Notes

(Restricted) Eden
cardinalrachelieu

Chapter 2: so i surrender

Notes:

here, have some porn

nihil sanctum est, don't @ me
Chapter Text
October 2012

Scott’s Flat in Ilderton, ON

8:37pm





Scott’s hand lingers on the lightswitch just inside the door, arm stretching behind him as he steps back into the warm, yellow glow of the lamp-infested living room. He should really invest in proper lighting one of these days, the kind that matches the rest of the decor. Since turning twenty-five, he’s noticed more and more that he’s less of an adult and more of a boy wearing an adult-shaped mask. One of these days everyone will see through the charade, and then he’ll really be in trouble.

He soundlessly flips the switch and pads into the living room.

His eyes easily find Tessa. She’s in the same spot she was before he locked himself in the bathroom and temporarily lost his sanity. Dark hair gathered in a messy bun, she’s perched on the edge of the couch, back ramrod straight.

There’s an acoustic song playing softly through the stereo speakers, but her fingers outpace its relaxed beat, tap tap tapping against a mesh stripe of her black leggings. She does the same thing before competitions, lets her nerves build and build until she’s fit to burst. He should know, he’s always the one to cover her jittery hands with his own, to remind her to breathe, to help her vent some of the restless energy that steals her confidence.

But right now he’s across the room and she hasn’t noticed him yet, lost in her own little world as she stares at a wall decorated with medals and ribbons and trophies and plaques, each bearing their surnames—a lifetime of accomplishments condensed into a bookcase twice as wide as him. Maybe she’s just as nervous as he is. Maybe she’s decided this is a stupid idea. Maybe she’ll rescue them both from what he’s sure will be a monumental mistake.

Not much rattles him, but this has. Breaching this invisible boundary… it terrifies him to his core. He recalls all the times his coaches have told him to do what scares him most. I don’t think this is what they had in mind, he muses, feels that gnawing thing in his gut grow bolder.

But fear is fear is fear, and the only way to master it is to face it head-on.

Stop stalling.

Tessa stands bolt upright when he clears his throat. It’s somehow comforting that she’s nervous, too.

She clasps her hands in front of her and looks at him expectantly.

Right. He’s in charge. (He shushes the bark of laughter that rings deep in his mind.)

Scott doesn’t trust his voice so he gestures with an upturned palm toward the narrow hallway beside him, the one that leads to his bedroom.

Tessa dips her head and takes soft steps forward. She pauses in front of him and breathes deep, gives him the same look she always does just before they take the ice at a competition. Only… only he’s never seen her look quite so determined.

Fuck, he thinks. We’re really doing this.

His hand finds the small of her back before he can think better of it. Old habits and all that.

She flinches but then leans into the touch, grounds herself against his palm, slows her steps just enough so his chest presses against her back. He kisses her temple and rubs some warmth into her upper arm, tightens his fingers around her bicep as they walk through the threshold.

Scott’s bedroom is nothing fancy, cream walls and tan carpet and navy curtains Tessa picked out and made him hang up because everyone needs curtains, Scott. There’s a dresser in the corner and a Maple Leaf’s flag on the wall to the right, and he keeps meaning to decorate the room properly, but so much of his time is spent in Canton that he loses his motivation each time he tries.

One day.

Tess turns in his arms, leans past him, and with a sharp click the room is thrown into darkness.

Yeah, he thinks. Yeah, it’s better this way.

There’s shelter in the shadows, a protection that’s saved them in the past—in a dimly lit locker room when she was fifteen and he was sixteen, in a car after midnight when she was eighteen and he was twenty, in the middle of a dance floor when she was twenty-one and he was twenty-two. Darkness holds secrets the light betrays, and sometimes denial is the only way to live.

But all those almosts are nothing compared to this, in his empty apartment when she’s twenty-three and he’s twenty-five.

Golden rays from the hallway carve harsh shapes into the floor, the bedspread, the far wall. He guides her deeper into the shadows, back and back and back until the darkest corner welcomes them both into its embrace.

Scott pins her with his hips, settles a hand on her waist.

This is it, he realizes. This is the night things change.

A peaceful warmth roils inside him, a feeling of certainty, and he finally does what he’s wanted to do for years: he closes the last bit of space between them—

She jerks away.

Scott freezes.

Green eyes search his, frantic as they shift from side to side. “What are you doing?” It’s a strained murmur, an accusation.

Fear prickles at the base of his spine, a deep sort of terror that feels like gravity, that pulls on him and whispers doubt into each breath. “Um…”

“No kissing,” she says, and there’s a slight waver in her voice.

He blinks, nods once, doesn’t trust himself to say anything in reply.

Her chest rises and falls, and he understands the fear she refuses to speak aloud. Kissing is too intimate. They might be able to survive a casual fuck, but making love would utterly destroy them.

And it absolutely incenses him that she’s right.

Scott splays his fingers over her neck, pivots his thumb so he’s got her whole throat in his palm. She licks her lips and swallows.

Slowly, deliberately, eyes never leaving hers, he angles her jaw to the side. Fine, he wants to say, half-mad with desire as her pulse drums underneath his fingertips. No kissing.

And then his mouth finds her neck. It doesn’t count as kissing if it’s not on the lips, he rationalizes, and the sigh she rewards him with tells him she agrees. He releases her throat and unzips her grey lycra jacket, discovers it’s been hiding a cerulean blue sports bra.

Notes of lavender and lemongrass cling to her skin, clean and bright and soft. Scott smooths his palms over her ribs, around her back, tugging her close as he grazes his teeth over her neck, her shoulder.

She hisses in a breath. Something’s wrong.

“You’re tense,” he says, pulling back to look at her.

“I’m fine.”

Scott rocks his head back and looks down his nose at her, quirks an eyebrow for extra emphasis.

“Really,” she insists, but her teeth stay clenched the whole time.

He steps back and pulls his sweatshirt over his head, takes the cotton tee underneath with it, and lets both pieces of fabric fall to the ground in a heap. “Here.” Scott gestures to the bed. “Lay back.”

Her gaze goes dark as her eyes rake over him. “Why?” she says, voice distant, teeth sinking into her lower lip as she continues to stare.

God, he’s wanted her to look at him like that for so long, so long. “You need to relax.”

“I am relaxed.”

Scott almost snorts. “Did you forget who you were talking to?” Anyone else and she might’ve been able to fool them. Her smile is the right amount of soft and her head is tilted to the side in that sweet sort of way—but her shoulders. They’re doing that thing where they creep toward her ears.

She seems to pick up on her tell a moment later, forcing away the tension as she brings a hand to her neck. “I don’t need a backrub, Scott,” she mutters, lips a tight line.

He gives a quick frown and tilts his chin to the side. “Not gonna give you a backrub, T.”

Her annoyance morphs into something closer to curiosity. “Then what’re you gonna do?”

Scott rolls his fingers once more toward the bed.

She holds out for another five seconds before stalking over and slumping onto the mattress. Hands raised in surrender, she grumbles out a defeated, “Fine.”

He sinks down next to her, careful when he lays a hand on her thigh. She doesn’t flinch, at least.

“Alright, Scott,” she says skeptically, slinging a leg on the bed as she turns to face him. “You win.”

Her knee is bent so her shin is pressed flat against his outer thigh, and he’s vividly reminded of all the times they’ve been in this exact position before, on cheap motel room beds, on couches tucked away in basements, on the boards at skating rinks. This time is different, though.

“What did you have in mind?”

Scott doesn’t try to hide the grin that spreads over his face.





“I feel ridiculous.” Her hands are everywhere—except on him. He can’t help but wonder if that’s intentional.

“Jesus, T, is this a first, too?”

“No, I’ve—” Even in the dim light, Scott sees her cheeks flush bright pink. “Never mind. It’s just weird having… you… down there.”

Scott looks up from his place between her thighs and shrugs. “So picture David Beckham instead.”

A peal of laughter escapes her at that, and he thinks they both might actually make it through this. “Alright, Mr. Beckham,” she says with a less-than-stern expression, “do your worst.”

“Mister Beckham, eh?” Scott situates himself and guides her creamy white legs over his shoulders. “Didn’t realize you were into that sorta thing, T.”

She shakes her head. “Shut up, Scott.”

He smiles back at her and tugs her toward him, and suddenly neither of them are laughing anymore. "It's just us, Tess."

She nods, clenches her teeth.

“Let me know if you want me to stop.” His voice is low and earnest, and he needs her to know he means it.

She lets out a slow breath. “I trust you.”

Scott thinks it sounds dangerously close to I love you, and something in his chest tightens at that. They’ve said the words before—hundreds of times—but never like this, never without an ice rink and choreographed routines to hide behind, never with her nearly naked and him lying between her legs.

His throat closes up, and before he blurts out something he’ll regret, he dips his head and gets to work.

Tessa gasps as soon as his tongue swipes against her, and if he wasn’t hard already, that sound would’ve done it. She tastes like a strawberry that’s been picked too soon—tart enough to make his mouth water but sweet enough to keep him wanting more.

He muffles a groan and pushes his hips into the mattress and breathes deep, and boy is that a mistake because her scent curls around him, fills his lungs, claims him. There’s a moment when he almost loses himself to it, when he surges forward and grips her tight and laves at her like she’s the antidote to the poison coursing through his veins, like devouring her will put an end to the madness.

But he clings to the fraying threads of control and snaps a barrier into place, a dam separating his body and his soul. God knows the only way he’s surviving this is if he makes himself numb.

It’s easier after that, to exercise restraint, to treat this as a training exercise, to focus on her pleasure as a singular, abstract goal. That is what she asked of him, isn’t it?

Manicured nails scratch against his scalp, and he smiles in spite of himself, glad to have her hands on him again. It’s where they belong, after all.

Scott slides a palm up to her waist, curls his fingers around her so he can feel the way her muscles shift as his tongue tries different things. He hasn’t spent fourteen years learning her body to not use that blessed knowledge to his full advantage. Is it cheating? Probably, but he doesn’t care because he’s got her bucking in the span of thirty seconds. If he wasn’t so devastated by the impermanence of the moment, he’d be proud of himself.

Her hips roll, and he throws an arm over her waist to keep her pinned down, hums in admonishment at her escape attempt. She tightens her legs around his head and squirms, so with his free hand he pushes her knee up and into the mattress, mouth never leaving her cunt.

When she looks down at him, he fixes her with as severe a gaze as he can manage. Cooperate, it says, and he flicks his tongue against her, hard.

Her breath hitches and she flops back with a long, low groan, fists twisting wrinkles into the navy sheets.

He almost laughs at the absurdity of it all, face buried between Tessa’s thighs not five minutes after she told him he wasn’t allowed to kiss her. But then she sighs something in the shape of his name and any hope of this being casual, of it all being some joke, is whisked away along with the air from her lungs.

And because actually thinking about what he’s doing isn’t an option, he pours all of his focus into keeping her just at the edge of pleasure, dialing back the intensity each time he feels her tense up, stringing her along until a firm, flat press of his tongue is nearly enough to tip the balance. Then, when even his breath against her has her bowing off the bed and digging her heels into his back, he stops entirely.

With a whine, she tries to guide his mouth back to where it was moments ago, fingers tangling in his hair, actions ruled by a mindless, insatiable need. Stubbornly, he stays put, though he does flash a prideful smirk and gently squeeze her hip.

The glare she levels at him is downright wrathful.

Scott drops a kiss on the inside of her thigh, relishes in the way her whole body shudders. “Appetizer round, T,” he says with a wink, and then busies himself with kissing his way back up her body, teeth scraping against the jut of her hip, lips dragging over her collar bones.

He’s mildly irritated that she chose to keep the sports bra on, but it’s probably better for both of them if that blue scrap of fabric stays put. What he wouldn’t give to get his mouth around—

He clears his throat. Yep, it’s definitely better if she keeps the bra on.

Tessa drops her head back and rests her hands on his shoulders, a featherlight but insistent weight reminding him of his purpose. Her legs curl around him, pulling him to her, and he does his best not to feel too pleased with himself that she’s desperately trying to grind against the closest part of his body. “Scott,” she whispers, and there’s a twinge of annoyance in her tone.

Good. If he doesn’t get her to outright beg, he’ll consider himself a failure. “Patience,” he says, and ghosts a hand between them, reminds himself that he’s not supposed to kiss her when he dips a finger inside her and finds her slick with want. And then her eyes flutter shut and she grabs his shoulders and moans his name and he has to remind himself again that she said no kissing.

A crack splinters across the dam, but he holds the waters at bay.

He’s more careful as he touches her this time around, knows just how sensitive she is, can tell by the way she’s begging him to just fuck me already that he can’t tease her much longer. She’ll either come sooner than he’d like or she’ll murder him, and neither of those outcomes are ideal.

So he focuses on what makes her go taut underneath him and tries to tune out the rest, tries to forget all the little noises she’s making as he pumps one, then two, then three fingers inside her—noises that he’s sure will haunt his lonely nights for years to come.

“Scott, please,” she chokes out, sweat-slick and trembling, and, oh, that nearly breaks him.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he understands that this is ruining him; that he’ll never be able to forget the feel of her thighs pressed against his cheeks; that every time she runs her fingers through his hair he’ll think of the way she greedily pulled him closer; that when he holds onto her hips as they skate he’ll be rocketed back to this moment in time, her body underneath his, his name on her tongue.

She’s his Eden—a garden he never should’ve entered, a fruit he never should’ve tasted, a knowledge he never should’ve sought. In hindsight, he should’ve realized that temptation doesn’t always take the form of shiny, red apples, and ruin doesn’t always come at the hands of an angry, slighted god. Then again, maybe he did know that.

Come morning, he’ll regret this. Come morning, he’ll hate himself.

But right now? Right now he’s going to spend every ounce of energy making sure Tessa Virtue has the best sex of her life.

“As you wish,” he whispers back, withdrawing his fingers so he can retrieve a small foil packet from the nightstand on his right. Her hips chase after him, and he has to bite back a groan when she rocks against the front of his jeans.

God, she’s so warm. He can feel the heat even through the thick layer of denim, can feel her tugging—

A sort of paralysis steals over him as his belt jingles and Tessa’s fingers work his pants over his hips. Her knuckles brush against the front of his boxer briefs, and he can’t help the whispered, “Tess,” that escapes him.

“What’s wrong?” she asks in a rush of breath, hands going motionless.

It’s like the might of the whole ocean heaves against the rickety dam he’s built. That he ever believed it would hold was nothing save a foolhardy wish, a dream spun of hope and deceit. There’s willful ignorance, and then there’s this. He wants to roar with laughter at his own stupidity.

Her features draw together with concern. “You’ve done this before, right?”

No, he wants to say. No, I’ve been waiting for you, too.

“Scott?”

But that’s not the truth, now is it?

Tessa places a hand on his cheek, the softest touch that tears him apart so thoroughly he can barely breathe. “Scott?” she says again, voice shrinking in the way it always does when she’s unsure of something.

An aching sort of energy expands in his chest, pushes into his limbs “I…”

She brushes a thumb across his cheek, and it hurts.

He closes his eyes. “You’re not my…” Why is it so hard for him to say? It’s not like she expects otherwise.

Tessa—sweet, perfect Tessa—slides a hand around the back of his neck and brings their foreheads together. She inhales deep, and his body takes the cue without hesitation. She’s in his blood, his lungs, closer to his heart than his own bones even. “It’s okay,” she says.

He summons the courage to meet her gaze. “I’m sorry.”

Fingertips glide over his forehead, catch in his hair. “I’m not.”

It’s not regret, exactly, this feeling burrowing into him, but it’s the same type of sour.

“I don’t think I would be having quite this much fun if I was your first,” she says, and there’s a sly grin on her face.

His heart thuds with such force that he’s sure it’ll crack his ribs.

“Besides,” she continues, “it would feel a little weird if we were both each other’s firsts, don’t you think?”

No, he wants to say. No, it would feel right. But he nods his head and steels his nerves and drives away the feeling of completeness nipping at his psyche. “Last chance to back out, Virtch,” he mutters, half-joking, and shifts his weight to the side so he can shove his underwear down to his knees.

She grips the sides of his neck, eyes wide and sure when she says, “I trust you,” and once again Scott doesn’t think he has the strength to hold back the three simple words knocking against his teeth, words that would wreck this whole illusion.

So he bites down on a corner of the gold-tinged aluminum square and tears the package open with a twist of his head.

This was supposed to be clinical—impersonal as a tour guide leading someone through a new exhibit. But this isn’t a museum, and when it comes to Tessa, he's never been able to feel detached.

Scott’s fingers tremble as he rolls the latex over himself. The dam won’t hold much longer, he knows—has a good idea of what’s going to shatter it completely. A part of his soul shouts at him to Stop! Stop before it’s too late!

He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against hers. It’s already too late, he thinks.

Tessa’s knee brushes against his ribs with a gentle sort of impatience. “Thank you for this, Scott.”

If he was a better man, he’d stop this now, he’d confess that every girl before her had been a distraction, he’d expose himself as the lovelorn bastard he truly is. But he’s not a better man. He’s a coward and a wretch and he’s terrified that revealing this particular truth will open a chasm between them, one that no bridge can span, no therapy can repair.

So he swallows the I love you on the tip of his tongue and wrests a confident grin onto his face and says, “The pleasure’s all mine.” And when she smiles up at him, he sinks into her with one slow, torturous ease of his hips.

There’s a lyrical beauty to the way she moans, Scott discovers, and that sound alone is nearly his undoing. He breathes through the surge of hunger and fights the impulse to grab her waist and pound into her until they’re both bruised and gasping and spent. Instead, he settles himself in the cradle of her hips and waits—for her to move against him, for her to tell him she’s ready.

It’s an eternity. It’s an instant. It’s breaths and bodies, heartbeats and sweat. It’s them.

“I thought it was supposed to hurt,” she finally says.

Scott’s lips pull into a satisfied smile. “Only if I haven’t done my job.”

She hums something like understanding, and then starts to roll her hips against him, testing depth and angle and pressure, and he stays as still as he can but, God, she’s about to make him blackout.

“Tess,” he breathes, and she freezes.

“Sorry, does that not feel good?” Her concern is endearing. “I can—”

He laughs. “No. No, you feel ama—” Her walls tighten around him, and his stomach goes taught and he clenches his teeth until the intensity subsides. “Mind if I drive?” he mutters, eyes still screwed shut.

She stops wriggling and relaxes into the mattress, one set of fingers anchored to the nape of his neck, the other digging into his shoulder blade.

Scott positions a hand near her shoulder and the other by her waist, and then cautiously, gritting his teeth against the sensation, he pulls halfway out before sliding all the way back in.

Tessa sucks in a breath. “Oh,” she whispers.

It’s the best compliment he’s ever received.

He does it again. “Good?” he asks, beginning to set a rhythm.

“Yeah,” she breathes, eyes closed, nodding. “Really good.”

He plants a kiss just below her jaw, hovers his lips close to her ear. “Tell me what you want, Tess.” As he thrusts into her, slow and smooth and deep, he thinks he might’ve accidentally stumbled into heaven. Nothing else could be this perfect.

“Faster,” she says timidly, voice huskier than he’s ever heard it.

He picks up the pace, careful not to let the motion get sloppy.

A low rumble builds in the back of her throat, comes out as a groan of, “Harder,” a moment later.

And fuck. He didn’t let himself believe it at first, but the way she moves against him, the way his palms fit over her hips, the way she’s telling him how to get her off—it feels right. It feels right in a way no other experience ever has.

He smothers the revelation and drives into her with as much force as he dares. He knows she said harder, but this is her first time and he doesn’t want to—

“Scott,” she pleads, and he can hear the desperation in her voice.

So he drops to his forearm and uses his other hand to hitch her leg higher up his back and he cups her ass to tilt her hips just so, and when she gasps he knows the change in angle is having the desired effect, and then praise is falling from her lips like rain and, God, he wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss her more than he wants to live.

The flood waters sweep him out to sea, and he’s content to drown. “I’ve got you,” he says, hips snapping against hers.

Nails scratch over his spine as a shudder starts in her core. She claws at him, breath torn from her lungs.

“I’m here.”

And then it happens. Her muscles go loose and she stops breathing and a blissfully strong pressure wave travels down his cock and he’s violently struck with the beauty of her like this, rapturous and free. It's devastating.

He groans into her shoulder but doesn’t give in. Not yet, he thinks. Not yet.

She’s gasping like it’s her first breath and her limbs are vibrating with release and she’s keening like a songbird and she’s grabbing onto him with all her might—but it’s the soft sigh of his name across her lips that finally does him in, the feel of her breath hot against his chest as he wrings every last bit of pleasure from her body.

He buries his face in her neck as his hips stutter and stall, and she’s all around him, everywhere. Breath and blood and bone and mind, they’re one.

She holds him close, wraps her body around his.

He pants, shivers.

“Scott?” she says softly, in the space between ragged breaths.

I love you, I love you, I love you. He kisses the base of her throat, keeps his treasonous mouth shut.

Tess cards her fingers through his hair, thighs still shaking and locked around his hips. “I’m glad it was you.”

He gulps and shifts his weight onto a forearm, allows himself to look at her, commits it all to memory. Her eyes are a deeper shade of green than he’s ever seen them before. “Happy to be of service,” he says, and he can feel it beginning to happen—the rending of his heart from his chest.

Her fingers tighten at the nape of his neck. “I’m serious.” She leans up, and for a heartbreaking moment, he actually expects her to kiss him, but then her lips land on his cheek, and somehow it hurts worse than if she’d slapped him.

He smooths her hair from her face, tucks a dark strand behind her ear. “So am I.” And with that he slides out of her, drawing one final moan from her lips that sears something in his soul.

Silent as a mouse, she wraps herself in a stray blanket and scoots off the bed to retrieve her discarded clothes.

His belt jingles as he tugs his pants back over his hips. “Be right back,” he calls over his shoulder, and disappears into the adjoining bathroom.





Heat creeps up his neck, over his cheeks, pools under his eyes.

Just breathe.

This was a mistake. He thought he could handle it, thought he could do this one thing for her without completely losing himself in the process.

You knew what this was going into it.

It’s actually astounding how wrong he was.

Keep it together, Moir.

He pushes out a shaky breath, looks at himself in a foggy mirror, steam billowing into every corner of the room as the shower roars behind him.

“Keep it together,” he mouths at his blurry reflection.

As the story goes, the devil offered Eve a single apple, so rich and bright and beautiful that she couldn’t help but accept. But Scott knows the truth, the story not contained in any book. The devil didn’t trick Eve with fruit, but with a promise—that things could be different, could be more.

He scrubs a hand over his face and steps under the stream of near-scalding water, hangs his head until droplets coat his cheeks, until they camouflage the moisture that was already there before he’d even turned on the faucet.





She’s stolen one of his shirts—an old blue and white thing with a faded Maple Leaf’s logo—and tucked herself under his covers. “Would it be weird if I stayed?” Her voice is small, unsure.

His heart thuds in his chest, the hopeful, traitorous thing. “It would be weird if you didn’t,” he replies.

She smiles and burrows deeper in the sheets.

One night, he tells himself, lets the lie slither through him. He gets to love her like this for exactly one night.

Tessa rolls over as he trades the towel for sleep clothes, but he sees the way her gaze lingers on the low line of his hips just a second too long. He doesn’t bother with a shirt before sliding into the bed next to her.

She immediately curls into him, finds that spot on his shoulder that was made for her head, drapes an arm over his chest. He’s not sure what to do for a long, breathless moment, but then he gives up and holds her close.

A familiar pain stabs through his mind, his soul, but he welcomes it with open arms. He’d gladly be flayed alive if it meant he could fall asleep every night with her hand pressed over his heart.

He’ll settle for one night, though. Just one night.

As his mind stills and his breaths slow and his eyes drift shut and the shadows crowd in, he finally pinpoints the feeling that’s nestled somewhere in his chest. It's peace. It’s home. It’s her.

“Scott?” Her voice is thick and dreary with sleep, and she doesn’t turn her head to look at him.

He rubs a hand over her back, breathes in her scent. “Mm?”

“We’ll still be friends in the morning, right?”

He yawns and tightens his arm around her waist, presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Always.”