Skin Hunger

[intheheart]

Title: Skin Hunger
Rating: PG.
Summary: Aaron and Clara try something new.
Warnings: Contains no sex of any kind.
Notes: For Sex is Not the Enemy ficathon, this NSFW and freaking adorable picture. Apparently they do this a lot.


"Can I ask you something?" Clara asked, on a sleepy afternoon just after they'd moved in together. She shifted in his arms, rolled over and propped her chin on his chest. "You're going to think it's weird."

Aaron snorted, without opening his eyes, and readjusted his hands on her back. "Recall, if you will, my sister. I have a very high threshold for weird."

"That wasn't a yes."

He opened his eyes and met hers. "You can ask me anything," he said, seriously. "Anytime."

She smiled at him, reached up and brushed her hand through his hair. "I know, I just... did your parents touch a lot, when you were little? I don't mean sexually, I just mean..."

"I know what you mean," he said, leaned forward and kissed her nose. "My dad and my stepmom did. They still do. My mom and my stepdad are a little... I think they do things differently. Why?"

Clara shook her head, frowning a little; her hair brushed against his arm. "I'm not sure, I just... the thing I remember most about my parents together was the way they touched each other. Just little things, like a hand on the shoulder or something, but all the time. And I was thinking—we do that."

Why would they not? He loved to touch Clara, her hair and skin and face. He loved to feel her touch him, her hand on the back of his neck or in the crook of his elbow. They walked hand-in-hand more often than not, kissed often, because it was... it was nice, to be linked like that.

Hell, he'd been half-asleep on the couch and Clara had come and draped herself over him, just because. That was just the sort of relationship they had.

She was looking at him expectantly, and he shrugged a little. "Yes? I mean, I like touching you."

She smiled, laughed a little. "I like touching you too. I actually..." She paused. "I was actually wondering if we could. Um. Do this naked, maybe?"

Aaron blinked. He didn't know what he'd been expecting, but that hadn't been it. "I don't... can I ask why?"

Clara tipped her head to one side and dropped her eyes away from his. Embarrassed, maybe. "I don't know why, I just... want to touch you. It's not like we haven't been naked around each other before."

Hard to avoid, when you were living together. Ah, well. "Sure," he said. "Now?"

She giggled, and met his eyes again. She looked nervous, but pleased, which meant he'd probably said the right thing. "Sure, why not?"

It was a good thing they didn't skimp on heat in their apartment, otherwise this could've gone badly. He hesitated over his boxers, but Clara was already undoing her bra, so he ditched them and lay back down on the couch, and a moment later she climbed over him and settled in with a happy sigh.

Her breasts were soft against his chest and very faintly rough, like the silk shirt he'd once borrowed from Omar; her stomach smooth and taut against his, her legs framing his. They felt... connected, in a way he couldn't really define. He ran a hand up her side, gliding over the bumps of her ribs, paused and fitted his fingers in the spaces between them.

She rubbed her nose in the fuzz of hair on his chest, and giggled. "That tickles."

"My chest hair or your ribs?" Regardless, he moved his hands to the small of her back and linked them there.

"Both," she said, and settled her forehead in the crook of his neck, the crown of her head pressed up against his jaw. "Skin hunger."

He blinked, shifted so he could look down at her. "What?"

"Skin hunger," she repeated. "I think that's what it's called. When you just want to be touched."

"Ah." Aaron left one hand at the small of her back and moved the other up her spine, counting vertebrae, stopping between her shoulder blades. "I can understand that."

"I know," she said, and kissed the hollow of his neck.

They were silent for a moment—Aaron just let himself enjoy the feeling of Clara pressed against him from neck to knee. Not for the last time he was grateful for Joy and the time they'd spent together. This might have been impossible, if not for her.

"What are you thinking?" Clara asked, and when he gave her a startled look, she giggled. "You have a thinking face. What were you thinking?"

He set aside the question of a thinking face for the moment and said, "I just thought—I'm glad the last naked woman I touched was Joy, and not Lorelai."

Clara, of course, knew all about both women, and shuddered. "Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't even think about that when I asked."

Aaron leaned forward enough to kiss her hairline. "I'm fine. I'd have said something if I wasn't."

"I know," she said, and leaned up to kiss him properly, a quick, warm brush of lips across his. "I really have to meet this Joy, though. It sounds like I owe her a lot."

He smiled, remembering. "Yeah, so do I. I don't know where she is at the moment, but she'll turn up sooner or later."

"Good," Clara said, and settled back down against his chest. Then she made a brief annoyed sound and said, "I'm going to turn over. That okay with you?"

"Fine," he said, a little confused but not particularly troubled. "Just as long as you sit still sooner rather than later."

Clara, in the middle of pushing herself off his chest, paused and raised an eyebrow. "Any particular reason?"

Aaron gave her an exasperated look. "I do still get erections, you know, and I think that would just be uncomfortable for both of us."

"Pff," she said, and pushed herself up the rest of the way, to sit astride his thighs for a moment. "I don't care. I mean, I don't mind if you do, just... well, it's you." She shrugged. "You wouldn't do anything. Even if you were sexual."

Touched, he smiled up at her, reached up and brushed a stray lock of hair off her collarbone. "I wouldn't. But I meant physically."

"Aha," she said. "Well, I'll be quick."

She turned around and stretched back across him, then curled an arm up and a hand into his hair, and settled against his chest with a pleased sigh. "Yes. I like this," she said, turning her head to the side and laying her cheek against his chest. "It's... comfortable. Nice."

He hummed agreement, and laid a hand over the line of her ribcage. The other trailed across the silk-smooth skin on the underside of her breast before coming to rest beneath it, above the gentle thrumming of her heartbeat. Her hip pressed against his thigh, her foot settled over his, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, like they were melting into each other, settling breath by breath into something deeper and more real.

"I love you," he said, or maybe he only thought it, traced it into the skin of her stomach, delicate and trembling like a butterfly's wing.

"Love you," Clara murmured, and he pressed a kiss into her hair.