Cruel Summer

Chapter 15

A/N: Yet again, Buck has the brain cell. Normal warnings apply, but this one does have slightly more steamy stuff haha! Let me know what you all think haha!

Chapter Text

September 1943

If Bucky Egan thought that things had been, in any way, messy beforehand—things were much more messy now.  Since they had started hooking up at the end of August, he felt as though he were a wilting man in the summer garden.  It wasn't anything personal—except for the fact that he wanted to scream from the rooftops that he was irrevocably and totally in love with Meg Lewis.

They spent most nights together, mostly in her personal quarters—talking was no longer a second-nature for them.  And truthfully?  Before Meg Lewis had come literally crashing back into his life, this wouldn't have been a problem for him.  Sex was sex, after all.  But Meg—she was the sun, the moon, the stars, the damn air that he breathed.  He didn't want things to be casual—he wanted a picket-white fence, a house in Wisconsin, and to wake up to her every single morning with a mortgage. 

Still, he wouldn't deny that their time together wasn't precious to him, even if he couldn't say the things that he wanted.  Even if speaking and telling her his truth would completely demolish whatever thing that they had going on. 

Like at the moment, Meg was quivering and panting under him, each kiss that he was pressing to her neck undoing her.  And even if he couldn't tell her that those little sounds made his entire world go round, he would lock them in his memory and treasure them.  She yanked him down by his neck, pressing their lips together in hot, breathless murmurs. 

His dog-tags rested atop her chest and for a moment, Meg just let her fingers run over the smooth metal of the tags—of the reminder that they were at war.  That he could be taken from her as easily as a late winter storm could kill the budding spring.  She didn't want him to go—wanted him to stay with her forever, but she could no more have that than she could have her old life back.

He gently brushed a strand of hair from her face, still propping himself over her.  Legs tangled up together and a thin sheen of sweat just sitting on their skin, Bucky was almost ecstatic at the feelings running through him.  Affection, desire, love, endearment—all of it just passed through his gaze and the way that he looked at her.

But Meg had a certain passive quality to the way that she was looking at him.  Her features hardened as his in-depth gaze continued to be locked onto her.  "You're doing it again," Meg mumbled, rolling out from under him and grabbing for her dress. 

"Doing what?" Bucky questioned, immediately missing the presence of her in his arms.  He immediately missed the way that their bodies slotted together like missing puzzle pieces, the way that she felt and the walls that seemed to tighten around him while he was in her—the way that she completed him in every single way and she had no idea. 

"Giving me that look."

"What look?" He asked, somewhat facetiously.  He knew that it bothered her, the way that he held eye contact, the way that he treated her—the way that he touched her as though she were important. 

What bothered him was the way that she did not have any regard for herself.  For the worth that she had— Meg was priceless and impossible to place value on .  He just wished that she knew that, that she saw herself the way that he saw her. 

Meg let out an annoyed huff of air, turning to face him—he still had a lazy smirk on his face, sitting there bare on her bed.  She didn't want him to leave, wanted to keep him there forever.  But Dr. Mirren was right—and it was better that her emotions and heart stay buried in that lockbox, so far down that no one could reach.  She could take the sting out of her own heart and he could get what he wanted out of it.