Work Text:
“Smoke with me, Elizabeth.” She looked up, brows knitted. “You haven’t sat down since we arrived, and you can’t stop wringing your hands.” Elizabeth stared at her hands. He was right. She hadn’t been able to do anything other than pace between windows all night. Her anxiety was through the roof and it wasn’t helping that she hadn’t been able to sleep for days. She’d go down for an hour, maybe, but then a noise would wake her or a passing headlight would have her laid on the floor trying to get away from a flash-bang. Red stood and walked over to her, reaching out his hand.
When he’d taken her away after she left custody, Red took her to one of his lavish crash pads complete with all the food and drugs one might need, it seemed. “I haven’t smoked pot since college,” she told him a little dismissively.
“This is not pot, Elizabeth. This is some of the finest hashish I’ve ever had the true pleasure to taste. Even if you don’t smoke,” he nodded to the low sofa. “At least sit with me. You look as though you’re about to fall over.” Red had spent the time he’d had with her trying to get Lizzie to eat or sleep, neither of which were really working. She’d gotten rip roaring drunk a few times, but even that just resulted in her sitting in the bathtub crying. What did she have to lose? What did she even have?
Lizzie sat down on the sofa next to Red. “Fine. How do you do this thing?”
“Why, Lizzie… you just inhale.” Red stoked the coals, watching the smoke build as Lizzie drew. He did that thing where he licked his bottom lip, biting it just a little as he watched her. Red’s mouth was incredibly expressive, actually. It was one of the places she could read him the best. “That’s a girl. Now let it settle in your lungs, relax with it.” He ran his fingers down her forearm and Lizzie shuddered a little. “And exhale.” He walked her through another draw before he took the mouthpiece and drew on his own.
Unlike her, Red was able to smoke with a clear draw, letting plumes of smoke curl from his lips into the air on his exhale. “Ok… that actually tasted good,” she told him. Red handed her a tumbler of scotch to match his own, raising his brow. “And what’s this?”
“That is a 75 year old sherry barrel aged single malt,” Red informed her. Lizzie was feeling a little lightheaded already, but that wasn’t much different than normal for her lately. “I can see it coming over you, Lizzie.” Red’s voice was a soft growl. She’d always liked that. Even if half of what he said was bullshit, that growl made it fun to listen to. “Just relax with it.” Then Red did something she didn’t expect. He reached down to draw her feet into his lap. She took a sip of her scotch as his thumb ran up the inside of her arch. He did it in a way that made the other muscles of her foot sing in echo. “Reflexology,” Red told her softly at the amazed look.
“You have strong thumbs.” Lizzie knew it sounded dumb, but it didn’t seem to bother Red. He kept rubbing, using both hands on one foot. He’d envelop it and work fingers over every tight, twisted muscle and tendon refusing to relax. “You know… I don’t think that stuff is doing anything.”
“Is that why you’ve been staring at your hand for the last two minutes?” Lizzie looked down, wondering when he’d switched to the other foot and when she’d sunk the toes of her first foot under his thigh to keep them warm.
“… just keep rubbing,” she groaned, not wanting to argue about if she was stoned or not. Two tokes was really pathetic, but then even Red looked mesmerized by the way his hands were moving on her feet. “You’re really good at that.” She poked her big toe into the back of his thigh, wiggling it as his thumb drug down the instep of her other foot. Lizzie let out a deep moan at the sensation, nodding that he should do it again. On one level, she knew how she sounded. On another level, Lizzie didn’t care.
Red kept rubbing, his hands never straying above her shin, but clearly taking his own pleasure from getting noises out of her. “You should lead with I give a hell of a foot rub the next time you meet someone,” Lizzie joked. Her cheek rested on the back of the sofa as she considered Red.
“I wouldn’t do this for just anybody,” Red assured her. Lizzie flexed her foot in his hand, watching how delicately he handled it.
“Glad to know I’m not just anybody.” Red looked truly insulted at her joke. “Red…”
He reached out to touch her hand, his fingers warm against hers. “You have never been just anybody, Elizabeth.” Then he looked at her. Sometimes Red would look at Lizzie like she hung the stars. It was a lot of pressure, but then there were moments like this when all she could do was reach out and stroke her fingers down his cheek.
“I always forget how soft your skin is.” Lizzie shifted closer, knees bending over Red’s lap as her fingers played with the edge of his collar right under his jaw. “You’re the only man I’ve ever known who never seems to have stubble.” Lizzie could feel his pulse racing under her fingertips and followed it up the side of his neck behind his ear. She could feel him shift under her, and felt the tightness in his jaw, but Lizzie just stroked up through the short hairs at the nape of his neck with a soft little groan.
Red’s fingers tightened on her knee where his hand had moved when she shifted closer. Lizzie shifted in closer still, resting her cheek on his shoulder as Red’s arms wrapped around her. He tucked his chin in at the crown of her head and didn’t let her move too far away. They’d sip or smoke a little, sitting there quietly for a little while as Lizzie tried to get herself in a place where she could sleep. Red’s hand moved to her bicep, stroking the tips of his fingers down the long muscle. Lizzie let out a soft little noise. Every touch felt incredible, every breath she took was like a slow burn into her muscles as Red’s soundtrack played in the background.
She didn’t expect his lips. Red, though, seemed nearly as gone as she was. He didn’t kiss her, just ran his lips down her throat. She shuddered and closed her eyes, biting her bottom lip hard. Even after the drink and drug, she could feel the tension in her muscles and how they were screaming for release. Red’s thumb ran over her skin from behind her ear to her shoulder blade then back up again. Lizzie thought she might implode. Every nerve in her body was focused to the places he touched her.
There were his lips that kept pressing to different parts of her forehead or cheek, sometimes he’d kiss her throat or jaw, but not her lips. Lizzie wondered why, but was honestly scared to say anything. It was like she was worried that she might break this spell they were under. One of Red’s hands held her around the waist, fingers splayed across her hip. The troublesome one, though, moved. It ran over her bicep or her thigh. The most intense was when he’d touch her neck. Lizzie never considered for a minute that she really ought to get out of Red’s lap and tell him to stop. This felt way too good.
Red pressed his forehead to hers, the space between them thick with scotch and hashish. Moments like this, when he said nothing, sometimes he said everything. It wasn’t like his attraction to her was a secret, but it was something he’d never dipped so much as a toe into until this moment. “I was so worried,” he confessed quietly, moving his chin back to rest on the crown of her head. “It was a close thing.” She knew he was talking about her time in his cell and her nearly dying.
“Aram….” Red’s fingertips just barely brushed her forearm and Lizzie moaned. Every cell was on fire, lit up from the slightest brush. “… he was incredible.”
Red nodded, clearly noticing how she’d reacted and brushed those fingers against her skin again. “I owe him a great debt.” Red’s voice was gravely and deep, the kind of deep that struck a cord somewhere in Lizzie’s primal gut. “I would have been bereft without you, Lizzie.” His lips landed on her temple as he held her close, breathing the small space between them in like it would run out. Her fingers ran over his forearm and under the rolled up sleeve of his shirt. They rasped the hair the other way and got a glance from Red that was more than a glance. He looked, but all she saw were wide blown pupils ringed by the tiniest blue circle. The pull she felt was even more intense than before.
His nostrils flared and, though she didn’t think it was possible, Red’s pupils got bigger. She knew that he smelled something, smelled her maybe? Lizzie knew she ought to do something, be ashamed or move, but she could care less. Right now she felt the best she’d felt in years sitting with her legs across Red’s lap all wrapped up against him. And she could feel the effect it was having on her body. Every time she shifted, she could feel her folds slip a little easier. She hummed lightly against Red’s throat as he stroked her hair with one hand and took a hit with the other.
Lizzie watched his lips wrap around the stem of the hookah pipe, making a seal so he could draw. Red’s fingers moved to the nape of her neck and started to rub as he held his breath. That strong thumb worked the long slide from the side of her neck to her shoulder several times before releasing plumes of smoke. The hand that had landed on his stomach could feel it go down as he exhaled. She could also feel how tight Red’s stomach was despite his diet and age. Of course she’d seen him kick the shit out of more than a few people, so she really should have guessed.
“You have great lips.” He looked a little surprised, but to be fair so was Lizzie. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. She’d been thinking it as she watched him take another slow pull from the stem.
“I’ve been told this,” Red replied with a little wink before blowing the smoke out in a slow stream.
He was going to let her go, Lizzie could feel it, he was going to let her observation slide… maybe use it as an anecdote at some point, but she couldn’t let it go. Her fingers reached out, stroking the upside down u of his chin, then walking up to run over Red’s bottom lip. He groaned and she could feel it rumble against her fingertips. The hand that had been holding the pipe stem set it aside and ran up the inside of Lizzie’s calf and completed the circuit. Lizzie could barely breathe as his fingers walked up to her knee, perfectly manicured nails scraping over the bare skin. “Have a lot of women told you that?” She could hear the tremble in her own voice and felt it echoed in the tips of Red’s fingers as they paused just over the top of her knee.
“A few,” he demurred. His voice tickled her fingertips and Lizzie ran them down to his chin again, then his throat. Red made no move. She ran her fingertips over the scar from where she’d stabbed him in the throat. Lizzie leaned in and gently ran her lips over the scar, an apology nestled between his skin and the stiff collar of his shirt. The moment her lips touched his skin, Red’s fingers clenched at her back. Her hands moved to his buttons. Skin. That was all she could think about right now. She wanted to know every scar he had. It was a strange impulse, but Lizzie found herself caught in it as she climbed into Red’s lap, straddling him as she worked on the buttons of his shirt.
She did it in the narrow space she kept between them, her lips moving back to Red’s throat. His hands were balled at his sides, knuckles pressed hard into his thighs. Lizzie let him stay that way until she got his shirt open. She pushed it down over his shoulders to his elbows and made him sit up. His hand moved to the small of her back almost naturally, making sure she didn’t fall as he sat forward. Lizzie’s fingers ran over the scars on his back before moving back to his smooth biceps and under the collar of his undershirt. “Lizzie,” Red’s voice rumbled on her skin, so close to her ear that she felt his breath on her skin. She liked the sound of her name on his lips, truthfully she always had.
Red’s hands had moved back to his sides and Lizzie looked down, confused. “Don’t you want to touch me?”
Red’s laugh filled the room for a moment before he took her at the waist and pulled her in close. “Quite the contrary.” He said it softly, lips just barely moving at the collar of her t-shirt. Lizzie shuddered when his lips just barely touched her skin. “I know that if I begin, I won’t ever want to stop.” Lizzie reached down, bold as she could, and took Red’s hands. She brought them low on her waist as she met his eye. His thumbs moved under the hem of her shirt almost immediately, fingers split between the top of her sweats and the bottom of her t-shirt. It was his thumbs, though, rubbing her hip bones in a slow, firm circle. “I’m a man who is easily addicted.” What would that make her then? His drug of choice?
The low burn in her gut that started when Red took her foot into his lap to rub flared hotter as one of his hands moved to the small of her back, skating under the hem of her shirt. His hands were warm and sure, like Red already knew what she’d like and what she needed. That was a comforting feeling. Lizzie moaned softly and Red echoed it with that low gravel and whisky noise he made. Without realizing it, Lizzie had started rocking as she ran her mouth down Red’s bicep to the crook of his elbow. The hand under her shirt ran up her back, fingertips outlining her spine then back down just under the low hem of her sweats. “That feels nice,” she sighed, closing her eyes. Red repeated the gesture but added in his lips. They ran along the underside of Lizzie’s jaw then down her throat to suck at her pulse.
Red seemed to take that as the invitation she’d intended it to be and wrapped both hands back around her waist. They slipped up Lizzie’s body from her waist. His thumbs drug over her stomach, outlining her muscles then up under her ribs. Red still hadn’t taken a stitch of clothing off of her and Lizzie felt on the verge of passing out. His thumbs ran under her breasts in a slow drag, the blunt edge of his fingernail digging in just enough that she could feel its path long after it had gone. Red’s mouth was still moving over her throat and jaw, coming close but never quite pressing his lips to hers. She decided on two things at that moment. First, she was going to kiss him if he wouldn’t kiss her. Second, her shirt had to go.
Red watched, eyes riveted to her skin as she showed it to him. “My God.” His fingers rested gently along her sternum, not touching her breasts quite yet, just the edge of his pinkie brushing close. “You’re glorious.” Every inch of him was focused on her and Lizzie felt her heart skip around in her chest. He leaned in and ran his mouth over the side of her breast, starting high at her collar bone and following down her sternum then over the rise. “Even more than I imagined.” Her eyes fluttered shut as Red’s hand moved low on her hip, rubbing his thumb down the inside of her hip bone with just a little pressure. Lizzie was breathless.
“Tell me what you imagined.”
Red looked up at her from between her breasts as his hand moved lower between sweats and panties. It was a slow descent but a very knowing one. He didn’t hesitate, but he didn’t rush as his fingers found their way between her legs. “Why tell you when I can show you?” She knew she was wet, but the way his fingers moved against the satin surprised her. She could feel the way he moved to her, his body clearly needing more contact but unwilling to rush her in any way. Christ that was a sexy quality in a man.
“Let me taste you, Elizabeth.” Red’s mouth closed on her nipple as his hand rocked between her legs. Even with the fabric between them, he had her right on the edge. Lizzie’s breath caught in her throat and her body tensed. The soft, rolling pleasure caught her off guard and it was a good thing Red had his arm around her waist. To her chagrin, his hand slipped from her pants. He brought the hand up, inhaling deeply. “Now I want to taste you more than ever.”
He moved her off, sitting her on the sofa before sliding down to the floor at her feet. Red’s hands hooked on the waist and pulled the last bits of clothing off of her. She watched his eyes, loving how the way he drank her in was almost physical. His thumbs drug up her thighs, parting her legs so all of her was on display. Red smiled just a little bit before leaning in to kiss her thighs. “What?”
Red’s thumb brushed the neat, dark patch of hair that sat at the top of her folds. “As I’d hoped.” Lizzie moved into his hand, spreading a little wider so he could see that that patch was there, but her folds were smooth. “Perfection.” Red ran his fingers through her folds, stroking around the swell of her sex in slow, firm strokes. His teeth ran down her hip before he kissed his way to her folds. Like everything else, Red took his sweet time, outlining each part of her with his mouth. By the time he was running the tip of his tongue around her hole, Lizzie was unable to form a sentence. When he got to her clit, she was gone. It turned out that hashish, scotch, and sleep deprivation led to a really good orgasm.
It was another of the slow, rolling ones that had her hips arching and curving with Red’s face pinned between them. And didn’t he look happy to be there? Her fingers ran through the hair at the nape of his neck, rubbing it the wrong way and getting a shudder from him that translated to Red groaning around her clit. He hadn’t stopped when she came, rather went back to a little careful sucking and the tip of his finger teasing. She cried out for him when just the tip of his finger broke through and pushed inside her. “Red…” She moved his face a little, nudging him toward her clit. Raymond Reddington was a very smart man and he moved back to the bundle of nerves, but kept moving the finger inside her.
Red had long, strong fingers that pushed in deep and took their time. She groaned as his knuckles pressed in against the tendons in her groin, pushing at them like he was fucking her. It was just a finger, but the way he was moving her body made it feel like a hell of a lot more. Add that to the way his tongue was working at her clit and Lizzie was hard to keep on the couch. Her hips started jumping a little and Red groaned. He turned one finger into two and turned them, fingertips pointing up now. That was when it all went a little grey in her mind. Red performed some kind of sexual alchemy with his mouth and fingers that left Lizzie’s fingernails dug into the back of Red’s neck while she made noises she’d never heard come from her mouth before in her life.
She could barely keep her body from shaking itself off the sofa. If it weren’t for Red there, still lapping at her, fingers still moving slowly inside, she’d have fallen off long ago. “R…Red,” Lizzie breathed, finally able to get his name through her foggy brain. “You’re…” She smiled kind of dumb and wasted but incredibly happy. “Oh… ooooh, Red,” his mouth had wrapped around her clit again and his fingers were moving. “… t… trying…. to kill me,” she rushed out. “So good.”
Lizzie lowered her foot, resting it on the top of Red’s right thigh. Lizzie flexed her foot and Red groaned against her body. She knew he wanted her, could feel it in every breath the man had taken since day one on the task force. What was so surreal was that even before this, even before the drugs and the sleep and jail, she’d wanted this. She’d wanted him. Lizzie just hadn’t known how to cope with that fact. Right now she didn’t care about any of it, history or age difference, the past, none of it mattered as much as the way her skin crackled when he touched her.
She ran her toes up his inseam and used the top of her foot to cradle him through the fabric of his trousers. The choked noise he made verified that she was getting to him and Lizzie let her toes do a little bit of the work, rubbing and shifting as she chased Red’s groans. At one point, he had to pause, pressing his forehead to her stomach, resting it low as his fingers kept playing. “Lizzie,” his gravely voice spilled out just under her navel. She knew he needed more but wasn’t letting himself. She kept moving her foot, shifting it so that the arch ran up the underside of his cock, flexed around it. “Lizzie, please.” His fingers curled against her waist as her foot stroked down.
“What do you want, Red?” The fact that he was shuddering and asking so urgently made Lizzie’s confidence swell.
“You,” he told her without a moment’s hesitation. “I want you bent over the arm of the sofa.” Red moved up a little, shifting closer and pulling her leg up over his shoulder before moving in closer and letting it fall naturally. “I want to feel your body wrap around me while my hands touch every bit of your skin I can reach.” Lizzie’s thighs wrapped around his waist as Red kissed his way up her body. “I want your back to my chest and to bury my nose in your hair while I have you.” His mouth closed around her nipple, pulling as much of her breast into his mouth as he could. “I want your clit between my fingers and your pulse against my lips.” Red closed his mouth around her other breast and worked at the nipple until she had to push him away. “Most of all,” he told her as he shifted close. His lips caressed her collarbone as he pressed himself to her thigh. “I want you to wake up tomorrow and know that it wasn’t the hashish or the scotch, that it was the gravity and beauty of this moment. You came home to me, Lizzie. Against all odds, you’re here and I could not be more grateful.”
Lizzie shifted her face, catching Red’s mouth in a soft kiss. His eyes fluttered shut and Red let out a soft groan. Red had every part of Lizzie on high alert, her senses on complete overload. He tasted like hashish under the strong flavor of her. The tip of Red’s tongue ran over her top lip, curling just slightly into her mouth. When she needed a breath, Lizzie reached down to open Red’s trousers. He was hard as hell and looked somewhere between relieved and nervous when she gave him a little space. She kept kissing him as she cupped his cock through his boxers, squeezing and stroking. “You gave me a home to come back to,” she told him softly before shifting up onto her knees and bending over the arm of the couch.
The couch dipped behind her and she could hear Red pushing his pants down. It seemed he was doing it with one hand because the other ran up and down the insides of her thighs and never stopped touching her. Lizzie rocked back into him, feeling contact for the first time and groaning. She’d felt that he was a big guy through his boxers, but there was a certain reality that came with actually feeling his cock pressed to the inside of her thigh. Red pulled her close and kissed her shoulder as Lizzie felt the head of his cock press against her. Honestly, she was shocked at how easily she took him. It was like she’d just opened up to him, like barriers between them just didn’t exist anymore. Red rocked into her, pushing all the way in slowly, then staying there just kissing Lizzie’s back and shoulders.
He’d taken off his shirt, so she could feel his chest pressed to her back as he found every spot on her back and neck that made her moan. It turned out there were a few spots Red focused on, right under her earlobe, on the inside of her right shoulder blade and down the left side of her neck. He seemed to have a way of knowing just where she needed to be touched, an intuitive nature that was a hard thing to come by. Red went through with every one of his requests, taking Lizzie slow at first then working up to a pace that left her breathless and sprawled over the arm of the sofa. Red was close, she could feel it in his muscles and she reached back to encourage him. Her body was on a whole other plane, but it felt like she needed to feel him cum. Lizzie needed to catalogue that moment. Her hands squeezed his thighs and moved up over his ass, pulling him in tight.
Red pulled her up against him, rocking harder. He almost knocked the breath out of her with every thrust, but she knew he was right there. Lizzie squeezed hard around him, holding him close. He moaned her name and moved to pull out. She shook her head and pulled him closer. That seemed to be all the encouragement Red needed because moments later she could feel him finish inside her, washing her in seed as he gasped her name against Lizzie’s shoulder. He paused a moment, bending them back over and pressing himself to her back, holding tight. Lizzie squeezed around him again, taking her time to give him short bursts of tightness then relaxing. “Who’s trying to kill whom,” Red joked as his hand moved to her clit. This time he moved his fingers fast, rubbing as he started to move.
He stayed hard long enough to steal another orgasm from Lizzie before pulling out and laying back on the cushions, panting. “Come here.” He reached out to pull Lizzie to him, urging her to lay against his chest. His pants were still around his thighs, but Red’s chest was bare and Lizzie was grateful, settling in with her ear to his chest, fingers stroking through the hair, just teasing it as she tried to catch her own breath. Red’s fingers stroked through her hair and the next thing Lizzie knew, she was floating. Red’s thumb rubbed her hip in a slow circle, almost hypnotizing her. “If anything were to happen to you, I don’t know what I’d do.” It was a quiet confession, something Lizzie didn’t even know she was meant to actually hear. It got to her, making tears spring to her eyes. Red kissed her forehead and they both drifted off, wrapped around each other like survivors in a storm.