onward. His answers are impeccable, leaving her to wonder whether she shouldn't seek out some new means of distraction. Hmm.
"Careful," she warns him, "or I'll be tempted to update all future strategy sessions."
Steve focuses on the rhythmic rise and fall of Peggy's chest under his palm, the measured inhale and exhale of breath. As much as he wants to keep pushing - as much as he needs her - it's undeniably nice to just be together like this and share in a quiet, peaceful moment of intimacy separate from the rest of their busy lives. It's a little oasis of calm in the middle of the war, one that he might not deserve, but he'll revel in it anyway. Later, he'll keep this moment tucked close to his heart like he does the compass with Peggy's picture in it.
"How terrible for me," he drawls in her ear. There are worse things than having to go over troop movements with one hand tracing the contours of Peggy's body. While it's torturous in the context of abusing both their libidos, the proverbial coals are banked enough that they can play these little games of push and pull instead of something more rushed and frenzied.
(It's better to keep their clothes on in the chill of the bunker, anyway.)
He doesn't mention that they'd be hard pressed to find the privacy for sessions like this in camp most of the time; Peggy knows that as well as he does. Let them have a shared fantasy world where things like this are possible instead of one-time flukes.
Privately, she revels. Hell — perhps she revels less privately, too. Provided he can accurately decipher the root of her low, throat-deep chuckle and the constrained hunger in how she moves to hug his arm against her body. She revels because this is the best knife's edge she could ever hope to keep him balanced upon: patient and abiding, but somewhat wicked at his very edges. Whispering in her ear even as he only holds her. It's her fault, she realizes, for loving a man's restraint as well as his resistence. Those two sides of Steve Rogers somehow manage to forever out-compete one another for her favourite.
Her fingertips climb up from his elbow and find his wrist, the back of his hand — dragging the pads over his knuckles. If he won't caress her, she'll caress him. A tactile demonstration of what he could — but doesn't have to — do.
"A fine candidate for my wish," she mock-threatens. And by even breathing it must surely render it ineligible. It's far too early to play her hand. Christ, she hasn't even won. Yet.
"Maybe you should save it for something I wouldn't normally do if you asked me." Though exactly what that might be, Steve has no idea. It's not like there's a long list of things he wouldn't do for Peggy, but asking, he suspects, might be part of the point here.
He allows himself a pleased-sounding sigh at the way Peggy caresses his knuckles, that little sign of intimacy that is also so clearly a hint of what she wants him to do. But he doesn't go right for the touch - instead he finds the closest button of her shirt and fingers that. Hinting at what he might do next.
She doesn't break the spell by telling him she's got little interest in asking him to do anything he wouldn't do — allowing, perhaps, for some very particular and delicate edge cases. And in that regard, he rightfully identifies the act of asking as the reward itself. The hazy-bright imagined second where she articulates a want, exposes it to him, and watches that desire translate and land in his expression. To witness his willingness, perhaps.
Yes, no, not the conversation to be had just now. Not when he toys with a button she can only feel like a teasing tug on her clothing. A trailing nail pauses at the slope of his thumb, carving a soft hook shape against the meaty heel of his palm.
So perhaps she doesn't show him her math — but attempts the formula all the same with a whispered, "Go on."
Just like that, with two simple words, Steve's mouth goes dry. After all the playing and teasing, one of them is finally articulating a desire, and oh, it's a heady feeling that goes straight to his core. What's more, it strokes his ego, not that Steve would ever admit that to Peggy, but it's gratifying to hear that she wants him from her own lips.
He undoes the button without toying with it any longer, and then, finally, his fingers graze bare skin. "What next?" he murmurs in her ear, though he only half expects an answer. More likely, it'll be something else - more witty repartee, or yet another request to go over their shared intel now that he has something even more distracting at hand.
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"Didn't have the money to bet." His shoulders shift in a partial shrug. "But I still liked watching 'em. Bucky'd bet sometimes; he was more into that sort of thing than I was." You know. Riding.
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"Of course he was," Peggy drawls. Inhabiting both meanings at once. And perhaps a little perplexed to be lying back-to-chest with a man only to have him murmur sweet nothings about his best friend. But that's Steve, isn't it? Brimming over with loyalty and love. Perplexity erodes into affection.
"If our leaves ever match up," she breathes the words without much conviction, "we'll go to Newmarket. I heard they recently started the races back up again. Civilian morale and all that. I'll spot you a few quid."
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Bucky would probably chide him for talking about his best friend when he's got a girl in his arms - classic Steve, still incapable of talking to women even after he's already won one over - but every girl but Peggy has always been more interested in Bucky than him. Doesn't mean he loves Peggy any less, or that, heaven forbid, he wishes Bucky were there instead.
"I'm surprised they have any jockeys left to ride the horses." Dear god, why isn't he just kissing her already?
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But never let it be said that Peggy is the sort to laze about and wait for others to do the hard work. Even in this, she understands some elbow grease may be required — albeit of the emotional sort. A little push, that's all.
She could drone on about the lack of variety in the jockeys and horses that do make it to the venue. She could talk about how betting's restricted, anyway, so you have to seek out underground bookies. She could talk about how the Jockey Club pushed hard to resume races to support rural employment.
Instead: "How about you and I make a wager? Right now."
Peggy shakes her fingers free from his hand and tips her chin — nudging her jaw against his palm as she peeks under the blanket. Checking her watch, it seems.
"You best guess on how long we'll be down here?"
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"Hm." He lets his head drop a little, so that his lips brush against the nape of her neck when he speaks. See? He can escalate things, too. "Eight hours, give or take." He has absolutely no basis for this guess, which is probably on the low side; he's much more interested in what the forfeit will be.
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Eight hours from now puts them just shy of eleven o'clock. All night and then some. Peggy half-suspects they might be stuck for longer. While Steve is (perhaps) the most prized asset currently in this unmarked, unnamed base — the forecast is a long one and she'd already given a heads up over radio to prioritize the more populated out-buildings first once the weather eventually does clear.
"If we're down here longer than eight hours, I win. If we're out sooner than that, you win. The loser owes the winner the fulfilment of one favour. Or — a wish, perhaps. To be determined at the end of the bet."
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"It's a bet," and this time, there's an unmistakable peck of lips against her skin to seal the deal. It seems as if Steve's emboldened by drawing a reaction out of her like it's a prize.
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But no. That's not the game, is it? She's still stuck thinking about what incremental steps she might take to encourage him to meet her in the middle. So she lifts her hand, tilts her wrist in such a way that shows him the current time — subtly pressing back against his body as she twists to let the clock face be more legible.
Smug: "I've got all night to imagine my winnings."
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"Longer than that, if you're right." He wonders what kind of thoughts are running through Peggy's head, if they're as salacious as his own. It's hard to think about anything else while they're slotted together like this, playing their little games.
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At the earliest. Christ, but they could be in here for a long time. Hours upon hours with nothing but each other, some infiltration plans, and this creaky cot. It's this thought that suddenly ratchets her heart rate higher — pulse suddenly quick in her throat. Before now, the time horizon on their banter had always felt woefully short. Always another mission to get to. Always another day to save. But tonight...
Well. The yawning chasm of possibility hits harder than it had earlier. Peggy's arm drops and she pulls it back under the blanket. Because Steve now secures her against him, there's little slack available to her. She reaches for his wrist, fingers closing what distance they can. Fingertips not quite meeting. Two can play the scheme of eliding distance between them as she hikes his arm higher, closer. Like drawing a quilt up her body, she tucks his palm against the buckle of her uniform coat.
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It's a battle he knows he's destined to lose, especially when Peggy pulls his hand up to the buckle of her coat. He's determined to be a gentleman, but she's equally determined to have him be less than gentlemanly, or so it would seem. He runs his thumb over the cool metal as it warms to his body heat, inhales against the skin of her neck. Undoing the buckle seems counter to the purpose of keeping Peggy warm, and if asked, that's why he lingers over it, and certainly not to draw out his teasing just that much longer.
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She fints it maddening how slight the pressure is from above metal and wool and silk. Sensation muffled to the point where she doesn't even know it's his thumb tracing the buckle — letting her own imagination run with myriad possibilities. A knuckle? His index finger? Middle finger? Both?
Her next swallow is hard. Something in the pit of her stomach reacting to the wind change in Steve's behaviour, like he's right on that edge of giving up on being coy. So Peggy gives him a shove.
"Perhaps." Perhaps you should be worried. "Don't you trust me?"
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Now his lips find their way to her earlobe, and there's another kiss there - still chaste, but closer to straddling the edge of it. He undoes the buckle, slides his hand in under the jacket - hesitates only a moment before he moves his hand up over her heart to feel her pulse, warm and steady beneath his palm. "Peggy," he whispers reverently against her skin, her name like a benediction.
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They certainly aren't right now, right this second, as his palm settles high and warm against her chest. Sandwiched between coat and shirt. And she can feel a faint, pleasant flush creeping up her neck and curling onto her cheeks. Warm, indeed.
She should say something smart. She should say something responsible. She should lay out some fine, reasonable expectation — heavy petting, perhaps, and up to here. Technically, there's a so-called Act of God bearing down on their operationally signicant position.
Instead, a dark thrill haunting the lower notes, she says: "I know you run hot, but—"
Peggy grabs lightly at the curve of his bicep. Not to stop or hinder or direct him any further but just to grab onto him. To anchor herself in that same arm that reaches around her. To hold him tight. Lock him to her. To steady her courage as she squirms backward — her two knees squeezing the one of his he'd nudged between them earlier. A slightly more innocent gesture, once upon a time.
"You're warmer than I guessed."
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"Am I?" He grins against her neck, and there's something surprisingly wolfish about it, not that she can see it. "Even though it was in the files?" They're rapidly crossing into undiscovered territory for the research that's been conducted on him, and Peggy is more than welcome to make her own observations, though perhaps not to share them with others. There's nothing scientific about the way his thumb just barely grazes the curve of a still-clothed breast, or the way his hips roll forward against her. Indeed, it's harder to maintain his razor thin grip on his self-control.
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Peggy could have guessed, of course. Did guess. Had watched, observed, eyed him across all manner of fields and bunkers and strategy tables. Not every suspicion she has of him got represented on paper. Some she keeps only for herself, locked tight in the place she only visits when she feels safe enough to dally with her — frustrations. She isn't surprised when he smiles against her skin or picks up the loose threads of a game she started. If anything, he only proves her hypothesis right. Crack the blushing boy scout, and you dig into the devotion and passion and action beneath. So it's always been. In some ways, the way to seduce Steve Rogers is the same way you pick a fight: give him something to strive against.
Well-worked muscles along her lower stomach, her hips, her thighs tighten at his forward momentum. Whatever heat he's sharing with her is now well-rivaled by her own blood and a blooming, growing warmth. Her nails dig into his shirt-sleeve as she resists an instinct to take his hand and plant it. Far, far more enjoyable to let him loose and see were he spins.
"I suspect," she breathes the words, "we've hit a level of data-gathering not fit for triplicate."
And then one mere graze of his thumb, no different from the few that came before it, somehow steals differntly over her nervous system and pulls a voiced sigh out of her throat. She'd feel embarrassed for how needy it sounds — except she knows her need must match his. They're in this pit together.
"Steve—" Each phoneme its own distinct sound. She says his name like she wants something. Like she's got follow-up, if only he'll ask.
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At least, he thinks, this will never end up in any of his files.
What's true for Steve is true for Peggy: in this case, they only serve to egg each other on, to challenge each other to new heights. Usually, Peggy's common sense prevails and keeps them from anything too hazardous; right now, there's no such guarantee. Steve doesn't know where this might be headed, but he's well and truly got the bit between his teeth now, as it were, and there's no stopping him.
"Hm?" As if she could say his name like that and not expect him to ask. He stills his thumb, to see what might happen next - to see if she'll voice her need, if she'll find some way to retaliate against him. He waits for her reply with bated breath.
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Retaliation does come — swift and instinctive, as she rolls her hips backward in vengeance. Like a whip-quick desire to inflict upon him tenfold what he's inflicted upon her.
But rather than use her voice to do anything helpful like direct him back to work or articulate her desire or god forbid tell Steve what simply trading barbs with him does to her insides — she puffs out a rather ornery: "Guard rotations. Shift changes and body counts. Go on, then."
All said in a tone equivalent to grabbing onto his collar and challenging him to perform under pressure. Under distraction.
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It honestly doesn't occur to him that he could do whatever he wants; that's simply not part of the rules of their unspoken game, just like kissing her isn't. He doesn't have to keep reciting the plans for her - didn't have to the first time, let alone the next six - but it's Peggy, and doing what she says is mandatory (right up until it isn't).
So he moves back up to the shell of her ear and whispers the guard rotations to her in a low tone, not unlike he's whispering sweet nothings. Peggy probably would enjoy the movements of German soldiers more than she would his clumsy attempts at seduction, anyway.
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The cold is long, long forgotten. All her attention has narrowed down to the erased distance between their bodies. That, and the way his words — dry and practical in subtance — shoot down her spine and spread through her lower belly. Steve's wrong, of course. German soldier movements are the least interesting part of how he whispers in her ear. Rather, it's his sly strategy she likes best.
Peggy doesn't stop him. She lets him exhaust the entire list. Hell — she prompts for additional details, lightly tapping his elbow to spur him onward. His answers are impeccable, leaving her to wonder whether she shouldn't seek out some new means of distraction. Hmm.
"Careful," she warns him, "or I'll be tempted to update all future strategy sessions."
To be like this.
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"How terrible for me," he drawls in her ear. There are worse things than having to go over troop movements with one hand tracing the contours of Peggy's body. While it's torturous in the context of abusing both their libidos, the proverbial coals are banked enough that they can play these little games of push and pull instead of something more rushed and frenzied.
(It's better to keep their clothes on in the chill of the bunker, anyway.)
He doesn't mention that they'd be hard pressed to find the privacy for sessions like this in camp most of the time; Peggy knows that as well as he does. Let them have a shared fantasy world where things like this are possible instead of one-time flukes.
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Her fingertips climb up from his elbow and find his wrist, the back of his hand — dragging the pads over his knuckles. If he won't caress her, she'll caress him. A tactile demonstration of what he could — but doesn't have to — do.
"A fine candidate for my wish," she mock-threatens. And by even breathing it must surely render it ineligible. It's far too early to play her hand. Christ, she hasn't even won. Yet.
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He allows himself a pleased-sounding sigh at the way Peggy caresses his knuckles, that little sign of intimacy that is also so clearly a hint of what she wants him to do. But he doesn't go right for the touch - instead he finds the closest button of her shirt and fingers that. Hinting at what he might do next.
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Yes, no, not the conversation to be had just now. Not when he toys with a button she can only feel like a teasing tug on her clothing. A trailing nail pauses at the slope of his thumb, carving a soft hook shape against the meaty heel of his palm.
So perhaps she doesn't show him her math — but attempts the formula all the same with a whispered, "Go on."
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He undoes the button without toying with it any longer, and then, finally, his fingers graze bare skin. "What next?" he murmurs in her ear, though he only half expects an answer. More likely, it'll be something else - more witty repartee, or yet another request to go over their shared intel now that he has something even more distracting at hand.
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