CONSUMMATE

"I happen to know a lot about science. I know . . . fermentation. I know . . . biology."
Oliver Queen, S02E05
[Flashback]

I kissed him.

Me.

I was out of my mind, and I wasn't going to do a damn thing about it. Anticipating tonight, this moment, I hadn't let myself imagine that I would want him but I did and oh, I could have him.

. . . if he let me.

I didn't touch him any further than where my lips were pressed. One hand clutching the cool wood banister, grains of scattered sand rough against my palm. The other held down by my side. Skin static with tension, and heat.

Oliver didn't let it get awkward.

He kissed me back. Sweet and slow, as if he was savoring this, and delicious as the sparkly tingle his touch elicited felt, it wasn't sugar I wanted. No. Not sugar . . .

I caught his hips, hooking my fingers through the belt loops of his jeans and tugged. Easing us both away from the edge of the veranda. Oliver broke the kiss, but not the contact, his mouth on mine a tease. "Where are we going?"

"Inside."

He laughed. Low and tight and followed me through the open, sliding glass doors of our villa; hands and mouths touching, stroking, sharing breath as if there wasn't enough air between us for two.

I'd left my hair down, still a bit damp from my own shower, and Oliver wasted no time driving his hand into it. Strong fingers raking through tumbling strands; god, he smelled good. I let my own hands migrate from his jeans to the hemp of his shirt, yanking impatiently on the soft cotton –

– he moved so fast I didn't feel those fingers slip from my hair until they closed around my wrists. "Wait." Oliver held my hands away, keeping them off of him. "Wait. Stop."

Flushed. Head swimming; dizzy with the smell, taste, feel of him.

I stopped.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. No, I didn't mean, not, stop all of it . . ." Oliver sucked in a deep breath. The musk wafting off his skin hard arousal, and I swear it was making my mouth water but something almost vulnerable moved behind eyes that had silvered in the moonlight.

I slipped out of his touch, and caught his hands in mine.

"It's fine," I said. "We don't have to do this now." Screw the contract – it demanded a child, and I'd consented to that when I signed it, when he signed it, but nowhere did it specify exactly when I was required to conceive one.

If he was nervous . . .

"That's not it," he said. "Did they tell you?" and what it sounded like he was actually asking: 'did they warn you?'

Pool lights spilled through the sliding doors, eddying light and shadow like water on the soft gray wood floors.

"If they had," I ventured "what would they have said?"

Oliver's eyes dipped, like he was digging deep for – what? What to say? . . . courage? Neither. A decision was made and as his eyes locked with mine, I could have sworn I felt them click into place. Oliver eased back and in a single live motion stripped off his t-shirt.

Air punched from my lungs.

I hadn't seen a lot of naked men in my life but I was very sure the number could have been thousands, and none would have compared to Oliver Queen; he was built heavy in the shoulders and chest, tight in the stomach and hips.

I had a brief, striking impression of . . . pure, masculine power.

But that's not what had my breath sawing in my throat.

"Five years is a long time," he said, bleakly "to have things happen to you."

Yes, it was.

His skin had been torn in places, burned, punctured; his body absolutely brutalized. How was this man even alive? What I knew of his time spent castaway on an island was the watered down summery of a half-decade spent . . . surviving.

Fighting for a life he'd taken for granted and rather than annoy me – this pampered billionaire's son – it was sympathy I felt tightening my chest.

This is what he wanted me to see, before we go further.

Before he let me touch him.

"Scars form on the living, Oliver. Not the dead. These," I traced my fingers over the rough length of what had been a brutal rip when it was made, "are evidence of a man who survived." A roadmap of his experiences, carved into his skin.

Muscle flexed under the brush of my fingers.

The weight of his stare like a physical touch.

I felt my breath catch.

"So that's it? No questions. I'm just . . ." He gestured at himself.

Oh, he was so much more than just anything. Since I was already touching him, I let my hands roam. Sliding up to the solid weight of his pecs, his skin rough where it was damaged, tight where it wasn't, and gently traced the age-faded tattoo inked there.

Bratva.

I tiled a small smile. "If you really thought the scars diminished your hotness-factor, then you don't know women very well. And given what I've read about you –"

Oliver cut me off, his mouth sealing over mine.

There was nothing hesitant or polite this time. He kissed me like he meant to have me, and I wanted to be had. Already taken by the confidence, the power, the sheer erotic possibility stoked by his mouth and his hands and the heat in his eyes.

Void his warranty.

Oh, god. In a stunning rush my body responded and I relished the inferno precisely for its burn. I didn't close my eyes. As tempted as I was to shut out sight and let myself drown in sensation, I couldn't bring myself to look away.

He was built all over as if his body had been carved, not born. Compact muscle; hard, coiled steel rather than bulk. None of that cultivated in a gym. Oliver was no lanky, soft-bellied college co-ed. This was a man in his physical prime, a male who was sexually aroused and had every intention of doing something about that.

With a surge of his powerful body, Oliver reversed our positions so that now my back was pressed to the wall next to the sliding glass doors, with the dramatic billowing of the curtains on either side

I dragged my hands down the front of him, thrilling at the sensation of skin on skin and wanting more, needing more, my body more than ready for what was going to happen – right up until my hands met the waist of his jeans and my fingers fumbled there.

Pop the button. I wanted to pop the button – c'mon, hands. Work with me, here. Nope. Not happenin'.

Abruptly I wished he hadn't stripped his shirt off, himself. Denying me the opportunity to peel it from him inch by delicious inch. Better than this weird finger-dance my hands were doing on the small brass button holding his fly closed.

I was nervous. Not scared – no. But definitely nervous, now that it was time.

I already knew I could do it. Sleep with a man I had only just met. Oliver wouldn't be my first, for which I was immensely grateful; tonight would have been something else if he were. Stressful. But I'd never indulged in a one-nighter before.

The handful who'd come before were people I had dated for awhile before sex came up.

This wasn't the same. He was my husband, not a fling – but similar in that he was new. New to me. I'd never been with someone I didn't already know well. Where there was no real emotional connection.

I would have liked a shirt I could peel off those chiseled abs, exposing inches of skin at a time to stroke, to tongue, the exploration as exciting as the discovery and it occurred to me, again, that it wasn't sugar I wanted.

Screw nerves. This wasn't my first time and I wouldn't play it like it was . . . I caught his bottom lip between my teeth, a light nip, and then broke away.

My hands slipped from Oliver's jeans to hook under the hem of my tank and, the blood in my veins thrumming, pulled it up and over my head. Let it drop to the floor.

My chest heaved as the cool air hit bare skin, nipples tightening on a quick sting of pleasure – although my body's response might have had more to do with how his eyes latched on, then the temperature.

What came next had to be the longest two-point-five seconds of my life as I waited for Oliver to speak, move, do something . . . anything . . .

His eyes were smoldering as he dragged that burning gaze up.

"We're doing this?"

My skin positively twitching in expectation, I said, "I think so."

"No," he said, voice thick "tell me you want this."

O-oh. I was more than just a little aroused, and arousal had a habit of absolutely stripping away inhibition. It also muddied the mind. So it took me a second to even get what he was asking for.

I was already so on-board with tonight's entertainment that it hadn't even occurred to me it might seem as if I was doing this only because I felt I had to; and if I was ever going to fall in love with this man, then verifying my consent, making sure, before we went any further was a fantastic start.

"Oliver," I took his face, and looked straight into his eyes, "this is a yes. I want you."

That was all it took. My word – giving him permission to touch me, now. Oliver's mouth latched onto one of my tingling nipples. The hot, wet suction throwing my back into a wild arch that nearly cracked my spine. The back of my head struck the wall . . .

. . . because that was sexy.

He may or may not have heard the thunk! but I wasn't going to risk yet another pause interrupting our momentum. I caught his head, fingers driving through short, dark hair still spiked with damp – not to push him away. Hell, no. To keep him there.

Oliver didn't need the encouragement.

He snaked a strong arm around my waist and tugged sharply, bringing my body flush against the length of his and the yoga pants I was wearing, literally designed to feel like nothing, were no barrier to the solid weight pressing against my thigh.

Poor Oliver with his erection straining futilely inside his jeans. I really should pop that button . . . and I would, Eventually. Not yet. Not when that first firm stroke, my touch brazen, no sneak down, no I'm-going-to-touch-you-now, had him writhing.

His erection was larger than I'd imagined, and it kicked against my palm –

So I did it again, dragging my hand up the length of him. Firmly enough so that he'd feel every languid millimeter through the barrier of heated denim and oh, he did. The hiss that ripped up and out of him was exactly the kind of more I wanted to hear.

Oliver broke from my chest, nipple aching from the attention he paid it, my own breaths hot in my throat, and moved up, retaking control of my mouth and I couldn't tell if I let him, or if he stole that kiss, just that his touch sizzled where it landed.

His palm swept down to the outside of my thigh, light as a shadow falling across my body. Abruptly, Oliver lifted me up and I felt my legs lock around his waist of their own volition.

Caught between the billowing of silky white drapes like sails in the tropical night, I slid my fingers through his hair, gently tilting his face up, blue eyes bright as a flash of steel in the moonlight, and brushed my lips over his once, twice. Savoring this.

He held me as if I didn't weigh a thing, and then I felt the give of a mattress under me. Watching him was nearly as good as feeling him, and the two together, the sight and the sensation, making my head swim . . .

. . . this man was a fantasy made real.

His body nothing but ridges of strength that shifted under tight skin, like satin stretched over steel. He came down through the moonlit dark, my breasts cushioning his pecs as his weight settled on top of me to glorious effect.

"This okay?"

Sweat slicked between our bodies, where skin touched, and I marveled at the solid weight of muscle flexing against my naked stomach –

"This is perfect," I breathed "exactly right," and with a surge, Oliver sealed his mouth over mine, owning another soul-stealing kiss while his hands drifted lower.

The gasp that rocketed up my throat more vibration, then sound; his hand slid between my legs, brushing over my inner thigh, tingling anticipation that made my body go fluid under him, tightening the ache between my legs.

He touched me.

First through the barrier of cotton and spandex, my yoga pants fitting like a second skin, no real separation at all, and he was careful. Applying just enough pressure, stroking tight circles around that sensitive spot, coaxing . . . teasing . . . there was more, I could give him more . . . and he knew it.

Oliver pulled up, and then down. Slipping a hand under the elastic waist of my pants and that first brush of strong fingers against tender skin –

I couldn't breathe.

Air was overrated, anyway.

I raked hard fingers over his shoulders, careful not to dig my fingernails in.

With his body nestled between my legs, I couldn't close my thighs, no matter how intense the sensation, pleasure sparkling just this side of pain, and being unable to slam my legs shut, to writhe against his hand the way my body so desperately wanted to was . . . powerful . . .

But still, not enough.

My hands tugged at the front of his jeans, scrambling blindly for that small brass button, that zipper, and the weight of flesh beneath. Hell, he was hard as a baseball bat. How was this not hurting him?

I popped his jeans and that heavy length of him spilled out, right into my hands. Hot and, yes, very hard. I took over from there; stroking him with the same long, languid pulls as before, and watched through the haze of sex as Oliver bore down, taking what I gave, demanding more, his need growing with every deliberate stroke.

Coaxing him higher.

Oliver pulled his hand from my pants so fast, that slick slide of fingers, I almost – accidentally – came. My mind spun in the second it took to notice that he wasn't stopping –

My breaths hitched. Oliver reared back, dragging his jeans down and tossing them aside, kicking them off, and my chest ached at the sight of him. The brutality of his scars did nothing, absolutely nothing, to lessen the impact of his naked body. Primal and raw.

I curled my legs up, thumbs hooking at the waist of my yoga pans. I peeled them off, cool air drying the sweat from my skin and if this were any other night, with any other man, here is where I would bring up necessary practicalities.

Assuming my partner wasn't already on it.

And hell, what a buzz kill the condom discussion was and yes, I understood why people made dumb choices when it came to sex. All the things that mattered, those things that were really to sting once the intensity of it was over . . . were just distant echoes; a whisper to the furious roar of an evolutionary drive.

Neither of us had packed condoms.

Because we weren't supposed to be using one.

So nothing was stopping me from kicking my pants to the floor and falling back on sweat-roughened sheets, dragging an Adonis down on top of me.

It felt strange.

As if we'd forgotten something.

Oliver dragged his mouth from jaw, to throat. Parting my knees with one of his own, he made me room for himself there. Except that as I guided him to me, I braced myself. It had been a long time, for me, and given the way he was built?

That flutter in my stomach was nervousness, now, not desire. I had zero interest in stopping, though. If nothing else, my body was beyond ready. With Oliver poised to press forward, he looked away.

. . . shy?

A bolt of pain lanced through me, snuffing out the heat and, as I stiffened, Oliver froze. Those piercing blue eyes shot back to mine in alarm.

"No," I breathed, and kissed him "no. Not that. It's just been awhile. Don't you dare stop."

And as if to prove it, I trust my hands down his powerful torso to the small of his back and jacked my hips up, taking him deeper. I joined us properly; because when Oliver panic-froze, he really did just stop moving and that would be funny. Later.

Right now? The stretching, the filling, the electric shock of pleasure, brought back the fire – and that was before he even started thrusting.

He was careful with me now, moving slowly at first, giving my body the chance to adjust to his girth. And oh, God, adjust it did. Everything loosened at the friction; he was thick inside of me, heavy on top, salt and sweat and the sounds we were making as pleasure coiled low and tight.

Deep. Very, very deep.

I moved with his thrusts, meeting him there, vaguely aware something was coming out of my mouth. His name, yes. That's it. His name. I was panting it, caught in a frenzy I already knew would be too short-lived to really savor –

The coil snapped like a live wire, an electric bolt that fired every nerve, an explosive shattering that rocked me. The rhythmic pulses contracting throughout my body milking him, too, and Oliver followed, almost immediately.

He must have already been skating that edge, and without thinking, feeling only the rightness of it, I slid my arms around his shoulders. Holding him close as Oliver let out a guttural moan. A powerful shudder as his erection kicked inside me, and I closed my eyes at the hot, liquid rush of his release.