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Jonathan grabbed her hands from his face, pulled them above her head as he backed her into the now-closed door. His lips were on hers and his breath came heavy into her mouth, and a sigh escaped her lips into his. For a moment, she thought he was going to pull away, but he opened his eyes and just looked at her. And she felt her cheeks heat up, and a sensation she was generally familiar with thrummed inside her, down to her toes.
She had been aching—aching—to kiss his neck, so as soon as his lips left hers, she buried her nose and lips and breathed him in, and his warmth and his scent surrounded her. He sighed as his hands touched her back underneath her oversized night dress. In a dizzying fashion, he traced small circles beneath the fabric. Nancy responded by sucking harder, and her teeth grazed the damp skin she found there. The hair on the back of his neck was standing up, and he had goose bumps that she could feel beneath the tips of her fingers.
He was breathing nervously when she looked back up at him, and Nancy’s arms wrapped around his neck. Their foreheads bumped and then their noses and finally his mouth was on hers again. The tempo changed. Better. Slower, with more precision, his tongue slid across hers as his hands held her against him. He murmured into her lips and she sighed back, lifting her feet off the ground and pulling him deeper.
“Bed,” he managed to whisper, although he sounded strained. She nodded, but couldn’t maneuver herself between him and the wall. The sound of him aroused by her was enough to weaken her knees. Nancy pushed them off the wall using her own weight, holding onto his arms while she kissed up his jaw again.
“C’mere,” he pulled her gently and lifted her into his lap on the bed. It felt sexy, to feel how hard he was beneath her. But it also felt safe, intimate, in a way that she did not remember feeling before. She felt his security when they cut their hands last year, and he had comforted her after the disaster in the Upside Down. But this was different. His hands were sliding over her body in a way they never had before. They cupped her face and tilted her chin to lick into her mouth more. He tasted like vodka and toothpaste.
Nancy thought she was going to melt away and disappear before they could finish what they had started. She had her hands against his skin, tugging the fabric of his thin nightshirt up from his hips, fingertips pressing into the damp skin of his spine and her palms spread across the muscles of his back. She groaned into his mouth, needing this so bad, more than she'd ever needed something. This was so different than—
“Nancy,” he groaned. The sound vibrated with the thrum of her pulse. She wanted to tell him something, but she couldn’t form the words. It was certainly the most she had ever wanted someone inside of her and the most turned on she had ever been in her life. Jonathan’s hips arched against hers, and Nancy pushed down, her face a deep shade of red. His hands moved father south and her legs opened wider, and he stopped. Frozen.
He buried his face in her neck, keeping them close enough to lean against each other. "Jesus,” he mumbled against her skin after a short pause. “It’s too much; it’s too good—Nancy…” He growled out her name like he was angry and hurt and awed, all at once.
"Don't—no," Nancy clutched at his neck, his hair, body humming. "Don’t stop. It's, it's all right. You can.” She exhaled dizzily and pushed her hips down into his. His hands cupped her ass, and then suddenly the gravity of the situation crashed onto her. She felt embarrassed. “What are we even doing?” she whispered, stroking his neck.
“Having sex,” he answered matter-of-factly. He moved his hands up her back to play with the strands of her hair.
“Yeah?” she didn’t even have to try to sound sex-crazed.
Her thoughts were jumbled like her hair in his hands, and she felt no reason to yield or slow down. It was all happening at a hundred miles an hour, all too fast. She tried to enjoy the moment, to embed everything in her mind. He pulled her dress to the side to kiss her neck softly, and she surprised herself with the sound that escaped her mouth.
Slow, languid kisses made their way up her cheek, onto her heated face. But it wasn’t enough, not for her or him. He took a moment to pull back and look at her, dazed and beautiful, and then captured her lips again, before motioning to fully remove her shirt.
“Wait—I…” she trailed off, unable to come with an excuse to stop him. It felt good. Everything felt so good, and why on earth would she want to stop it? A wave of emotion washed over her in an indescribable way, and she felt the tears prick the sides of her eyes.
“Do…Do you want me to—?” The word stop died on his lips.
“We need to talk,” she whimpered, her hand reaching up to cover her mouth to hold in a sob. His stomach sank to his feet, and instantly he questioned his decision to get out of bed, to confront this—whatever this was—at all. One look at her swollen lips and he knew he would do it all over again.
He nodded because he had to give her whatever she wanted, because he owed her that. “Nancy…” Jonathan tapered off, unable to project a false bravado to her.
She shook her head, “I…”
“Let’s not sit like his,” he suggested, more out of practicality than shame. He could not concentrate with her sitting on top of him like that, with her vanilla sent meshed into his skin and her lips so close.
“Is this about Steve?” he asked finally.
She shook her head and thought back to the last conversation she had had with him. The words broken-up never officially crossed either of their lips. But surely this could not constitute cheating? Not when Steve already knew the truth. She didn’t love him; and she probably never could. Not in the way he wanted her to.
“I think we are broken up,” she whispered. Before he could react, she anticipated his next question. “And I don’t love him. I hate admitting that he and I failed, and I think that’s why it’s so hard for me to let go. I had him before the… well, the shit that went down, and I felt if I kept him in my life, that things could go back to normal.”
Jonathan couldn’t meet her eyes. He understood; he even empathized and could have probably predicted what she had just said.
“Nancy, things will never be normal,” he deadpanned. “We are at a private investigator’s fortress to expose a government lab for killing your friend.”
She smiled weakly, but the mention of Barb seemed to kill the intended humor. “Steve wanted things to be normal, and I couldn’t let myself feel that. I don’t know how to be normal anymore. It’s all I want, but I find that I can’t do that and still be able to cope day-to-day.”
Her hand reached up to touch his face. The distance between their bodies was realized, and the electricity that had been humming earlier returned to the room. Jonathan put his hand on her knee.
“I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you longer,” she conceded.
“I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were waiting,” he sighed.
“What?” she asked incredulously. “I was not subtle.”
“Nancy, my brother almost died. You were more like support system than…than this. Then one day you just disappeared and I couldn’t figure out why you gave up.” His blood boiled at the accusations that had lain dormant for so long. His feelings for her never wavered, but his ridicule was justified for her fickleness. Emotionally raw and baring himself before her, he felt closer to her now than he ever did. Daring to meet her eyes, he whispered, “Why did you give up?”
“Because I couldn’t be around you anymore. It was too difficult.”
“How was it difficult?” he started angrily. “We helped each other! We were a team, and you left and went back to him and I didn’t know what to do.” It was raw and ugly and hurtful.
“Why shouldn’t I have?” she retorted hotly. “So we could have continued to pretend that nothing existed between us? God, when I looked at you, I could only think of what almost happened! It’s always ‘could bes’ and ‘what ifs’ with you, Jonathan!” At this point she had gotten off the bed to scream at him, and he was almost afraid that Murray would hear her.
“Do you think I wanted it to be like that?” he asked softly after she had relaxed a little bit. “You were with Steve. I wasn’t about to stand in the way of that.”
She couldn’t seem to make sense of anything he was saying, but he was feeling too light headed and too drunk on the release of all his long-buried feelings to worry about coherency.
He was too love-sick, and love was never meant to mash with reason.
“Maybe you have no balls,” she snapped. “I was waiting for you to tell me that you felt something, and I never got any kind of indication.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I should have told you how I felt about you the minute I realized it. I should have kissed you in my living room after we cut our hands. I should have taken you upstairs the second you gave me that Christmas gift and—”
“You think that’ll fix things?” she said between tears. “I think it’s going to take a lot more—”
Inexplicably, Jonathan found himself kissing her. Even more curiously, he found her responding to him with the same amount of enthusiasm. Jonathan pulled her closer, tight enough to feel her heart beat emphatically against his chest.
“I know I have some reconciling to do with everything that happened after. But, Nancy, God, I want you. I’ll make it up however you want, but I’m done pretending like I think about you as a friend.”
When he let her go, her face was flushed, and she sighed, exasperated. He placed his hands on her shoulders, and tried not to look her in the eye just yet. She had not finished yelling at him, and he was prepared for more. He felt as if he deserved a lot of it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered after a brief pause.
“For what?” Jonathan asked, confused.
“It’s my fault you didn’t know I was waiting for you. It’s my fault you and I are in this mess right now. I’m emotional because as much as I want you, this isn’t as easy as just sleeping together. It’s more than that, and I’m not trying to lie to myself. It hardly seems fair that I was yelling at you.”
“Nancy,” he started, but seeing that she wasn’t looking at him, he pulled her chin up so her eyes were looking into his. “I just want you.”
It was palpable that she was taking in his words and their true meaning. I want you. He couldn’t wait much longer, but she had to have her say before he said anything else. She raised both of her hands to his face, holding their gazes together.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted you to say that?” she mused.
“Probably too long.”
He reached for her hand, running his fingers over her knuckles. Her body was radiating heat. Her eyes were searching for something on his face. Jonathan had tried so hard for so long to retain his feelings, to try and act like it was possible to shut out an emotion so strong, so powerful, that it had consumed him in the process.
Nancy pulled him down to kiss her again.
It was so gentle and soft that his first thought was that it had been entirely too short. Her lips were somewhere between hovering and against. He stayed in this position for a few more moments, and she was too mesmerized to move. He ran his tongue on the bottom of her lip; she lost all sense of self control.
He took control of the kiss in an instant, pushing her back onto the bed. She traced his neck and collarbone with her fingers, and he eagerly moaned. She jumped at the chance to deepen the kiss. His fingers lowered to her stomach, outlining shapes and letters and lines, still exploring the sweetness of her mouth with his own. It was as though his inner heat was filling her entire being through her perfect lips. She sighed softly and his arms tightened around her.
Jonathan lifted up her night dress, letting the small amount of fabric pass between their intertwined lips. He lifted his mouth from hers and trailed kisses along her jaw line, tasting every inch of her face. Her staggered breathing was caressing the side of his face, making him even more intent on repeating his actions. His hands ran along the bare sides of her stomach, making her shiver, and he made a line down her neck, stopping right under her ear. She giggled breathlessly, one of the sexiest sounds he had ever heard and continued to tease her. By the time he reached the top of her chest, she had a trail of red marks leading downwards.
“Why are you wearing this?” He questioned, referring to the dark blue, lacy bra that was denying him access to other areas.
“You like it?” she giggled.
“I’m just wondering if you were wearing it for someone else besides me.”
“I dress everyday like you’re going to be the one taking my clothes off,” she confessed sarcastically.
“Oh, in that case,” he remarked disdainfully.
Jonathan could hear her lasting giggles as he removed her bra, but they were soon replaced by sighs and moans as he continued his exploration of her body. There were tender kisses placed down her chest, all the way to her hips. He slid his tongue along her stomach, making her arch her back in pleasure.
He was awfully creative—there was a lot of her that he had uncovered by now, and he seemed intent on covering all of it with his mouth at least once. He chose odd places: the inside of her wrists, the backs of her knees, even her instep. He could tell what he was doing was driving her crazy. He knew when it tickled because she would giggle uncontrollably. He knew when it was astonishingly good because she would moan or shiver with delight. When it was even better than that, especially when his tongue flicked out or his teeth gave her a little nip, she would bite her lip or sigh and murmur his name.
He had to tell her to keep quiet once, but he was smiling with such obvious pride at the time that she couldn’t help but tug him back up to hug her. She laid back on the bed, smiling up at him, and he leaned down to kiss her full on the lips.
She took him by surprise when she decided to jump up on top of him, now having Jonathan pinned down on the bed. She beamed, a little devilish characteristic appearing behind her lips. He could have forced her off of him at any time, but he decided to let her have her fun.
She seemed to want to start at his chest, and she removed his shirt. Their skin-on-skin contact was heated, and it made his fabric pants stretch a little tight. She scraped her nails along his abdomen, making him shiver reluctantly. She went back up to his neck and started trailing kisses down to his chest, tracing patterns the whole way down. His vision became hazy against his will, causing him grip her hips with lust, forcing her down onto the part of him that needed her so bad.
She leaned upward to nibble at his ear; her breath was hot against his face. He gave himself over to her completely, not wanting to have control at all. This was Nancy Wheeler. She could have him. She took his face in her hands, kissing along his lips down her neck. She stopped at his collarbone, where he heard her mutter “God, Jonathan, I could do this forever.” He smiled and tugged her closer. By now, his pants were too tight to become comfortable anymore, and she seemed to ignore it.
“Nancy,” he groaned.
“Hmm?” She asked while busying herself with his fingers, kissing each knuckle all the way up to the tip, stopping to bite softly.
“Come here,” he managed. He reversed their hands and pulled her bac underneath him, watching as her eyes lit up at his intentions.
He slid out of his pajama pants, and watched as she slid out of her panties. God, he could smell her. And just from brushing his knuckles over the heat of her, he could tell how aroused she was. Because of him. He tried to let that sink into his head. He attempted to sit back, to try any method of self-control, but it wouldn’t come to him. He was so ready for her.
He braced himself on her shoulders before she could react and turned her down onto the bed so that he had her wrists pinned against the sheets, her body pressed up against his.
“You don’t have a condom, do you?” he asked sheepishly.
“I’ll take my chances,” she whispered hotly in his ear. “Just pull-out, okay?” He felt her shudder beneath him, and that was when he knew it was time.
“Are you sure?” he asked her, looking into her eyes.
For a second he saw realization of their intentions flash across her eyes, but it was quickly eaten away by desire. She nodded. He took in a deep breath, kissing her forehead lightly. He pushed inside of her, and he saw her bite her lip and heard her whimper a little.
“Are you okay?” he asked immediately, alarmed. She took a while to respond, but eventually she nodded. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered, caressing her face.
“That would be impossible,” she murmured softly. He felt her nails dig into his forearms, and he started to move inside of her, their gazes locked and lust-ridden, he knew that right now, at this moment, this was perfection.
She was holding onto him, feeling his pleasure but also trying to control her own. Everything about this felt so good, felt so right. He mouthed at her neck, palmed at her thighs. It wasn’t enough; it couldn’t be enough because they had to be closer, closer, closer.
In the morning, she would remember how he had clutched at her and whispered, “God, I’ve wanted this for so long, Nancy. I’ve dreamed about this, and it’s so good, it’s so good…”. She would steady herself getting out of bed because the pure emotion that rolled into her head at the thought of his confession was almost enough to bring her to her knees.
He would remember the way she had watched him the entire time, her eyes never leaving his. It was tantalizing and terrifying and wonderful all at once. The morning proved that the night had been far from a secret, but Jonathan found that he didn’t mind all that much as they go into his car and drove back towards Hawkins.
The drive was relaxed and carefree, and after discussion had run its course, the quite pensiveness was a nice intermission to their usual conversation. Without even asking him, she found the first eight-track she saw in his console, an album by The Rolling Stones, and stuffed it into the player. She knew without question he’d need something to distract him from the ominous premonition he had without an answer on the phone at home.
Her hand hung carefree out the window she had cranked down. She watched in the mirror the way her fingers tapped to the rhythm, how her plain fingernails were visible in the dim pre-dusk light. The sun would soon be low in the sky as they left the hills behind them. Clouds awaited them in Hawkins.
At first, the faint glow of tame light seemed to be ever the only tint of the sky, but then splashes of lavender and pink beckoned the evening as the sun crawled slowly under the horizon. She rested her head against her arm, the highway wind blowing her dark hair back into the sprinkled eyes that watched her own reflection, observing the road they left behind.
Jonathan glanced at her underneath the pretext of switching lanes on the highway, and she caught his eyes, giving him a sleepy smile and a grateful wink. A feeling rose in her stomach as she watched him smile to himself, turning back to the road.
Disregarding her seat belt, she leaned over to him, her head resting on his shoulder.
Mmm yes, you could be mine, tonight and every night
I will be your knight in shining armor
Coming to your emotional rescue
You will be mine, you will be mine, all mine
You will be mine, you will be mine, all mine