The
box was roughly the size of a washing machine, and about the same
weight. After bringing up a dolly from the garage, Tony managed to move
the thing into the living room. He took off his coat and tossed it over
the back of the sofa, then leaned over to read the label on the package
while Pepper sighed, picked up the coat and hung it tidily in his
bedroom closet.
When she returned to the living room, Tony had
already begun peeling off the strapping tape and pulling the flaps up
on the box. “One thing I’ll give them credit for is
secure packaging.
We may need a flamethrower to get in here.”
“I’m sure it’s all a
matter of discretion,” Pepper murmured, worrying about
whether or not
Jarvis’s house vacuum could handle Styrofoam peanuts or not.
Tony
snorted. “Yes indeedy. Don’t want your Big Daddy
Jericho going off
during a postal inspection. I’m sure they keep records of
those
addresses.”
“That’s . . . perverted,” Pepper
protested.
Tony
paused and looked over at her, one eyebrow arching up.
“We’re opening a
huge box of sex toys and you’re realizing it’s
perverted only now? All
the more reason to get into this package to my way of thinking. You
need an education, Potts.”
“Oh and you’re the doctor of
depravity I guess, oh CEO of Stark Industries, Naked. Frankly, it
should be Stark Naked Industries. More impact,” Pepper
muttered,
crossing her arms over her chest and not offering to help in the least.
“Nah,
I grant you the Stark Naked is a nice play on words, but you just
can’t
beat SIN for an acronym. All right, let’s see
what’s in the magic toy
box, shall we?”
Pepper felt herself blush again as Tony leaned
over into the box and began sweeping pastel packing peanuts everywhere.
“Oh yeah, and here we have . . . a nice big bottle of Sex
Sauce. Okay,
gotta re-name this. Right now it sounds like something you’d
put on
Chinese food.”
“Sex Sauce?” Pepper echoed weakly, taking the
bright pink bottle from Tony as if it were a live hand grenade. She
stared at the label, which showed a woman’s bare stomach, and
a puddle
of pink goo on it. “It looks like liquid bubble
gum.”
“Gives a
new meaning to ‘blow me,’” Tony pointed
out cheerfully. “Think Stark
Industries—what would my engineers call something that looked
like
that?”
“Toxic?” Pepper offered, setting the bottle down.
He made a face at her.
“Oh come on, Ms Frowny-Pants, try to get into this, please? I
was thinking Rocket Fuel.”
“Or Ride Glide,” she retorted, earning a thumbs up
from her boss.
“Atta
girl! Okay, what else is in here . . . ha! The infamous five fingers of
fun—” came his gleeful exclamation as he pulled out
the latex glove
with the vibrating pads on the tips. Experimentally he slipped it on,
tugging it into place and flexing his hand. “A bit snug, but
I’m sure
that enhances the sensation. Come here.”
“No.”
“What, you don’t want to be the first woman of
Stark Industries, Naked to experience the Tickle Me Tony first hand, as
it were?”
Pepper
eyed the arm extended towards her with a wry expression belied by the
glint of humor in her eyes. “Mr. Stark, I think
I’ll pass on that
privilege. I’m ticklish enough as it is.”
“And that confession
was a fatal mistake, because now I’m more determined than
ever to draw
you into my clutches,” Tony turned his gloved hand and
beckoned to her
with his index finger. “Damn, this thing makes me look like
the most
obscene villain in history.”
“Which may or may not be the case,”
Pepper told him as she glanced at the box. “You’re
having waaaay too
much fun with this stuff.”
“And we can have even MORE fun once
you come over here. I’m not going to hurt you, promise.
I’m just
curious as to how this thing feels,” Tony used his most
coaxing tone,
batting his eyes as well. The combination was nearly impossible to
resist, and Pepper gave a sigh, stepping over warily.
“I’m going to regret this . . .” came her
little whimper.
“You
can trust me—“ Tony told her. “Just
because I have a glove with
oscillating buttons with three different speeds and the inside
knowledge of your personal susceptibility is no cause for alarm,
really.”
“Un-huh,” Pepper muttered, squeezing her eyes
tightly
and stiffening up her entire body. Amused, Tony reached out his index
finger and gently poked her shoulder.
She snorted. “Am I IT now?”
“Shhhh—“
Tony replied, and cupped her shoulder with his hand, letting the little
vibrating tips caress her through her jacket and blouse. Pepper looked
down, her mouth twitching.
“Anything?” he asked, hopefully.
She shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Padding. Take the jacket off and I bet that will
help.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll whine and nag until you sigh and give
in.”
“The
usual,” Pepper noted glumly. She peeled her suit jacket off
and draped
it over her arm, holding the other one out as if ready to receive a
vaccination.
Tony snorted. “Yeah, that’s SO romantic,
Potts—I can tell you’re really in the
mood.”
“I didn’t say I was going to be a willing guinea
pig.”
“Perks
of being the boss,” he gloated and cupped her shoulder again.
This time
she quivered, nostrils flaring for a second. Encouraged, Tony let his
gloved hand slide across her shoulder blade and along her spine.
Pepper
yodeled. At least, it sounded a bit like a yodel, running from a low
burble all the way up to a Minnie Mouse squeak. Fascinated, Tony moved
closer and let his buzzing fingertips move down her flank.
The
yodel shifted into a series of bubbly gasps, and when his hand circled
a firm buttock, Pepper huffily tottered out of reach, gasping for
breath.
“Experiment OVER,” she announced, looking flushed
and indignant, little tendrils of hair escaping from her bun.
Tony
grinned, pleased. He looked at the glove, flexing his fingers and
purring. “Oh yeah, this shows a lot of promise.
We’ll keep this one.”
“Fine. Just keep it—“ she gestured,
“Over there. And to yourself.”
“Oh now who’s making perverted
statements?”
She rolled her eyes at him, and Tony peeled off the glove, setting it
aside.
Digging
deeper into the box, he pulled out a little silk bag and examined it.
Pepper had found the invoice and was looking it over, making a moue at
some of the names.
“What’s this---ooohhh, nice. The bondage
thingies.”
“Consensual
Confinement Restraints,” Pepper corrected him as she read the
name off
the list. “Four lengths of Velcro-ended silk ties with a gag
and or
blindfold included.”
“Just what everyone needs for a weekend
getaway. Or maybe not a getaway exactly, since that would defeat the
point, ever been tied up, Pepper?” This last came out in a
rush; Tony
was pretending to examine the kit closely, keeping her in the corner of
his eye.
She hesitated a fraction of a moment too long. “You mean for
erotic purposes?”
“Ah, yeah. There are other kinds?” Tony asked,
startled for a moment.
She
smirked. “Well I and my friends once tied ourselves to a tree
in front
of city hall to protest the closing of a park in my home
town.”
Tony blinked, trying to picture it. “Okay, I guess that
counts, but that’s not what I meant.”
“I know,” she replied. “But anything else
falls under the ‘none of your damned business’
clause.”
“That translates to ‘no’ in the Pepper
Potts lexicon then,” Tony told her smugly. “You
could have just said so.”
“Yes, well not everyone is driven to kink,
like—“ she hesitated.
Tony
looked over at her, his expression fleetingly serious.
“—me. Sue me. I
like certain things, and I don’t think I’m the only
man on the planet
who likes women to wear high heels to bed. That’s not kinky,
that’s
just a . . . red-blooded, healthy masculine fetish.”
“Riiiight,”
Pepper scoffed, but her cheeks were pink and her eyes bright.
“I’m just
not interested in being tied up,” she murmured in a voice
almost too
low to be heard. “It just seems . . . dangerous and sort of
silly.”
“Pepper,
Pepper, Pepper. ALL sex is dangerous and sort of silly when you get
right down to it,” Tony replied, undoing the package and
pulling out
the ties. He looked as if he were doing a magic trick and Pepper smiled
against her will.
Her small smirk encouraged him, and Tony laid
the brightly colored silk strips along his arm, smoothing them down
with one hand. “Besides, there are two sides to the whole
thing anyway;
the tie-er and the tie-ee. It’s a little easier to be the
tie-er . . .
or so I’ve heard.”
“Oh really?” came her little reply. “And
you
heard this where exactly?” Pepper shot Tony a skeptical look
as she
crossed her arms over her chest.
Tony tried for a lofty glance
that didn’t quite work. He gave a careless little shrug
instead, and
fished out the blindfold, fingering it gently.
“Oh long and
meaningful discussions here and there, but I think you’re
really
missing my point Potts, which is that something like this is not only a
consensual deal, but also one with more than one role. Yin and Yang so
to speak. Something that Stark Industries, Naked should fully endorse
in the name of inclusive marketing.”
“Oh I get it, Mr. Stark,”
Pepper replied in a slightly shaky voice. “You and Major
Rhodes
probably got drunk at some party or bar and had a raunchy discussion or
two where somewhere down the line you mentioned bondage. I
don’t think
that qualifies as an informed discussion on the matter.”
Tony
watched her quietly for a long moment, his cheeks slightly red, his
dark eyes wide as he waited for her to finish. Quietly he came closer,
holding her gaze as he did so.
“Actually, that wasn’t a topic
I’ve shared with him, not that we haven’t discussed
a few predilections
or two. Most men,” Tony sighed, “Tend to be
slightly kinky anyway.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” came the dry retort
and a glance at the box.
That
brought an answering rakish grin; Tony ran a hand through his hair.
“If
you didn’t want to be the tie-ee you could always be the
tie-er. I’m oh
so willing to be your first, Ms. Potts.”
It was a typically
outrageous Tony Stark offer, and Pepper started to laugh, but the sight
of his shyly sincere expression cut her off short and she blinked.
They stared at each other for a long moment, the mood shifting from
silly to serious in the quiet.
“I
can’t do that, Tony!” Pepper finally blurted.
“It’s crazy! It would be
wrong, and dangerous and after all that you’ve already been
through . .
.”
“Different situation,” he bluffed a bit.
“Besides, this would
be with the full understanding that you’d let me go if I
wanted it.
Considering the excellent care you always take of me, I have complete
confidence in you, Pepper.”
She made a very slight spluttering
noise. “That’s totally different! Picking up your
dry-cleaning and
making sure you have cheeseburgers is not in the same league as . . .
this.”
“True, but if I trust you to dress and feed me, then this is
sort of the next logical step.”
Pepper
bit her lips as Tony took one of the ties and fashioned it into an
elaborate bow, then placed it at his temple and batted his eyes
coquettishly. She stepped over and took it from him, smoothing it out
again, her fingers stroking the silk very slowly.
“But the
absolute BEST thing about it? You’d have me at your
mercy,” Tony
reminded her in a little whisper. “Think of
it—totally in your power
for once.”
“Okay, that’s tempting,” Pepper admitted
softly.
Tony pointed a finger at her. “No feeding me lima
beans.”
“Oh
darn, and that was third on my list,” she told him, deftly
shaping one
end of the closest tie into a hangman’s noose. Tony eyed it
warily.
“Third?”
“Yep. You’d be so tired and compliant by then that
Lima beans would actually taste good.”
“Now I’m . . . a little worried.”
And Pepper smiled once more.
The
subject didn’t come up again until the weekend; Pepper had
managed the
schedule so efficiently that both she and her boss found themselves
with nothing officially on the agenda after four in the afternoon on
Saturday. During the jet flight back from the Cal Tech expo, Tony noted
the situation with something akin to glee; he shifted closer to Pepper
on the plush upholstery of the Lear and gave her his most winning smile.
“It looks as if we’re between engagements, Ms.
Potts. Are you free to spend some . . . quality . . . time with
me?”
Pepper
murmured an absent agreement, her attention focused on a particularly
difficult email. When she finally straightened out the Chinese
translation and looked up, Tony Stark had already stretched out and
laid his head in her lap, his expression slightly blissful.
“I’d
say ‘be gentle’ but that’s sort of
cliché, and in truth, I might like
it rough, although I have trouble picturing you
vicious—it’s like
trying to imagine Cinderella with a whip.”
“I’m not
Cinderella—unless you’re talking about the
beginning of the story where
she’s doing everything for the cruel stepmother. That
Cinderella I can
totally relate to,” Pepper murmured dryly.
Tony snorted. “So
you’re implying that I’m some sort of wicked
step-mother, is that it?
Well I occasionally deserve the wicked part, and I’ve been
called a
mother quite a few times in my life, but as for the rest of
it—“
“As for the rest of it you’re off the
hook,” came Pepper’s reassurance. “I hope
you’ll return the favor?”
“Live
a little,” Tony murmured, his eyes still closed.
“Besides, admit it;
you’re intrigued. You’d love the opportunity to
have me helpless and in
your power. I know you would.”
“It would go a long way in making
up for years of abuse on your part,” she agreed, stroking his
hair.
“Especially the whole harem girl costume last
Halloween.”
“Damn, you would have looked so hot,” Tony sighed.
“My ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ fantasy come to
life.”
“Dream ON,” Pepper growled softly.
“I’m not going to call you
‘master.’ Not now, not ever.”
“Ah, but I can call you ‘mistress,” Tony
purred back. “In fact, I’m looking forward to
it.”
Pepper said nothing for a moment, then gave a deep sigh. “You
really want this, Tony?”
“Yes,”
he told her in a low, slow voice as he finally opened his eyes.
“I do.
I don’t have the first clue how it all works, but there
isn’t another
person on the planet I trust more than you, Pepper.”
“What if it
doesn’t . . . do anything for us?” she murmured.
“I mean, you’ve done
some interesting things in your life I’m sure, but my tastes
have
always been pretty ordinary, you know.”
“Oh I don’t know about
that,” he shot back, eyes twinkling. “As I recall
you were the one who
got creative with the Cool Whip, and *you* were the one who invented
backseat night down in the garage.”
Pepper blushed; a charming
sight at any time but particularly sweet in the faint afternoon light
streaming in from the jet windows. “Those weren’t
kinky—they were . . .
creative.”
“Vanilla spice.”
“It’s not the same,” Pepper commented
again, but softly. “This is the feather versus the whole
chicken analogy, Tony.”
He batted his eyes up at her. “Then let’s have
chicken tonight."
