Slowly Getting There
Title: Slowly Getting There
Author: Diane
Pairing: Nathan/Haley
Rating: Adult Rated
Disclaimer: I don’t own a thing!
Spoilers/Warnings: This is set during Season 5 and contains spoilers for a major storyline so please don’t read if you don’t want to be spoiled. It also contains scenes and language of a sexual nature.
Summary: She blinked a couple of times to make sure what she was seeing was real and not just a figment of her overactive imagination.
Author’s Notes: This has been written as a (very) belated birthday gift for Susan as per her request. I’m sorry it’s so late but it’s sort of ironic that I finished this just before the new season starts tonight. Anyway, I hope this fits the parameters of what you were looking for and that you enjoy it! *hugs*
Unlocking her front door, Haley held her breath as she crossed over the threshold, something she unconsciously did every day when she arrived home from work. These days, it felt like she was always tense, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop and she hated it. She missed feeling lighthearted and free and, more than anything, she missed spending time with her husband and son; just enjoying that feeling of being together whether it was playing in the park or hanging out at home and watching Jamie’s favourite movie for the millionth time.
The house was quiet as she entered which wasn’t all that unusual given the situation of the past several months. Nathan could often be found by the pool, staring out at the water whilst drinking yet another beer. Although, thankfully, that hadn’t happened in quite a while now. While the rehabilitation process was a long and painful one, he was making a real effort and he was improving every single day and she was slowly beginning to see glimpses of the man she’d married. That fight they’d had where she’d told him she couldn’t carry on living this way seemed to have been a real turning point for him.
“Nathan?” she called out, dropping her bag by the stairs and heading into the living room which she found to be empty. There was no response. His rehab session had been scheduled for that morning and he hadn’t mentioned any plans he had for the rest of his day so she’d assumed he would be at home when she arrived back from school.
Making her way into the kitchen, she opened the fridge and went to grab a bottle of water before changing her mind and instead picking up a bottle of Snapple instead. From the large kitchen window, she could see there was no sign of him in the backyard either and so, realising that Nathan must indeed be out, she decided to go upstairs and get started on grading some papers. With Jamie hanging out with Luke and Skills for a couple of hours at least, she figured she might as well get as much of her work done now, especially since she liked to spend as much time as she could with her little man before his bedtime.
Picking up her bag, Haley climbed the stairs and headed towards her bedroom and as soon as she was inside, she kicked off her heels, flexing her toes into the thick cream coloured carpet. Uncapping her drink, she took a long sip before placing it on her vanity unit and started to get changed out of her smart clothes and into a pair of comfy khaki shorts and a cherry red tank top. She climbed up onto the large Queen-sized bed and after getting herself comfortable, she immersed herself in her work.
* * * * *
Haley lost all track of time as she threw herself into grading her English class’s papers and it wasn’t until she felt that familiar tingle rush through her that she glanced up, her mouth immediately dropping open. “N-Nathan…” She blinked a couple of times to make sure what she was seeing was real and not just a figment of her overactive imagination.
Nathan gave her that cocky smirk of his as he leaned against the doorway to their bedroom. “I figured it was about time,” he told her, running a hand through his newly cut hair and over his freshly shaven face.
Her eyes filled with tears as she looked him up and down. This was such a vast improvement on how he’d been looking right up until she’d left the house that morning. Gone was the long, shaggy hair he’d been sporting for months now along with the unkempt beard. He looked so… He looked like her Nathan again. “What made you do it?” she couldn’t help asking, her knuckles brushing away the stray tears that were rolling down her cheeks.
Taking a seat on the bed, he took her left hand in his, his thumb stroking over her wedding ring. “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “I came home from my physio session and I just… I felt different…better than I have in weeks. The house was quiet with you and Jamie not being here and I was just wandering from room to room, looking at our family photos and I realised I wanted to be that guy again. I wanted to be your husband again… be Jamie’s father again.”
Interlacing their fingers, Haley smiled at him. “You’ve always been my husband, Nathan, and Jamie’s father… The accident never changed that.”
“I-I know but, for a while there, it sort of felt like I wasn’t. It sounds stupid but that’s how it felt. Like maybe the two of you didn’t need me.”
She shook her head. “We’ll always need you. Always,” she reiterated. “I know how hard everything’s been on you but it’s been hard on us, too.” Moving her things aside, Haley scrambled to her knees, her hands resting on Nathan’s shoulders before her fingers moved to thread through his short hair and then lower still to touch his clean shaven face.
“You like the new look, don’t you?” Nathan teased.
“I love the new look! You don’t know how many times I was tempted to cut it all off while you were asleep,” she half-joked.
“I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you through, Hales… You and Jamie. I know I didn’t show it but I’d have been lost without you both here.”
Haley nodded, swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat. “We were lost without you,” she told him.
“I know I—we’ve still got a long way to go, but I’m getting better every day. They’re really pleased with the progress I’ve been making these past few weeks at the center and, I promise, I’m going to keep working hard.”
Wrapping her arms around him, Haley buried her face in the nook between his neck and shoulder, breathing in the clean, fresh scent of him. “I know you will. We’ll be right behind you, helping you.”
“You always help me,” he whispered into her ear, the same words he’d said to her once before. His fingers combed through her own new shorter hairstyle which looked so damn good on her and suited her perfectly. Drawing her away from him so he could look into those big, beautiful eyes of hers, he said, “I love you… I love you so much.”
“I love you, too, Nathan.”
Shifting her so she was now straddling his lap, he fell backwards onto their bed, pulling her forward so that she was lying flush on top of him, her thighs either side of his hips. He pushed himself up onto his elbows so that his face was mere millimeters away from Haley’s and keeping his eyes trained on hers, he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth.
“Jamie’s going to be home soon,” she quickly said, feeling nervous all of a sudden.
“He’s spending the night at Luke’s,” he told her.
“What?”
“I spoke to Luke before I came home and asked him if he could have him overnight and he agreed. And before you worry, I even spoke to Jamie and asked if he’d be okay spending the night there and he said yes. I promised we’d take him to the park tomorrow and then have pizza for dinner. That seemed to sweeten the deal.” His face grew serious for a moment as he added, “I’m going to make it up to both of you, okay?”
“You don’t have to do that, Nathan. We just want you let us in again, that’s all.”
“I will, I promise. So, do you want me to go pick him up and—”
Haley cut him off by sealing her lips over his, kissing him hard. One of the things she’d missed since he’d shut her out was not being able to kiss him or even to just hold him in her arms. While he’d been in the wheelchair, they’d turned one of the rooms downstairs into a bedroom for him and when she’d been sure he was fast asleep, she had crept downstairs and slept in a chair beside his bed, needing to be close to him. Somehow she’d always managed to wake up before he did and not have him be aware of what she had done.
“Hales?”
“Sorry, I…uh…zoned out for a second.”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Nothing,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
“C’mon, you can tell me.”
“I was thinking about how much I’ve missed kissing you,” she told him, nuzzling her nose against his and burrowing deeper into his embrace.
“I’ve missed kissing you, too, baby.” One arm wrapped around her waist while the fingers of his free hand brushed away a few strands of hair. “And you’re looking so damn hot with your short hair and those tight skirts you’ve been wearing to school.”
“They are not tight!” she vehemently denied.
“Oh, in my head they are,” he quipped. “You know, that’s how I realised I was feeling so much better.”
“Huh?”
Nathan’s lips curved upwards in yet another smirk. “I was starting to get all hot and bothered watching you leave the house in your teaching clothes. All sorts of scenarios started popping into my head, the main one being me surprising you at school and, well, doing you on your desk.”
“Nathan!”
He laughed. “What? It’d be sort of like old times… Remember that time we did it in the Tutoring Center when you were pregnant with Jamie?”
Haley’s cheeks were burning with a mixture of embarrassment and arousal. She could feel Nathan’s hardness pressing into her and she slowly rubbed herself against it, loving the way his eyes fluttered shut. “You need to stop talking,” she told him, crushing her mouth onto his and kissing the hell out of him. Her tongue slipped between his parted lips and she curled it around his own, loving the sounds that were coming from him.
She shivered when she felt his hands slide beneath her tank top, roaming the expanse of her back, making fast work of unfastening her bra when his fingers came into contact with its clasp. Pulling herself out of the kiss, she sat up, giggling at the pout Nathan was currently wearing. That pout soon disappeared though when she pulled her top off and threw it across the room, repeating the action with her unfastened bra.
“H-Hales… Maybe we should, I don’t know, slow down. I don’t want to push you into this if you’re not rea—”
“I want you, Nathan! I want you so damn much and I’ve missed you and I just—I need this. I need to feel close to you again but if you don’t wan—”
“I do want to! I want to more than anything but I don’t want you to regret this, that’s all.”
“I’ll never regret us being together,” she told him. Her fingers toyed with the hem of his black T-shirt and she tugged it upwards.
Sitting up, Nathan helped her remove it and as soon as it was off, he pulled her back down on top of him, a sigh of relief escaping his lips at the first feel of their bare chests pressing together. “God, that feels so good.”
“I know,” she agreed, her fingers slipping between them to work on his button-fly jeans. She popped them open, one by one, her eyes focused on his baby blues the entire time. As soon as they were all undone, her hand snuck inside, her fist closing around his cock and pumping it up and down at a leisurely pace.
“You’ve gotta stop!” Nathan choked out. It had been so long since they’d been together like this that he knew he wasn’t going to last long.
Haley smiled knowingly. “It’s okay, baby. Let me take the edge off.”
“I-I should be taking care of you.”
“Oh, don’t worry, you will be. Later,” she said, giving him a salacious wink which had him chuckling under his breath. The laughter turned into a deep moan when she gently scraped her fingernail up the sensitive underside of his penis.
“Christ!”
“Good?”
“Uh huh,” he managed to reply. He could feel the tell-tale tingling at the base of his spine and he knew he was seconds away from coming. That was the exact moment his darling wife decided to remove her hand from him and his eyes, which had fallen shut, suddenly flew open. “Haley?”
“Let’s get these off you first,” she said, tugging on his jeans as she bit her lip to stop herself from laughing.
“Are you trying to kill me or something?”
“Or something,” she muttered. Getting rid of his sneakers and socks, she stripped him of his jeans and boxers before quickly taking off her own shorts and underwear.
Haley lay on top of him so that their bodies were pressed tightly together, Nathan’s cock rubbing against her tummy as she rocked her hips into him, loving the feel of their naked skin touching with no barriers between them at all.
Nathan’s hands wandered everywhere he could reach, reveling in the feel of her baby soft skin sliding against his. He held his breath when her delicate fingers, once again, wrapped around his cock and he moaned into her mouth when he felt her leading him to her entrance. “Are you su—”
“Yes!” she interrupted, her lips brushing his before kissing him properly. Taking his hands in hers, she pinned them either side of his head, her eyes telling him she needed to be in control this time around and she couldn’t help but feel surprised when she saw his own need for her to be in control clearly evident in his own eyes. Her body trembled with anticipation and slowly sitting up so she was straddling him, she again slid one of her hands south and palmed his cock, bringing it even closer to where she needed to feel him the most. Raising up on her knees, she forced herself to keep her eyes on his face as she slowly sank down onto him, loving the feel of him stretching her as he filled her completely.
Nathan couldn’t tear his eyes away from her; her skin was glistening with a fine sheen of perspiration, her glossy, brunette hair—which reminded him so much of the early months of their relationship—was mussed, her lips were kiss-swollen and were beckoning him to kiss her again. Pushing himself up into a sitting position, his eyes almost crossed at the feel of her sinking even further onto him and, judging by the look on her face, she was feeling it, too.
Seizing her lips in a dirty, hungry kiss, he kneaded and massaged her breasts, tugging on her sensitive little nipples which had her gasping into his mouth. “You like that?”
“God, yes! Do it again!” Haley commanded and she moaned with blissful satisfaction when he immediately complied.
The end was approaching fast for Nathan and moving his hands to grip her hips, he held her steady as his own hips jack-hammered up into her. He slid one hand between them and feverishly rubbed her clit, knowing she was close but not quite as close as he was and he smiled against her lips when he felt her internal muscles clench and flutter around him as she suddenly began climaxing.
Flipping them over, he pounded into her and, seconds later, he felt his own orgasm hit and he emptied himself deep inside of her.
Their breathing was erratic and they lay tangled together for long moments as they let themselves calm down and return to some semblance of normality.
“Are you okay?” Nathan eventually asked.
“More than okay,” Haley told him, peppering his face with baby kisses, her arms tightening their hold on him before she admitted, “I feel like this is a dream and I-I’m going to wake up any second.”
“It’s not a dream,” he whispered, his fingers stroking her silky hair. “You want me to pinch you?”
“No!” she said, giggling. Shifting him over, she turned so that they were facing each other. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” He wore a beaming smile and cupping her cheek in his palm, he drew her towards him and kissed her soft and slow. Lightening the mood, he said, “Have I told you how sexy you look with short hair?”
Haley’s cheeks flushed. “I think you kind of mentioned it earlier,” she mumbled shyly before suddenly yawning.
“I’m sorry, am I boring you?” Nathan teased.
She shook her head. “I haven’t been sleeping all that well lately.”
“Yeah, me either. You feel like taking a nap now and, then, maybe later…” His words trailed off as he wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, causing her to laugh.
“A nap sounds great.”
Climbing out of bed, Nathan picked up Haley’s paperwork, which had fallen to the floor due to their escapades, and placed it on the vanity unit before he grabbed the bottle of Snapple from it and downed about half of the contents in one go.
“Save me some,” she told him, trying to look serious but failing.
“I was going to,” he said, handing her the bottle before he pulled back the covers on their bed and plumped up the pillows. As soon as he saw her set the bottle down, he scooped her up, which had her squealing with surprise, and dropped her onto the bed, quickly climbing in beside her.
Lying on his back, Nathan pulled her flush against his side, his arm wrapping around her shoulder, her head resting on his chest. She was drawing lazy patterns on his skin which ceased a few moments later and he realised she’d fallen asleep. Brushing his fingers through her hair, he pressed a kiss to the top of her head and, for the first time in what felt like forever, he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Fin