rhom

The charming independently owned bookshop a few blocks from your apartment is one of the best parts of your week. Every Friday for the past three years since you started renting your little one bedroom, you’d browse the stacks and shelves for your new book of the week. It wasn’t a large space, and you liked how they carried both new and used books. Twice yearly you’d clear out your bookshelves and the owner, a very tiny and very old Italian man, would trade you for whatever you brought. A quiet trip to the bookstore would cure any anxiety that your workweek had brought you.

A copy of Odyssey caught your eye with its worn, creased, cover and annotations scrawled in the margins. There was always something a little romantic about buying a used book. Dog-eared pages and frayed edges were like little signs of life, someone was there before you and someone else will be there for this book after you.

Ben trailed silently behind you but was comfortable in the quiet. When he greeted you outside the bookstore, just like every Friday night, he placed a soft kiss on your cheek and gave you a tight hug where you felt him breathe in the smell of your hair. “I missed you so much.” He murmured, kissing your temple twice before letting you go. Teakwood and mint lingered in the air even after he pulled away and the two of you held hands the entire time you walked through the shop.

After checking out the new releases the two of you made your way to the little check out counter near the door where the shop owner made idle chit-chat with you. The two of you discussed weekend plans, his granddaughter was getting married so the store would be closed on Saturday.

“We are having a picnic tomorrow afternoon.” You said softly, gesturing to Ben who was digging out his wallet even though you were racing to pull out your own card first. The old man smiled, remarked on how cute the two of you were, and as you held out your debit card for him to take Ben pulled his out at the same time.

“You don’t need to buy it this time.” You said with a smile, Ben had bought you a book four weeks in a row and you were beginning to feel guilty. Sure, it was nice that Ben would want to buy you things like dinner or a movie rental, but you never wanted him to feel obligated.

“Don’t worry sweetheart,” The shop owner selected Ben’s card and shot him a wink when he ran it through the machine, “I’ve got it.”

The two of you walked out of the bookstore with a used copy of the Odyssey wrapped in brown paper tied with twine tucked under Ben’s arm and plans to pick up pad thai for dinner. Later, after you showered and watched Ben flick through your dvd’s you kissed his neck until he flushed all the way to the tips of his ears.

+++

A cold is manageable, the flu is inconvenient and draining, but nothing is worse than a stomach bug.

You’re unsure how you caught it, maybe someone at work or even the grocery store, but one Wednesday evening you went to bed feeling fine and next thing you know it’s 2:30 in the morning and you’re kneeling over your toilet seat. Throwing up is the worst, you feel like you’re choking and the smell is always unbearable and clings to your skin. What makes matters worse is that you made homemade pesto for dinner and your vomit is a terrifying bright green. While resting your head on the edge of the toilet seat you remember how much you like pesto, now it’ll probably be a few months until you have it again.

It’s 5:30 in the morning by the time you’ve emptied the contents of your stomach and stopped dry heaving but you’re too tired to do anything besides sit slumped against the wall of your bathroom. It doesn’t help that your knees ache from being crouched on tile all night and you’re severely dehydrated as well as too anxious to stand in fear that you’ll throw up again. You regret not bringing your phone into the bathroom with you, Dex will be over soon to say good morning before he goes on his run and you want to warn him that you’re sick so he doesn’t catch whatever you have.

Just as you’re about to drift off to sleep in the confines of your bathroom your body is being harshly shaken by firm, callused hands. Your vision is still so bleary, and after rubbing the sleep out of them you see a very distraught looking Ben kneeling in front of you. The sudden movement makes your head get dizzy again and without thinking you shove your boyfriend aside so you can lean over the toilet again. It’s only air that you heave out, dry heaving always makes your chest feel weak and your head pound, and as you choke out spit you realize how much you hate the fact that Ben is seeing you like this.

It’s long enough into your relationship that the idea of him seeing you messy and gross shouldn’t be that big of a deal but unfortunately it is. Ben doesn’t like messy, even when he’s crying he looks put together, so having him look at you in a vomit stained tank top while you sit in a crumpled, sweaty, heap makes your skin crawl. How would he be able to see you as someone pretty if this was your current state?

Long fingers card through your hair so it stays out of the toilet bowl and another hand rubs soothing circles into your back. Ben’s hands are always so warm, and his touch makes you shiver uncontrollably as you finally stop heaving.

“What happened? How long have you been like this?” He asks in a rushed voice as you settle against the rim of the toilet again. You watch as his throat bobs, his hazel eyes darting all over your face and body taking in your current state.

“A few hours.” You say weakly, Ben’s face crumples and you wish you could reach out and touch his cheek but your arms feel like lead. “I meant to text you but I left my phone on my nightstand. You shouldn’t be here, you could get sick too.”

Ben scoffs and shakes his head. “If I wasn’t here you’d be curled up on the floor.” He moves to stand and darts into the bedroom so he can grab your phone quickly, unlocking it because you gave him the password to it months ago. “I’m emailing your work, you can’t go in like this.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” You mumble, trying to get your head to stop swimming by keeping your eyes closed. Your shirt is clinging to your skin uncomfortably and you have a really bad wedgie that you hope Ben has not noticed yet. “I don’t want you to see me like this. You could get sick.” The smell of Ben’s deodorant cuts through the smell of bile and normally the scent would soothe you but instead the intensity of it only makes you feel more ill.

“I won’t get sick.” Ben snaps back, you feel his hand smooth back the hair plastered to your sweaty face and you want to cringe at the state of yourself. “Lets get you cleaned up baby.”

Strong hands haul you up off the ground and despite your current state of half-conscious despair you can’t help but feel a little flutter of arousal at the way Ben so easily manhandles you. You’re practically boneless in his hold, too tired and weak to make any effort to help him but he doesn’t seem to mind. He strips you out of your sweaty clothes and eases you onto the floor of your shower where you sit under the lukewarm stream of water.

The water soothes the throbbing headache that started forming two hours ago and it feels nice to finally clean your face. After a few minutes you feel Ben’s warm hands on your back, helping you stand and leaning you against the wall as he washes your body and hair for you. Afterwards he dries you off with a fresh towel then helps you brush your teeth and leads you to your bedroom where he puts a glass of water in your hand and lets you drink as he picks out clean pj’s for you.

Penny curls into your side after you’re tucked under the covers in your bed and three water bottles are placed on your nightstand along with a banana and a sleeve of crackers that Ben insists you try eating. He explains that he can’t take the whole day off work even though he wants to and assure him that you didn’t expect him to.

“I know sweetheart,” each word sounds measured but a little shaky, “but I want to take care of you. I can probably take half a day. I’ll try to come home around lunchtime. He leaves you with a kiss on your forehead and Planet Earth queued up on the television in your bedroom. Five minutes after his departure you fall asleep.

It’s 1:30 in the afternoon when you wake up with a dry mouth and a raging headache. Penny is still lying next to you and watches as you gulp down an entire bottle of water that leaves you panting afterwards. Sunlight streams through the curtains on your window and the soft sounds of the courtyard fill your bedroom. The nausea is gone, vomited out with whatever poison that was in your stomach the night before, and you know your hair dried crazy and is still a little damp but you don’t care because the worst has already passed.

As your headache subsides you pass the time by stroking the soft, short hair on the top of Penny’s head and sipping on another bottle of water to try and make up for all of the liquid that had left your body. At 1:45 you hear the click of your front door being unlocked and the familiar sounds of Ben’s footsteps. Penny immediately jumps off the bed and you hear the soft sounds of Ben’s voice as he greets her and then he’s standing in the doorway to your bedroom, suit jacket in hand and messy hair. He must’ve run home from the subway station.

He makes rice and lays with you in bed while rubbing out the tension in your shoulders while you take tentative bites of food, still not fully trusting your stomach. You keep it down, and Ben rewards you with ginger ale that he picked up on the way home. That evening he cooks you eggs and toast and reads pages of Down a Dark Hall until you fall asleep again.

+++

Occasionally, Ben will have to fill in on the SWAT team for special cases at work. It’s not often, but it happens enough times that it leaves you feeling frustrated and anxious to the point where you get nightmares and Ben has to soothe you with warm touches and soft kisses before he leaves for work. It’s not that you don’t trust Ben to take care of himself, he never misses it’s like his whole thing; but you don’t have much faith in the rest of the city. To your credit you live in the same world where Norse gods of myth were real and a city in Europe fell from the sky, anything could happen.

Still, Ben has very little choice in the matter. He asked to take a step back from fieldwork as much as possible for your sake but the bureau found him too useful to let him go completely and you know he would rather be behind the scope of a rifle rather than behind a computer monitor.

Ben wasn’t able to share much of the details but when he comes home with a black eye and a cut across his left brow you’re sent into a panic that can only be soothed by making him sit on your toilet seat and letting you assess the damage. Even though you know that he was already checked out by an actual medic, you still cradle his face in your hands as you scowl at the swelling surrounding his eye socket and trace the cut with the edge of your fingernail.

“Hostage situation, one of the guys elbowed me in the face while he was trying to get away.” Ben said with an expression that was difficult to read as you tilted his face in the light. There’s a hint of a smile on his face and his eyes are hooded but you think it’s just from the swelling. The bruise is yellow for the time being but you know in a day it’ll be an ugly shade of purple that will contrast with the tone of his skin.

“Did he get away?” You ask, pressing a soft kiss on the butterfly bandage that is already placed on his brow. You wonder if it will leave a scar. Ben’s lips curl into a smile.

“Absolutely not.”

It’s hard to decipher if ‘Absolutely not.’ means the criminal is dead or just severely injured. You figure it’s the former, you know Ben wouldn’t let someone off easy especially after they scraped up his face. The thought should make you shiver but it doesn’t, instead you can only muster up feelings of sympathy at the sight of your poor boyfriend being bruised.

“Did they check you for a concussion?” Ben moves his face so he can kiss the palm of his hand just before the two of you leave the bathroom so you can get him an ice pack out of your freezer.

“No concussion, just a battered face and a pleased boss.” He slaps the ice pack over his eye and you can’t help but run your fingers though the short hairs at the base of his skull. Ben runs his thumb over your bottom lip that is jutted out in a subtle pout. “I’ll be alright sweetheart, always am. Not the first time I’ve been roughed up and probably won’t be the last.”

“I know, I just,” you run the backs of your fingers up and down the length of his forearm and feel your cheeks begin to flush, “I just want to take care of you. I don’t like seeing you hurt.”

Something about that sentiment makes Ben flinch before melting into a sharky smile and tugging your wrist so you’re pressed into his side, just the way he likes it. With one hand still on the ice pack he uses the other to tilt your chin upwards so he can place a firm kiss on your lips. The ice pack crinkles in his grip and you feel the cold press onto your cheek.

“You take care of me just by existing.” He whispers into your hairline. It makes you smile and you wrap your arms around his lean torso and bury your face in his pec.

+++

You know that Ben enjoys eating pussy.

He did it almost every time the two of you had sex. More often than not he was found in between your thighs when the two of you were intimate, sometimes he did it twice in a session. You were no stranger to the feeling of his tongue lapping at your sensitive clit while his fingers curled in that extra special spot inside of your cunt. He didn’t do it out of obligation, he did it out of want, but he had never let you return the favor.

It’s not like you minded never having to give him head, he never asked for it despite you bringing it up a few times and you weren’t going to complain about not having to put out. But every time your boyfriend bought you a bouquet at the farmers market, or dusted your apartment while you took a nap, or made your cum three times in a row just from his mouth, you wanted to return the favor.

So instead of letting him slip down your thighs you closed your legs making Ben let out a confused whine and you motioned for him to sit up at the head of the bed. Wordlessly, you straddled him, licking the roof of his mouth as you circled your hips over his cloth covered crotch, and felt his cock grow hard from the friction. Just as he began to moan in your mouth you slid off his lap and laid on the bed, resting your cheek against the firm muscle of his thigh.

“What are you doing?” Ben stammers, audibly gulping and running a veiny hand down his face as beads of sweat form at his hairline.

“Shhh,” you whisper, fingers slipping under the waistband of his briefs so you can tug them down his thighs, “I’ve got it.”

You start by pressing chaste kisses up the length of his cock which makes Ben let out a borderline pathetic whimper and has him gripping your linen sheets. Small, delicate licks on his tip make him groan, and finally when you swallow half his length he places a firm hand through the strands of your hair and guides you up and down his dick.

“Fuck, fuck!” Ben groans, biting his knuckles in an effort not to shout when you cup his balls with one of your hands and use the other to stroke the rest of his length that won’t fit into your mouth. He never presses on your head, never pushes you to take more than you are comfortable but the touch is comforting and helps keep you grounded and ignore the ache starting to form in your jaw.

“This is - fuck!” He whimpers, sniffling loud enough that you glance up at his face and you see how his cheeks are wet with tears that are falling in a steady stream down his face. “Fuck, shit, I’m gonna cum, I-I’m gonna come soon.”

Maybe someone else would be annoyed with the fact that he’s already on the brink so soon into the blowjob but you feel a little prideful at the fact that Ben is so turned on you have him cumming in a matter of minutes. After a few more strokes you feel his hand tighten in your hair making you moan and the vibration from your throat has him shooting into your mouth.

You swallow part of it and the rest your stroke out of him while placing heated kisses on his lips that he reciprocates while sobbing. He hisses when the stimulation is too much and he whimpers while he watches you lick the rest of his spend off your fingers.

“You’re so perfect.” He mumbles, speech slightly slurred from being so blissed out. Ben tucks your hair behind your ears and moves to get up and get a washcloth but you beat him to it.

“I told you,” You say with a shy smile, wiping spit off of your hand before cleaning off your boyfriend’s thighs, “I’ve got it.”

+++

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I’ve been in the process of moving recently so sorry I am not updating as frequently as a few weeks ago but I also don’t want to burn myself out. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer and if you have any requests do not hesitate to send them in! Thank you as always for taking the time to read.