Chemical Poison

Anneliese wakes to his fingers falling through her hair and slowly down her spine. Her cold skin is pressed into Howard’s warm side, and she feels a creep of a blush crossing her cheeks as she stares up at Howard. He hadn’t realised she was awake as he quietly flicked to the next page of the folder, his eyes intense on the words in front of him as he pushed his glasses from falling off his nose. It was a strange sight: Howard’s seated in their bed, his cheat bare, and reading a folder with his glasses on as he slowly traces circles into her spine. Yet it was a sight she could get used to.

With every line he traced into her skin, she is reminded of last night: of clothes lost to the floor, the sudden nerves as Howard lowered her onto the bed – everything exposed, and the feeling – the fullness of it all. Anneliese felt herself grow warm, embarrassingly warm as she continued to stare up at a man who made her come undone far too many times than she thought was possible. It seemed the rumours were true: Howard would stay up all night making love if he could.

Insecurity was eating her up in the beginning, and by the end, she was lost for words as she remembered the flush face, the mess she made in his hair with her hands, and the curve of his lips as he asked her do she want another round.

“Morning, love,” Howard whispers, his voice throaty and lower than normal and she finds herself growing warmer, much warmer.

His eyes meet hers as he rests the folder on the bedside table and Anneliese decides she can get used to this. Howard’s morning voice, his glasses, and the undying eye contact that seems impossible to break. It’s addicting. The bottom of her stomach drops, and she finds herself in need of him.

“Slept well?”, he whispers in her ear and the warmth of his breath forces shivers down her spine as his fingers continue his slow descent down her back.

Anneliese instinctively arches towards him and away from his fingers. The movement isn’t ignored by Howard as his fingers change direction and move up the edge of her waist and towards her breast. She’s heaving and in sunlight slowly glowing in the dark room, she catches her breast moving in and out as she breathes deeply. Her breath catches as his fingers crawl across her breast and over her nipple.

Raising her eyes from his fingers teasing her nipple to Howard, she’s startled by the look in his eye. At first, she panics. The usual gold is gone as his pupils had been dilated and his breathing is as deep as her own…

Oh.

Oh.

“Not particularly,” Anneliese barely says, her breath catching as Howard shifts in the bed and his other hand trails up her inner thighs. “Someone kept me up all night.”

A chuckle leaves Howard’s lips as he continues his tour of her body: nipples caught between his thumb and wedding finger, the other exploring the pale skin between her legs. It was euphoric.

“I suppose someone should apologise,” he says as his fingers reach her unclothed core.

Lightheaded with anticipation, Anneliese replies breathlessly, “That would be a gentlemanly thing to do.”

It all happened very quickly. Her back was pressed into the bed, the doona long forgotten at the end of the bed as Howard stared at all of her. He’s on top of her, trapping her between his stretched-out arms as he studies the curves of her hips, the pale blush of her cheeks and eventually towards her thighs, where Anneliese had been unconsciously rubbing together.

Heats flood her face as her own eyes land on his groan, or dick as Howard had referred to it when he was whispering filthy promises in her ear last night. It was thicker than she had thought it would be, longer as well. In honesty, Anneliese didn’t have much to compare to the outside of the standard anatomy textbooks her father kept in his study. She wasn’t Howard, whose body count is a number she rather not think of.

She was Anneliese and as much as Alexander and Howard loved to tease her for being conservative, they weren’t particularly wrong.

No one taught her the scandalous relations during marriage, or in Howard’s case – a Saturday night evening in an underground club. He had been her first, something that Howard reminded her of as he carried her through each climax. But Anneliese was certain that she would be his last. And there was something poetic with the beginning being the end; to close the chapter with an introduction.

“I’ve never claimed to be a gentleman,” Howard whispers as one of his fingers enters her and Anneliese’s world narrows down very quickly to just her core and his intense gaze on her. He moves slowly in and out, meticulously sliding his thumb against her clit as a gasp is forced out of her lips.

“Howard,” she whines as he inserts another finger. Their joint heavy breathing did nothing to cover the noise of her core as his fingers slid against an undeniable and growing wetness.

For a brief moment, his fingers are gone. Anneliese lets out another whine that Howard catches with his lips as he inserts himself in her, slowly – just like before. She gasps as she feels him inside her, the fullness and stretch –

“– Oi Stark, are you coming into the office today.”

Annelise freezes.

Howard’s lips curve as he reaches for the doona to cover them. He’s still inside of her, slowly moving in and out, and Anneliese felts out another whine as his fingers continue their torture against her clit.

“How many fucking rooms do you guys need?”, she hears Alexander yell as he opens another door.

He’s close, that’s for sure, but Howard doesn’t stop. Instead, he thrusts harder as his kisses trail down to the nap of her neck, a cry falls from her lips and Howard quickly covers her mouth with his hand. Her whines are muffled as she feels warm everywhere, her core clenching against him as Howard lefts out a soft ‘fuck’, as he continues to thrust as Alexander opens the door to the office, a room away.

Anneliese senses that Howard has finally processed her fears of being caught and pulls out and rolls to her side. She quickly grabs the doona to cover her naked body.

“Grey wouldn’t have cared.”

“I care.”’

“What wouldn’t I have cared about?”

Her eyes widen as she sees Alexander standing in the corner with a grin she wanted to smack off. She clutches the doona closer to her chest, not wanting to expose any skin to suggest she is naked.

“If you walked in on us fucking-”

“Howard!” she cries out as she smacks his side.

A chuckle leaves Howard’s lips as his fingers, hidden by the doona, begin tracing the lips of her core again. Her face heats up again, unable to make eye contact with Alexander.

“The clothes on the floor probably gave it again, love.”

“The button-up shirt in the hallway screamed ‘my best friends finally decided to just fuck it out,” Anneliese threw the pillow behind her head at Alexander, “Hey! Blame yourself for leaving it in the hallway!”

Humiliation ate her up as she moved further into the doona but at the consequence of Howard’s fingers entering her. She freezes.

“So are you?”, Alexander askes again.

“What? Fucking?”, Howard muses as his fingers slowly rubbed around her clit, “Yeah.”

She watched as Alexander groaned, “I meant coming into the office and not into Ana.”

“Alexander!”

“Can’t I do both?”

“Howard!”

“Depends how loud you are the walls are heavy thin –”

“Out!”, Anneliese yells and pushes Howard from her. When she’s successful and he falls out of the bed, nude, she begins throwing the remaining pillows at Alexander.

“Both of you out!”

“This is my room too,” Howard states as he stands up, unbothered by his naked form in front of Alexander.

One glare ended the conversation, and she watched the two heads of Stark Industries scutter out of the room in fear.

She could get used to this; she thinks.