A game of flip cup might have been the worst possible idea, but I couldn't bring myself to deny the birthday boy. After dinner, we'd cleared the table off and set up a row of orange solo cups (because the color red on campus was blasphemous) filled with Corona seltzers, because we weren't savages. It was later in the night now, which meant the drinks were heavier, the music was louder, and the fuse of whatever was going on between Reid and I was growing shorter.

So naturally, we'd each been named the anchors for our flip cup teams - a classic girls versus guys matchup. The guys took an early lead, but all the birthday drinks clearly had gotten to Derek as he couldn't flip the cup to save his life.

By my turn, I'd had a few seconds head start on Reid, but that didn't matter. He'd chugged it like it was water and immediately started flipping his cup with all the dexterity you'd expect him to have, his biceps flexing against the sleeve of his shirt and his tongue poked out of his lip in concentration.

"Shit," I grumbled as my first few flips were total fails, and I chalked up the cheers from both the guys and the girls teams as the root of my distraction.

Reid flipped the cup so aggressively it went flying off the table, giving me enough time to eventually get my cup flipped over and win.

"Fuck yes," I cheered out as Kayla, Bree, and Lana tackled me into a team hug.

I then turned to Reid with an innocent shrug. "Can't win 'em all, kid."

"Apparently not," he grumbled.

To avoid any unwanted late night noise complaints from our neighbors, the party began to die down. A few people offered to help Bree and I clean up, but even I'd shooed Bree away so her and Lana could resume their never-ending One Piece conquest. Like I said, I didn't like people in my kitchen, and that included before, during, and after.

"You gonna be okay if we go?" Kayla asked me as she pulled me into a hug. I glanced over her shoulder, where JJ was waiting by the door with Reid.

I slid her a conspiratory smirk. "Use protection, please."

Kayla rolled her eyes, but mirrored my smirk. "Oh please, you're one to talk."

I arched an eyebrow at her. "What do you mean?"

Kayla's smirk widened. "Reid couldn't take his eyes off of you the whole night."

"Get out of my kitchen," I groaned as I turned away from her and made my way to the sink.

"Love you, bye!" she called before I heard the door click behind her.

I sighed and shook my head before putting on some more mellow music and beginning to clean up, humming to Jennifer's Body by Hole as I started scrubbing the dishes.

"You really do listen to the weirdest music sometimes."

I nearly dropped the plate in my hands when I looked up to see Reid standing on the other side of the kitchen island. "Holy shit, what are you still doing here? I thought you left with Kayla and JJ."

Reid shook his head. "Not really interested in a threesome. Besides, it's bad manners for me to just leave you with..." he gestured to the dishes in the sink and the stacks of trays half-filled with leftovers. "...all this."

I scoffed and turned my attention back to scrubbing steak juice off of a plate. "Is this how you think you're going to win back my favor?"

"No, but it is how I'm gonna get you to hear me out."

"Fine." I heaved out a sigh as I ran my finger over a chip at the edge of the plate. At the very least, I had an excuse not to look at him head-on, because that was potentially hazardous for my health.

Reid moved to stand next to me, picking up the dishes I'd just washed and running over them with a dry towel. "I'm sorry, okay? Really, I am, I just..."

He sighed as I handed him another plate without making eye contact. "It escalated so quickly, and I just assumed the worst, I guess."

"Well, I could have probably reigned it in a little bit, too," I admitted. "So now I'm gonna tell you what I get told a lot in the business - it's nothing personal. Me letting you read that article is not only against protocol, it's morally fucked up. If everyone got to see stuff that was written about them before it was published, nothing would ever get published."

"I know, I know," he nodded. "I just...I tend to let my emotions get the better of me sometimes. I'm self-aware enough now to know that, but it doesn't stop it from happening, and I'm a fucking idiot."

A beat of silence passed, and I let out a dry chuckle. "Oh, I'm sorry, were you expecting me to disagree with you?"

He chuckled and shook his head. "Guess not."

"What were you even afraid I would write?" I asked him as I handed off another dish. "That you dunk french fries in your milkshake? Because for the record, that's actually kind of endearing."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his ears begin to turn red. "I don't know, okay? After everything I've seen and heard other people say about me...coulda been anything, I guess."

"Well I'm not other people." An edge had crept up in my voice. "I'm me, and I'm good at what I do, otherwise I wouldn't be the one doing this piece with you in the first place."

I grabbed the stack of dry dishes and put them in the cabinet next to the fridge.

"Can I just ask you one more thing?" I spun around to finally face him, leaning back against the counter. "You let me win at flip cup, didn't you?"

He scoffed and folded his arms over his chest, and I realized his arms were one of the potential hazards. How could they not be? "Do I really look like the type of guy that lets anyone win at anything?"

I smirked at him. "Not even a little bit."

I wasn't sure how much time had passed as a silence between us - it could have been hours, for all I knew, because when two people looked at each other the way Reid and I were looking at each other, time kind of stands still.

He was the one to finally press play on reality. "Well, I should, uh...I should probably go." He sucked in a sharp breath. "I'll see you later?"

Before either of us could process what was happening, he dipped his head down to press a gentle kiss to my cheek, sending a warmth cascading down my spine.

"Shit," he sighed out as he pulled away. "I'm sorry, I...I don't know why I just did that."

"Wait," I blurted out as I reached for his wrist, unwilling to let him take another step towards the door. The fuse was at its end, and there was nothing more I could do to stop whatever this was from being blown to the moon.

We were closer now than we'd been before, our chests pressed against one anothers, my hands on his biceps and his hands finding a place to settle on my hips. I had fallen into the dark vortex of his eyes, past the event horizon of this black hole I'd drifted too close to. He was otherworldly. Magnetic. Undoubtedly pulling me in. But I wasn't scared - instead, being so close to him filled me with an unexpected ease, which is probably what gave me the will to lean forward just enough to bring my lips to his.

There was only a fraction of a second of hesitation - maybe more like shock - from him before he leaned into me, fully committed and finally untethered by whatever had been holding us back all these weeks. I'd kissed guys before, but this was the kind of kiss that burned you alive, and I was sure they could smell the smoke from here to Memorial Stadium.

"You don't have to go, you know." I pulled away just enough to whisper my words against his lips.

"Good." His chest vibrated against mine as he spoke in a low voice. "Cause I don't wanna go."

Realizing we were still standing in my apartment entryway, we managed to separate, if only to make a necessary location change.

I led him by the hand back into my bedroom, turning and easing the door shut behind me with the faintest click. When I turned back around to face him, he'd already lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, and I couldn't help but grin, seeing his large frame so out of place on my tiny bed, surrounded by my abundance of fluffy pillows. As I leaned back against the door to take in the sight of him in all his tousled hair, boyishly handsome glory, I felt him doing the same to me, raking his eyes up and down my body.

"What?" I asked him with a faint smirk.

"You're beautiful," he said, his voice soft but both steady and assured in a way that felt very him.

I kept smirking. "You think flattery will get you somewhere?"

"Why don't you come over here and find out?"

While still steady and assured, the hint of desire in his words moved my body on its own, and I slowly walked over to him and stood between his knees.

"Well, here I am." I rested my hands on his shoulders, feeling a pulsing, an urging, a needing for him start to radiate through me. "Your move, big guy."

"I work well under pressure," he whispered as he gently ran his hand up the crook of my neck, letting his thumb brush over my lips before pulling me into a kiss. The entire world seemed to fall away, and suddenly no matter how close I was wasn't close enough. My heart began missing beats entirely as he brought his hand to my cheek, gently tugging on my chin with his thumb, begging me to let him in. So I did, letting out a lustful moan as I felt his tongue sweep through the inside of my mouth. He tasted even better than I expected him to, equal parts bitter and sweet like rich, expensive chocolate. The kind of thing you took your time to savor.

He moved his hands down to my hips, gently guiding me onto his lap to straddle his waist. There was already a rock-hard bulge in his shorts, and I arched my hips just a little bit deeper into it, my body aching to feel his. He responded by brushing his fingers along the bare bit of thigh that stuck out of the slit of my dress, and the unexpected warmth of his skin there made me instinctively flinch.

"Sorry." He pulled away just enough to whisper an apology against my lips. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I whispered back, reaching up to gently curl a finger around a lock of his hair. "I want you. Tell me you want me too."

"So fucking badly," he said in a husky voice. "I have for months."

The revelation poured gasoline on the already burning fire, and in the inferno we collided again. With one arm around my waist, he swiftly spun me around to lay me down, hovering over me with his knees pressed into the bed on either side of me. He moved his mouth down to my neck, sucking and teasing every sensitive spot down to my collarbone.

I gasped out a delicate moan, prompting him to latch onto me, harder and hungrier. He slid a hand up into the slit of my dress, spreading my thighs just slightly and gently rubbing me over the lace of my thong.

"Is this okay?" he breathed out against my neck.

"Yes," I replied, feeling myself slowly becoming breathless. He was stealing it all away, and I was letting him.

With his mouth still at my neck, he moved my underwear aside and slipped one finger in me at first, and that alone had me trembling, aching to feel more, and he obliged. He slid another finger in, and I couldn't hold back another moan as I arched myself into his touch. Reid's hands were huge, which meant that so were his fingers, and anything I had imagined when I was alone was nowhere near as good as the real thing.

"Jo." Reid pulled away to hold my gaze, his eyes glazed over with a deep, dark lust. "I want you to come for me."

"Then you're going to need to do more than that." I smirked up at him, fully aware that I was tapping into the fierce competitor I knew he was. That was the Reid I wanted.

Reid grinned wickedly, and I knew I'd just woke a sleeping beast. "Take your dress off," he told me with just enough command that you'd expect someone like him to have.

"Take your shirt off," I retorted.

We teased each other, slowly and methodically peeling off our clothes until there was nothing but skin on skin. He took his time planting kisses down my stomach, his teeth grazing at my hip bones, until he settled into the spot he wanted.

"How's this for more?" He breathed against the inside of my thigh, slowly tracing every inch of me with his tongue, testing every little spot until he felt me start to tremble against him with that same pulsing, urging need. He wanted to please me, and that only made my dizzying desire for him stronger.

I hissed out a breath. "I know you can do better than that."

Taking me up on my challenge, he wrapped his hands around my thighs as he just grazed my clit with the tip of his tongue, and a moan ripped through me in response. I dragged a hand through his hair, rocking my hips against the feeling of his tongue inside me.

He briefly came back up for air, smirking coyly at me. "That's the spot, huh?"

"Oh shush. Keep going," I sighed out.

I already felt an orgasm building, knotting all the nerves up in my lower stomach, and I instinctively grabbed for his hair again, pulling and tugging to counteract the way he tugged and pulled at me. He slipped two fingers in me again, stroking me harder and faster while his mouth worked me eagerly.

"Oh fuck, Reid," I moaned out, barely able to recognize my own voice - not just from the sheer fervor in it, but because it was his name I was moaning.

His movements became more heated, more aggressive, his tongue sweeping up and gracing every nerve-ending in me with his perfect touch until he hit the place he knew I wanted - the g-spot, the max volume button, the fuse that was about to set off booming fireworks in me. I clapped one hand over my mouth to muffle what would have been an ecstasy-laden scream as everything in me exploded. He squeezed me tight as I finished, my other hand still tangled up in his hair.

There was a slow, methodicalness to Reid's movements as he worked his way back up to me, dotting my shoulder and neck with kisses, finally reaching my face so he could whisper in my ear just like he had in my frustrating fantasy simulation. "You keeping up, Jo?"

"There's condoms in my bedside table, Reid," I scoffed at him, still half-breathless, but the implications were enough. I wanted him. I needed him.

I expected him to come back at me with the same intensity as before, but he took his time as he moved back on top of me, his gaze not leaving mine as he brushed two fingers slowly over my lips. I parted my mouth slightly, inviting his fingers in as I delicately kissed and sucked at them.

"God you really are beautiful," he said in a breathless whisper, almost as if he was only speaking to himself.

"Kiss me." I was pleading now, just speaking it out into the universe in hopes someone would hear me, and he did.

Reid leaned down close to me, his cheeks red and his breath almost as heavy as mine, and kissed me slowly, almost tenderly. He slid himself fully inside of me with a groan, and while the sheer size of him should not have come as a shock, the way the feeling of him made me almost immediately short circuit did. I tightened around him, arching my back to meet his hips with mine and moving underneath him in a way that teased out that beast in him again.

"Fuck Jo," he moaned into my mouth. His thrusts became harder, needier as he buried himself deeper in me. His body surrounded me, and every sense I had was filled with him - the feeling of his skin on mine, the scent of his cologne, the sound of my name in his mouth, the taste of his tongue and the way that he looked at me when he pulled away just slightly, like he had me dead to rights and he knew he did.

"Keep going," I urged, almost gasping for breath by now.

He lifted himself up and took one of my legs with him, draping it over his shoulder as his movements became more aggressive, more frantic, as if he wanted to undo me from the inside out. He pawed needily at my body, squeezing at my hips, my thighs, my breasts, anywhere he could touch without sacrificing his position.

"You gonna come for me again?" he asked. Even though the movement seemed instinctive, it was as if he knew exactly what I wanted to see as he raked a hand through his hair to brush a few locks off of his forehead.

"God yes," I managed to choke out. I was almost certain my soul had left my body like I was having an exorcism. At the very least, his name did. "Oh fuck Reid, don't stop."

I was burning up, everything inside me boiling until I exploded again. I felt his hips shudder as he finished, letting out one more deep moan in ecstasy. I hadn't thought about it until this moment, but I really hoped Bree was either asleep or had headphones in.

Reid collapsed onto the bed beside me, and for a few moments - maybe longer - there was nothing but the sound of our labored breathing and the blood rushing through my ears as my body tried to reset itself.

"You still keeping up?" My words came out in short, breathy spurts.

Reid opened one eye and tilted his head to face me. "I could go again."

"Uh yeah," I sighed out, trying to mask an exhausted hesitation. "Me too."

After another beat of silence, breathy chuckles escaped us both. The only people we were fooling into thinking either of us had the stamina to go again were ourselves, although it truly couldn't be understated how hard it was to carve competitiveness out of people like Reid and I...even in the most intimate settings.  

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i was simultaneously very nervous and very excited to share my first full blown front to back smut scene, so pls be nice i'm just a lil baby <3

ps; tumblr blessed me with this gif of courtney eaton (my fc for jo) and the fact that the guy literally looks like reid i'm