#mini-challenge

You’d gotten an internship at Stark Industries while you were in grad school. Somehow, you’d gone from working some gopher job for one of the security sectors to working to support the Avengers themselves.

You knew his story, had always thought it was sad that someone so handsome and brave had died as he had. Then you and the rest of the world found out he hadn’t died at all. He’d been forced to serve HYDRA, the enemy of his best friend. You had access to more information than the general public in that position. You’d learned about the brainwashing, the things they’d forced him to do.

When he’d joined the Avengers, you’d gone out of your way to make sure he had what he needed for missions, meetings, and just in general. Sure, you’d been crushing on him. You were in your early twenties then. You had no idea he’d be interested in you too. You’d been playing with fire.

Bucky had taken everything you offered. Then he’d taken you. For a time, you’d been happy. At first his attention, the attention from someone like him, had been everything your romantic little heart had ever wanted.

While he was old-fashioned, a complete gentleman in your day to day lives, in the bedroom, Bucky needed complete control. Those first weeks were thrilling, and he’d pushed your body and senses beyond anything you’d ever imagined.

Bucky had never hurt you but over time his obsessive behavior and jealousy began to scare you. When you disagreed with his plans in everyday life, he’d fuck you until he got his way. When you talked about the future, you had plans to use your Master's degree once you completed it, Bucky had plans for you to stay with him.

It was that he was taking your choices away more than anything that made you afraid. Steve had even tried to intercede on your behalf. Steve had really tried because, according to him, no one made Bucky as happy as you had. No one brought him out as you did.

When you fled, you should have known better. Bucky had been one of the world’s deadliest assassins. He’d hunted down people all over the world for HYDRA. You hadn’t stood a chance.

Steve would call you when you ran, beg you to reconsider, promise to work with you if you’d just come back to Bucky. Not long after that, Bucky would find you. He’d always find you.

Until the last time you ran…

The Snap had happened. Thanos happened. Half the world dissolved into piles of ash and that included him. It had been a mess, even in the life you’d barely established here in the Appalachian Mountains.

But it had also freed you…

For what?

Now you were almost thirty, working at a job that most days you didn’t enjoy. You had a few friends but they either fucked a different guy every night, which wasn’t your scene, or were married with families. And it was the latter you found yourself envying. They had comfy homes with pets and toys scattered across the floor and frames filled with pictures of happy life moments that your life was void of. Their arms were filled with little chubby babies and toddlers, their beds filled with husbands who went to work to help provide for them and took them out to small family restaurants on the weekends.

You wondered if they knew just how lucky they were.

When the rain started, you shivered at the drop in the temperature. Setting down your empty beer bottle, you headed down the stairs and out into the rain. When it went from a gentle rain to sheets of water, you just stood there with your face to the sky, letting it soak into your skin because you wanted to feel it.

How long had it been since you’d felt anything?

You didn’t know how long you’d been out there when you’d climbed back up on the porch, went into your cabin through the kitchen door.

The light turned on in your darkened house, startling you.

Bucky seemed so large in your kitchen, your gaze taking him in. Your heart squeezed in your chest because on one level, you were happy to see him.

But there was no denying the spike of fear that shot through you at the same time. Bucky, in these moments when he found you, could be highly unpredictable.

His long hair was gone, bringing back that rakish soldier you’d gazed at in the museum all those visits when you were a teenaged girl. He was dressed in all black, leather and some tactical gear. It looked like he’d come straight from a mission.

Maybe you were the mission.

Bucky whispered your name, those blue eyes intense and sharp on you as his gaze roamed over you.

You stood there shivering, dripping water all over the wood floor of your kitchen. You wrapped your arms around yourself as you made yourself meet his gaze.

“Steve said you survived,” Bucky told you, moving closer.

You automatically took a small step back, not sure after all this time how this would go.

When he took another step, you were backed against the counter. Bucky moved closer, an arm planted on each side of you, caging you in. He loomed over you, filling your vision until your heart started racing in your chest, alive in a way it hadn’t been in years.

“You trying to catch your death out there, baby doll?” he whispered, his flesh hand lifting the side of your wet face, his thumb smoothing up your cheek.

Sniffling, you shook your head. Your shivering only got worse and you knew it wasn’t just because you were cold. You leaned into his touch.

“It’s been five long years,” he whispered.

“It’s been a long time,” you replied.

“For you. For me, you left me again only a few weeks ago,” Bucky went on. “I would have expected you to find someone in all that time, start a family… But here you are. Alone.”

Alone.

You don’t know how alone I’ve been.

But you couldn’t tell him that. You weren’t about to own it.

“Why is that, doll?” he whispered.

You dropped your gaze. You didn’t want him to read in your eyes that you while he scared you, while he wanted to own you, you’d missed him.

“Hmm?” he prompted, those warm, strong fingers tipping your chin up.

You wouldn’t look him in the eye. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”

You did.

You didn’t fight him when he bent to scoop you up, carrying you down the hall to your bathroom. He sat you on the closed toilet while he closed the door, turned on the heat.  Going down on one knee, Bucky began peeling your wet clothes off you. Your t-shirt, shorts, bra, and panties. You let him.

As you watched he pulled a couple of huge fluffy towels out of the closet, grinning at you as he approached you.

“Some things never change, huh?” That grin widened, messing with your insides. “You always did love these big, fuzzy towels.”

Under other circumstances, it would be funny to have a man as deadly as him all in black leather and tactical gear drying you off like you were a child.

It wasn’t until then you realized his arm was different. Darker, more elegant. Timidly, you reached your hand out, sliding your fingertips along the shiny surface. Those blue eyes tracked your movements, darkening. You knew where this was heading.

“Doll…”

You snatched your hand away like he’d burned you. Bucky paused in his efforts.

“You can touch me,” he told you gently. “I want you to touch me.”

He left the towels on your floor, turned the heat off, and picked you up again bridal style. This time he carried you to your bedroom. You didn’t want him to put you down. 

When did his arms become home?

Setting you on the end of your bed, he followed you down, on his knees in front of you. You tried to curl in on yourself, wrapping your arms around yourself.

Undoing the buckles at the front of his uniform, he shrugged out of the straps. Placing his hands on your knees, he pulled them apart, insinuating his clothed form between them. Carefully, he grabbed your wrists, pulling your arms down into your lap.

“It might as well have been five years for me too,” he leaned forward, whispering against your lips. “I need you.” His mouth claimed yours for a slow, heated kiss. “I need you so fucking much.”

Your entire form trembled in his grasp. Releasing your wrists, he slid his arms around you, pulling you around him close. Bucky tempted you with slow, careful kisses, his hands smoothing over you and reminding you of the delirium he could make you feel. Hot and cold sensations ran through your body like fever.

His mouth blazed a path across to your ear, the tender flesh beneath it.

“You left me, baby doll,” he whispered, so sad it made your heart clench. “Why do you have to leave me? Hurt me?”

The sincerity of his words, his voice, broke you a little. He had you gasping as his lips and tongue teased the slim column of your throat and his hands sought out all the places he knew you were vulnerable.

“If I… hurt you so much,” you whispered, gasping when his cold hand slid over your breast, “why do you keep coming after me?”

Bucky pulled back to gaze into your face, his smile so gentle. “Because you’re mine… Because I kinda like the way you numb all the pain.”

More kisses across your chest. Taking your hands in his, he pressed them to his head, into his hair. Your fingers clutched in the thick, short locks as his mouth closed around one of your nipples. His moan was a deep, hungry sound when you pulled because you remembered he liked that, the vibration had you shivering in his clutches.

All you could do was hang onto him as he teased your breasts with his mouth, knowing just how to use his lips, his teeth to make the tips into rock-hard little points. Bucky knew how to make you ache.

He was so careful with you, so patient. Why this time? Because it had been five years for you? Because he thought that was what you needed?

Bucky was wrong. You wanted more.

Trying to force his head back, you pulled yourself back, further up on the bed. All you had to do was what you’d done in the past. You didn’t want him to woo you. Not now. Your need was too great.

“Bucky,” you panted, pulling your knees to your chest and drawing up into a ball, “I can’t… Please…”

Those steely eyes were a wicked blend of disappointment and lust. You were sure he was disappointed. But the dark heat creeping into his expression told you he was going to have you either way. Where normally this part of the conversation inspired fear, it had your libido growing fangs. You wanted him rough and dominant. You craved him.

“You were doing so well,” he whispered, stalking up the bed after you. He stopped to pull off the tall boots he wore, but that was all. He came after you until he crowded you against your headboard. “You were being so good for me…”

“Please,” you begged, knowing he would think you were begging him to leave you alone, leave your small cabin in the woods.

You wanted anything but that.

His metal hand clutched in the wet locks of your hair, pulling your head up and back until you were forced to look at him. It was just enough to get your attention but not enough to hurt. Yet.

And you wanted him to make you hurt a little.

“As long as I draw breath,” he said against your lips, “I’ll always come for you.”

You did your damnedest to feign fear. “What… would you have done if I had belonged to someone else? Had children with him?”

Bucky’s gaze was unwavering.

“I’d have felt sorry for the poor bastard,” he admitted. “I know what it’s like to be someone you love.”

And you did love him.

“But I wouldn’t let you go,” he wanted you to know. “I wouldn’t let him keep what’s mine.”

Faster than you could blink, you found yourself on your back. Your blinds were ripped from the window over your bed and he pulled the length of nylon cord free from them before tossing the remnants across the room. He had your hands bound to the brass bars of your headboard with an efficiency that left you breathless, made all the quiet days of nothing begin to fade into the background.

You felt alive.

“God, it’s been too long,” he whispered, his dark gaze drinking you in.

Bucky was on you then, his mouth and hands teased your breasts for only a beat before he was moving down your body, not bothering to remove even the black leather jacket he wore. The cool leather felt heavenly when he threw your legs over his shoulders, dove for you with his mouth.

And then you were at his mercy. While his hold on you was tight and unyielding, his mouth was soft, gentle. And he knew it. Knew you needed more. Quick flicks of his tongue against your clit had you fighting to breathe above him, fighting against the cord he’d secured you to your bed with. He brought you off the first time just like that while your heels slid on the leather of that jacket, on the muscled expanse of his back.

He made you sing when he began fucking you with his tongue, your cries filling the room while you struggled helplessly in his hold. You wanted him to think you were fighting to be free of him because that’s what brought out the dominant in him. It was hard for you not to fight to press yourself into his face, to beg him for everything.

You came twice more on his fingers, his tongue teasing your clit until you couldn’t breathe. You begged him until you weren’t even sure what you were saying.

When he finally rose to his knees, undoing his belt, ripping open the black pants he wore, you were pretty sure you were begging him finally.

Bucky smiled at you, a triumphant smile, as he took himself in hand.

“Who do you belong to, baby doll?” he asked, lowering himself over you. When you felt the swollen head of him sliding along your folds – and you were soaked – you tried to wrap your legs around him, pull him closer.

“You, Bucky,” you managed. “I’ve… always belonged to you.”

When he began pushing into you, your heart raced.

His eyes slid closed as he slid slowly into you, savoring the feeling of being inside you again. Once he reached the end of you, he moved over you. His hands slid up into your hair, your bare breasts brushing against the jacket and the black shirt he wore beneath as he began to move in you.

“Never letting you go again,” he whispered against your lips.

His movements started slow and easy and you were grateful because you hadn’t been with anyone in some months, and no one as big as him. Gradually, as his lips chained kisses over your face and breasts, his thrusts gained in speed and power. He took most of your cries into his mouth as he kept up a dirty rhythm, angling his thrusts trying to find your sweet spot.

And find it he did.

Then he angled all his thrusts to hit it, making you come apart on his cock within seconds. You were a gasping mess beneath him, but his movements never faltered.

“Gonna give you this every night… when I’m home,” he said breathlessly, his hands sliding up to wrap around your wrists. “Gonna love you until… you can’t think of anything else.”

You were already there. You couldn’t think of anything else but Bucky fucking you, bringing you to the edge of oblivion over and over again. You came twice more on his cock, loving the edge of pain his thrusts brought as he rode you hard, chasing his own release now.

You screamed into the quiet of the cabin, the world fading as he lingered above you, his face wrecked as he reached his own pleasure.

The world faded in and out for you, leaving you in a realm somewhere between dreaming and sleep. You hissed at the sting when he pulled his cock from your center. You sighed in relief when your wrists were released, feeling the flow of blood return to your arms and hands. You felt the whisper-soft touches of his hands and lips over your body as he cleaned you up, tucked you under the covers.

Then you heard him talking, but not to you. He was on the phone.

“I found her,” he said quietly. “She’s doing just fine. I’m bringing her back with me in a couple of days.”

Where once panic would have claimed you, now you breathed out a sigh of relief.

If there was one thing you’d learned in the last five years? Bucky’s needs, desires, obsessiveness, and tempestuous moods? Living with them again would be so much better than the five years you’d spent without him, dwelling in solitude and temporary bodies.

“I have my bike with me,” he went on. “I’ll rent a car and drive us to DC. We’ll take a jet up from there.”

Your eyes slit open, seeing him smile as he ended his conversation. “Thanks, Stevie... I am happy.”

Closing your eyes, you rested. You could pretend to be asleep but he could tell the difference somehow. He always could.

You heard the rustle of fabric as he finally stripped off his uniform, then the dip of the bed as he slid in behind you. Tucking an arm up under your pillow, he wrapped the other around your waist and pulled you back into the heat of him. The feel of his skin against yours made you happy, had your lips curling into a smile.

His lips pressed to your shoulder. “I love you.”