tags: fluff, mutual pining. Friends w benefits Arthur PT2. Mentions of sex.
author note: technically an addition to ‘a quiet night’ cause i’m starting to rlly like this friends w benefits Arthur wanting more. will work on requests soon :)
Rich alcohol bubbles laughter from the gang sitting below Arthur’s windowsill, a roaring fire tying together the sound of soft guitar and disorganized melodies. Despite the amusement everyone had danced in, Arthur Morgan had no intention of joining any of them that night on the fun.
What a gorgeous view. Arthur’s mind reels in blanks when he takes a moment to look at you. Back turned to him, he let his eyes drop and rise over you. With a body still slick on the afterglow of sex and sweat, you draped yourself bare over the edge of his springy cot with elbows dug into the linen sheet. The fire dances in your eyes. Peering from where you laid, you gazed down from the window of his Shady Belle room where the two of you laid in the nest of warmth and weakness. Arthur understands that it is weakness that shreds him of his pride and volition everytime you find your way back into his bed. With your body naked, pale moonlight sends a cascading waterfall of silver down the plains of your back. The slight dewy moisture that collects on your skin only sends him reminders of your passionate haze of affection just a few minutes ago. He hopes you’ll stay like this just a moment longer. He lets his mind stray to the vivid recollection of you folded in half beneath him, dirty words and pleads that he pulled from your breath with every rough chase of his hips and heat of his mouth.
Yet, even with the pretty sight of you blissed out, high on the euphoric edge that Arthur seems to teeter you on, he doesn’t think anything can compare to your beauty after the fact. Though, he’ll never admit that to you, not until you tell him it’s what you wanted to hear. With a chest that ached of longing, he revels in the way you soaked in the cold, frosted air of the night as if you had belonged among the banisters of stars. He breathes you in a long moment, a little too long for him to call it friendly. If he were to be more honest to himself, he’d acknowledge full well that there was nothing friendly about the two of you.
He gets an idea. A stupid one, one that’ll surely leave him a foolish man. Even then, he understands that this is a view that he would burn into the skin of his bones if he could. Extending his arm, he reaches for the brown leatherback journal that sits by the side of the bed. His broad shoulders creak like old mahogany wood, the naked planes of his chest chiseled like a greek god. When his pencil lightly taps among the smooth cover, you turn around and he’s met with those punishing, darling eyes of yours that burns his composure to nothing but ash. Arthur knew he was in deep, yet it still makes him ache when you catch him in such a moment of endearment. Your eyes land on his journal and pencil, corners of your mouth twitching into that cherry flavored smile.
“Gotcha’.” Your words fall husky on his ears and he can’t help but scoff shamelessly at his own mistake, even indulging in the way you shifted your bare body back to face him.
“You got me.” He gruffly responds, lifting his hand that rested on his journal up in the air as if signalling his defeat. Quick woman. He hopes you’re too slow to notice his ears burn in slight embarrassment.
This has become quite the pattern for the both of you. Ever since you had both been aware of Arthur’s slight favoring of you and vice versa. Moments of weakness began to bleed into your camping trips, you two began to sneak away every time the moment was right to satiate each other’s needs–A hotel or into the sweet confines of his canvas tent. Only–the need for you didn’t seem to disappear even after healing his soul to the sweet music of your whines and moans. No, he finds himself hungering for the perfect moments after the fact. Moments such as this one.
“Were you just gonna sit there in silence the whole time?” The words play off of your tongue lightly, head tilted ever so slightly to get a better look at him in the flickering candle light. The lines around his mouth are pulled together into a feigned scowl, crows' feet scrunching up along with the bridge of his nose when he begins to quip at you.
“Nah. Just wondering what you’ve been eyeing down there for so long. Practically burned a hole into the damn windowsill.” His expression rests on its stoic pout that seems to never leave his face, not wanting to give you the satisfaction of amusement. Yet, you could tell he was already quite infatuated. You glance back to the distant chatter of the campfire alone and Arthur can see the thoughts steam from your head by the way your eyes flicker. Shifting comfortably, you melt back into the dark sheets of the bed and he tries to not let his eyes linger on you for any longer than dignifying. He believes that the deep seated fondness he holds for you will eventually fade and dwindle if he chooses to not indulge in it. Yet his contradicting mind and body betrays his pride constantly; and as he gets a better look at you in the candlelight, soft embers illuminating your radiating, halo glow with wildflower petals still colorfully strewn about in your hair. You still smelled of sweet citrus and fruit, all he can do is selfishly long.
“Just thinkin.’” You point to his side of the bed to the box of half empty cigarettes and he doesn’t hesitate to supply you with your bitter relief. You notice how despite the creased line of his forehead and the rough, pinched furrow of his brow that his candid crystalline eyes were nothing short of tender.
“Enlighten me.” He pulls his own cigarette from the box before handing it to you, but you simply pluck the cigarette that he stuck between his fingers and slot it into your own mouth. That earns you that toothy smile, a grin pulls his cheeks into creases and he looks down to preserve any of his composure.
You find the lighter that was sitting on your floor of the bed along with your cream laced clothing and golden brass shoes, ever so carelessly and impatiently discarded in your passionate affair. You can’t help but feel the piercing diamond eyes of your lover scale your back as you lean over the creaking cot. As if the tension in his stare was coated in whiskey and fire, you feel your face burn hot like coal. You pull yourself back up. Giving into the thick and dry pull on his throat, he shamelessly watches the bruises and bites that blossomed along your chest and stomach fade back into view when you have finally retrieved the lighter. Another grin threatens to curve his lips. “Tilly and Beth probably wondering where I am about now..” You fumble with the silver lighter for a second when Arthur’s hand instinctively reaches out to help you, only for you to catch the wispy flame in its last moment, chest puffing in pride. “I won’t hear the end of it from those two like this..” That melodic laugh is pulled in strings from your lips when you gaze down at yourself. Deep violets and red seem to blossom along your flesh like petals, hurting ever so pleasurable.
“You’ll be in your dress, you'll be fine.” The image licks flames at Arthur’s mind and he can’t help but let embarrassment run heat through his body in a hot flash. He had gotten carried away this time. Pulling smoke through your soft cherry lips, you hum softly at his comment, handing the cigarette back to him. He sits up, looking down at your naked figure and he feels his throat tighten. “You can go and join them if you want, y’know.” He rasps, quiet as if his tail was tucked between his legs. Quiet as if he didn’t want you to. He hopes the smoke will get rid of the buzzing in his brain, an electric shock shooting through his body as soon as he tastes the bitter paper on his lip.
You roll over on your side to face him, body still melted so comfortably into the sheets as if you were meant to lay beside him for the rest of your life. And a part of him hopes that is the case. “Do you want me to?”
“To what?” He muses for a second.
“To leave.” You say just as quickly, taking the cigarette from his scarred, hair laced knuckles and fingers.
“Hell no, I don’t want you to leave.” He hopes his answer came out confident, smooth unlike the way the apple of his throat bobbed nervously. He hoped it charmed you, because it earned a soft giggle from your lips. It was those moments of soft giggling, whether it was between sweet, heady kisses or laughter just talking back and forth that made him realize that this relationship the two of you held was far past being friendly.
“No?” You reach for the cigarette, hand deliberately brushing against his hand for another brief, electric moment.
“No..” His voice had gotten a little quieter. “Like I said, you’re fine company.” He watches the smoke fill your lungs, the last remnants of your lipstick smearing onto the cigarette when you had wetly kissed it.
You smile through the smoke and he's quick to notice the red that crawls up your face just as thick and sunny. You let the smoke billow from your body, face turned ever so slightly to the side as to not punish him in your intoxicating air. “I’ll stay then.” He forces his smile down at your answer, trading the rough callous in his hand for a cigarette from yours.
He gets a final look at your body, letting the image burn into his mind as he finally spills back into the cot, eyes finding the ceiling of his room. You both watch the smoke spill from his lips, filling the air above you in a haze of unspoken affection. There was no need for a trade of words right now, anyways. Though he will be sorely disappointed to not have gotten that sketch of you, thick graphite lines shadowing the plush of your hips and the thin flicks of his pencil highlighting the glow of your back—he believes this was just as good. Hell. It was even better.
