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.
The bare-soft rustle of a button sliding through its buttonhole might as well be thunder. The dry scrape of fabric undone and pushed aside fills her entire perception — and when his skin glances off hers...? The breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding escapes through her nose like a brief, flattened note.
His voice in his ear causes a zip of sensation down to her heart and, joined by the edged brush of his finger, it carries on straight to some deep sensitive epicentre of her body. She allows herself to feel something normally reserved for those rare opportunities for leave when she can catch her breath. (Or — when desperate — an austere army billet while biting the edge of her thumb to keep her distractions to herself.)
But when he asks what next? she's catalyzed towards playful obstruction. Although her voice is now a mite more thready than it was moments earlier. "Why rush? By your estimation, we've got at least eight hours."
He huffs, his breath a warm puff of air on her skin. "Were you going to stay up all night?" While Steve doesn't mind, thanks to the serum, he can't imagine staying awake in a cold bunker is something Peggy would relish, all pleasant diversions aside. (He can't exactly say he minds the thought of sleeping with Peggy in his embrace, either; there are moments when he thinks longingly of the intimacy they could have in a world without war.)
At least he's enough of a gentleman that he doesn't feel the need to make a crass joke about lasting all eight hours. Frankly, even without their mutual attraction, there probably aren't many men of their acquaintance Peggy could stand to be around for eight hours straight - though Steve isn't sure his conversation skills can hold up for the next eight hours. They haven't even proven entirely sufficient for the amount of time that's already lapsed, but that's why he's lucky he has other things to fall back on.
(Either Steve's libido or the cot will be a casualty of the next eight hours. Possibly both.)
Asked like he doesn't know she's kept stranger hours than this. Except, except, except — it would be a fine thing to drift asleep with Steve's heat some constant presence against her back. His fingers light but obvious on her skin. Her next breath seems to comfortably deflate her shoulders. As though she's imagining how peaceful that could be. In another setting. In another life.
"Sounds like someone's tapping out already," she tuts her tongue against the roof of her mouth. As sweet as a stolen nap in his arms might be, Peggy's not entirely certain she could sleep now with the sense-memory of his mouth against the nape of her neck and his knee wedged just so between hers. She's almost wary to shut her eyes in case visions of his, blue and earnest, appear behind her lids.
Peggy swallows at the thought. More sincere this time:
"I mean only that I'm in no rush." The phrase is twisted softly and she pairs it with a light pet of her fingertips against the inside of his wrist, just shy of where his hand strays under her unbuttoned shirt. A wordless assurance that she's not saying it because of any reluctance or hesitation. Rather, she wants to enjoy him. Somehow, it would feel bad to rush and fumble and pretend like this was something they had to steal rather than savour.
Even though deep down she knows they're unlike to get a chance like this again.
"I could do this all day," he reassures her earnestly. God knows he absolutely could spend all day touching Peggy, so he's not lying about that. Given the chance, he fully intends to prove it, all thoughts of sleep abandoned by the wayside. It's yet another challenge for him to take on, like the delightful challenge of figuring out just what makes Peggy come undone under his hands.
With a feather-light touch, he caresses the outline of one silky cup with just his index finger. If they really have all night to prolong this, after all, then he might as well take his time.
Peggy adores this man. How curious and wonderful to be caught up in a paradoxically placidly torrid evening of light touches and mild banter that nevertheless sets her nervous system alight. Sensation pinging from skin-surface down, down, down to her belly with a thrilling zing.
Gently, she tips her body back against his — no longer laying quite so rigidly on her side, it's more like she's leaning herself against the broad expanse of his chest. Like unfolding a map, making room for him to hurry up and don't rush. It also has the added benefit of letting her slide a hand down along the outside of his thigh, gripping the muscle there with an encouraging squeeze.
"Good," she breathes praise for how gainfully he picks up the premise and makes it is. "I'm counting on it."
He rolls his hips up into her again, not sure if he's more spurred on by the hand on his thigh or the words of praise. Just touching her is heady enough, but having it be reciprocated is something else entirely - something that admittedly might test his patience a little too much to prolong things for hours, but he's not going to discourage her from doing it.
Steve leans back against the wall slightly, ignoring the chill of the concrete in favor of giving Peggy more room to recline and rest on his chest. Their heads aren't quite so close now - not for the moment, anyway - but like this he can study the expressions on her face, the minute reactions to what he's doing. And there's something to be said for simply looking at Peggy when he's allowed to do so, rather than being limited to sidelong looks and stolen glances. Everything is his for the taking tonight, and he feels like a starving man at a banquet.
How novel to imagine a whole night ahead — nothing but the vaguely concerning creak of a cot not built for two and the odd, quiet pattern of their breathing. Hers is slow but audible. A funny little mixture of relaxed and bothered. Like just a little flicker of his finger against the thin silk between him and her rolls her ever-closer to a more gregarious reaction. As it is, her cheeks are pinked and her eyes are a little glassy. Her attention cleaves inward and hangs on how better to experience him.
Peggy wets her lips before biting down on some gut-level, instinctive banter. She wants to be certain of what she says next. Wants to ensure it lands the way she wants it to land. Wants it to hit him straight to the core. So she takes her time (like she said, no rush) and makes sure to meet his hips when he presses forward.
Eventually: "I wonder if I ought to tell you a secret—" She offers. Knowing it won't be a very good one — oh, it'll land well enough. She just doubts it'll be a secret.
The problem with this new angle, Steve quickly discovers, is that it makes him want to kiss her, especially when her tongue flicks out to wet her lips. Not for the first time, he laments the strange unspoken rules they've tied themselves to - kissing might very well be involved eventually, but not yet, not in the glacial advances of their intimacy. He loves it and curses it at the same time.
"What is it?" Because she's hardly going to mention having one if she doesn't mean to divulge it. That's not how being a spy works - by nature, Peggy is excellent at keeping secrets, especially her own. But what better time than this to pry them free, here in this strange little situation they've found themselves in? The closely held intimacy lends itself to the sharing of secrets, even if she can't quite turn to whisper them in Steve's ear like this.
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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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His voice in his ear causes a zip of sensation down to her heart and, joined by the edged brush of his finger, it carries on straight to some deep sensitive epicentre of her body. She allows herself to feel something normally reserved for those rare opportunities for leave when she can catch her breath. (Or — when desperate — an austere army billet while biting the edge of her thumb to keep her distractions to herself.)
But when he asks what next? she's catalyzed towards playful obstruction. Although her voice is now a mite more thready than it was moments earlier. "Why rush? By your estimation, we've got at least eight hours."
And suddenly the game gains its parameters.
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At least he's enough of a gentleman that he doesn't feel the need to make a crass joke about lasting all eight hours. Frankly, even without their mutual attraction, there probably aren't many men of their acquaintance Peggy could stand to be around for eight hours straight - though Steve isn't sure his conversation skills can hold up for the next eight hours. They haven't even proven entirely sufficient for the amount of time that's already lapsed, but that's why he's lucky he has other things to fall back on.
(Either Steve's libido or the cot will be a casualty of the next eight hours. Possibly both.)
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"Sounds like someone's tapping out already," she tuts her tongue against the roof of her mouth. As sweet as a stolen nap in his arms might be, Peggy's not entirely certain she could sleep now with the sense-memory of his mouth against the nape of her neck and his knee wedged just so between hers. She's almost wary to shut her eyes in case visions of his, blue and earnest, appear behind her lids.
Peggy swallows at the thought. More sincere this time:
"I mean only that I'm in no rush." The phrase is twisted softly and she pairs it with a light pet of her fingertips against the inside of his wrist, just shy of where his hand strays under her unbuttoned shirt. A wordless assurance that she's not saying it because of any reluctance or hesitation. Rather, she wants to enjoy him. Somehow, it would feel bad to rush and fumble and pretend like this was something they had to steal rather than savour.
Even though deep down she knows they're unlike to get a chance like this again.
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With a feather-light touch, he caresses the outline of one silky cup with just his index finger. If they really have all night to prolong this, after all, then he might as well take his time.
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Gently, she tips her body back against his — no longer laying quite so rigidly on her side, it's more like she's leaning herself against the broad expanse of his chest. Like unfolding a map, making room for him to hurry up and don't rush. It also has the added benefit of letting her slide a hand down along the outside of his thigh, gripping the muscle there with an encouraging squeeze.
"Good," she breathes praise for how gainfully he picks up the premise and makes it is. "I'm counting on it."
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Steve leans back against the wall slightly, ignoring the chill of the concrete in favor of giving Peggy more room to recline and rest on his chest. Their heads aren't quite so close now - not for the moment, anyway - but like this he can study the expressions on her face, the minute reactions to what he's doing. And there's something to be said for simply looking at Peggy when he's allowed to do so, rather than being limited to sidelong looks and stolen glances. Everything is his for the taking tonight, and he feels like a starving man at a banquet.
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Peggy wets her lips before biting down on some gut-level, instinctive banter. She wants to be certain of what she says next. Wants to ensure it lands the way she wants it to land. Wants it to hit him straight to the core. So she takes her time (like she said, no rush) and makes sure to meet his hips when he presses forward.
Eventually: "I wonder if I ought to tell you a secret—" She offers. Knowing it won't be a very good one — oh, it'll land well enough. She just doubts it'll be a secret.
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"What is it?" Because she's hardly going to mention having one if she doesn't mean to divulge it. That's not how being a spy works - by nature, Peggy is excellent at keeping secrets, especially her own. But what better time than this to pry them free, here in this strange little situation they've found themselves in? The closely held intimacy lends itself to the sharing of secrets, even if she can't quite turn to whisper them in Steve's ear like this.
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