Chapter Text
Sophia wakes up in sunlight.
Lots of it.
Shifting to allow more of the morning warmth to touch her skin, Sophia becomes keenly aware of the soft breathing beneath her. Her own head, where it rests, subtly rises and falls with the motion.
Sophia props up on her hands, blinking down at Daniela’s sleepy form.
Daniela blinks back.
“Hello,” Sophia murmurs, tilting her head, brows furrowing in thought.
“Hey,” Daniela replies, voice husky with remnants of sleep. “That’s not your ‘regretting this’ face, is it?”
There’s an air of coolness in the way she asks, but Sophia hears the underlying worry.
“More of a… ‘acknowledging my decisions and being slightly concerned about my employment’ face.” Sophia purses her lips, watching Daniela’s expressions.
Daniela pauses a few times, as if about to say something. Then, she brings her hands slowly to Sophia’s jaw, pulling her downward against Daniela.
Sophia sighs against Daniela’s mouth, as Daniela’s tongue sensually traces her lower lip. What starts as a kiss slowly melts into a tangle of touch, Sophia’s hand carding through the gentle softness of Daniela’s hair.
“Still thinking about work?” Daniela breathes, and Sophia snorts.
“You’re making it challenging,” she concedes, whispering her reply as the skin of her lips continues to brush the surface of Daniela’s.
“Good. It’s better when you don’t think.”
“So you’ve said.”
Sophia loses track of how long they lay entangled there. Minutes bleed together, soundtracked by Daniela’s little contented hums.
Sophia makes a home against Daniela’s neck, pressing soft, lingering kisses there. The skin is creamy and smooth, tasting vaguely of last night’s rosé.
Daniela savors every single touch like it’s the best thing she’s ever felt.
It’s something Sophia is completely falling for. Becoming more obsessed each passing time. Getting to experience how much Daniela loves being touched. How much she loves Sophia specifically being the one touching her.
Sophia catalogues the moments with intention, as best as her memory allows. The image of splaying her hand across the surface of Daniela’s hip, sliding up to her stomach. Caressing the back of her head, kisses below her ear. Wherever Sophia touches, Daniela leans into it. Providing more access, pulling Sophia closer.
Sophia has never been one for much physical touch.
This is different.
Daniela is different.
The way she craves it, reacts to it- It’s hot, of course it’s hot, the desperate need of it all, but it’s more than that. It’s genuine, and sensual, and so perfectly soft, even with the roughest touch. (And trust, there’d been rough touch.)
Sophia leans back, removing her face from the warm little pocket of Daniela’s shoulder. Daniela makes a disgruntled sort of grumble as her eyes flutter back open, which Sophia naturally finds adorable.
Daniela’s initial little frown fades almost instantly as Sophia slowly brings a hand up to her cheek, fingertips brushing her jaw. Daniela melts into it, exactly as Sophia knew she would.
Sophia watches, enamoured, as Daniela holds her wrist in place, nuzzling against her palm. Daniela’s eyes are slowly closing again, and she turns her head slightly, burying into the feeling, tugging it closer.
‘She’s acting purely on instinct, on sensation,’ Sophia thinks, as her thumb brushes the corner of Daniela’s mouth. Daniela’s still sleepy, barely having woken up yet. She’d been sleeping off last night’s light drinking, and the adrenaline that followed.
‘She’d never let me get away with this otherwise.’
Sophia hums to herself in a pleased sort of way. She’s going to savor this too.
Eventually, the morning haze shatters with the sound of two separate alarms, eliciting two separate miserable groans.
Slinking out of Daniela’s bed like they’re melting, the two have the definitely far too domestic experience of getting ready for work together.
Daniela is midway through slipping on a light blue button-up, when Sophia mumbles an ‘oops,’ staring wide-eyed at the exposed skin of Daniela’s neck and collar.
“You, uh. You’ve got-” Sophia cuts herself off with a snorted laugh, holding a hand up to the back of Daniela’s neck and examining the skin, running her thumb over each of the bruises there.
“What did you do.” Daniela glares halfheartedly, trying to shift her gaze downward to her own skin.
Sophia grins.
Though there are several of them, the marks she’d left aren’t aggressive, not dark, or massive, or a deep purple. Softer, pretty little pinks and reds, a decorated pattern that claims Sophia had been there.
“It’s not… bad,” Sophia’s still smiling wide, glancing back up to meet Daniela’s eyes.
“That sounds like it’s bad.”
Sophia has another fit of giggles.
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“Okay, wait wait wait. Go back. You did WHAT.”
Sophia snorts, only laughing harder as Megan’s face seems to glitch between glaring and bafflement.
“She fucked her boss, duh.” Lara doesn’t even look up from where she’s scrolling on instagram, leaning against the solid walls of Yoonchae’s garage.
“Okay, no-”
“I dunno, it sounds like you did.” Yoonchae pokes her head up from where she’s reattaching Sophia’s car door. Megan is sitting nearby her, the two surrounded by various mechanical tools and paint kits.
“Nothing happened, alright?” Sophia still hasn’t stopped laughing. “Just… kissing.”
“Right. Tipsy, shirts-off kissing. At her place.” Lara has a disbelieving grin as she instigates. Sophia threatens to violence her in a number of ways.
“Girl, who the hell ARE you?” Megan continues to stare in bewilderment. “However many months ago, you wouldn’t even take a day off because you were so neurotic about work, and now you say you’re screwing your LITERAL boss?”
“I didn’t screw-”
“SEMANTICS,” Megan all but shouts, echoing throughout the garage space. “What did you do with Sophia? Where are you keeping her?”
“You’re so dramatic,” Yoonchae says, in a blasé sort of way that turns Megan’s halfhearted glare in her direction. “You’re the one who dragged her here, you know. Corrupting her innocent soul and all that.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Megan grumbles, kicking the handle of a wrench lying nearby on the concrete floor.
“Says who?” Yoonchae stares back, head tilted downward. Megan goes pink, returning to the broad open wall she’d been tagging while mumbling under her breath.
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In the midst of another particularly exhausting work week, it’s nearly eleven pm and Daniela is wide awake.
She’s half-slouched at her desk, nursing another lukewarm black coffee, looking at spreadsheets. The platonic ideal of a business woman. Never mind that she’d moved from her bed, for fear of falling asleep upright.
It had been annoying at the start, but it really is incredibly difficult to perform one’s job efficiently while the entire department talks shit about you. Daniela was getting a majority of paperwork and documents done at home, spending all her time on-the-clock micromanaging idiots.
Briefly, Daniela allows herself to fix her gaze on her phone, buzzing facedown on the corner of her desk.
She KNOWS who’s messaging, of course. Who else would it be, at this hour?
After a few moments of glancing between the phone and the far-too-bright laptop screen, Daniela closes the laptop with a huff, resolving to open the stupid instagram dm.
She has Sophia’s number by now. They still dm, though. Daniela supposes it’s tradition.
Navigating to the dm banner, Daniela clicks to open it, revealing-
-👻: hey red ❤️
-👻: u up?
Daniela laughs out loud. An exhausted, ridiculous sort of thing, but a laugh. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” she says softly to herself in the empty room, staring down at the petname on her screen.
-bellona❤️🔥: no
Blinking lazily at the screen, Daniela leans back against the cushions of her much-too-soft swivel chair. It’s counterintuitive to staying awake, really, but it’s stupidly comfortable.
-👻: damn :|
-👻: so u dont wanna go out 👉👈
Daniela glances at the upper corner of the phone screen, where the clock now reads 11:07 pm.
-bellona❤️🔥: why do u do this in the middle of the night
-bellona❤️🔥: im like. sleeping
-👻: thats weird bc
-👻: ur light is on
The immediate response convinces Daniela that she’s either hallucinating, or misunderstanding. Because how-?
Oh god, surely not.
Half- running, half stumbling to her bedroom window, which looks out on the street in front of the building, Daniela glances out, and-
This idiot is waving.
The window of Sophia’s normal, boring, everyday work car is down, and Sophia is staring up at the window, smiling wide, and waving like a little kid.
Daniela buries her face in her hands, groaning softly before returning to her desk.
-bellona❤️🔥: are u actually crazy
-bellona❤️🔥: why the hell
Daniela shifts another glance to the window, now incredibly aware that the girl she’s texting is literally right outside, albeit several floors down.
-👻: wanted to see you
-👻: duh
Daniela snorts another baffled laugh, her fingertips stumbling over the keys as she types her reply.
-bellona❤️🔥: ok genius
-bellona❤️🔥: what if i actually was sleeping
-bellona❤️🔥: or i js say no? and dont go w u?
-bellona❤️🔥: whats ur plan there
A few seconds pass before the next message.
-👻: gonna be honest
-👻: didnt think that far
Daniela thumps the heel of her palm against her forehead in palpable exasperation.
This girl is completely ridiculous, and yet.
Daniela knows for certain that she’ll absolutely feel better just by being around her. She doesn’t want to think about work. She wants to think about Sophia.
-bellona❤️🔥: this is insane.
-bellona❤️🔥: …
-bellona❤️🔥: im already in pajamas. im not gonna change
And just like that, she’s basically already surrendered. If things like this counted toward the wager, Daniela would have lost three times over. Maybe more.
-👻: cute
-👻: get down here
After another moment of grumbly hesitation, Daniela grabs her shoes.
By the time she’s wandering up to Sophia’s idling car, Daniela can see that Sophia’s current smile is far more devious than the one she’d stared up at the window with.
A smile that screams “you do whatever I want you to,” and Daniela can’t even dispute it. She’d basically begged Sophia to stop pandering, and this was the result of it.
Daniela didn’t create this monster; she awakened it. She was never in charge in the first place.
“You really are crazy, you know that?” Daniela asks, closing the passenger-side door behind her.
“Well hello to you, too, princess,” Sophia replies, turning the radio to some pop station, flicking through different channels.
“Your entire plan was to show up here and hope I agreed to letting you kidnap me in the middle of the night?”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Sophia stares back, gaze downturned, grinning as she bites her bottom lip.
“You’re lucky you’re pretty, you psycho,” Daniela huffs, blushing pink.
“Mmm, flattery will get you everywhere,” Sophia purrs, leaning across the center console an inch from Daniela’s ear. Daniela giggles as Sophia drags the tip of her nose against the skin of Daniela’s neck.
“You smell nice,” Sophia murmurs, resting her chin on Daniela’s shoulder. Daniela can feel her breathing, soft beneath the skin of the loose t-shirt she’s wearing.
“It’s peach lotion. That I wear to bed. Because I was going to bed,” Daniela says, getting another dumb grin from Sophia. “Now where are we going.”
“That,” Sophia hums, leaning back in her seat and tapping her fingers against the wheel. “Is up to you. Anything I want from this, I can have in your apartment.”
“Jesus,” Daniela coughs. “Forward much?”
“I just know what I like,” Sophia shrugs. “If I wanted you to drag me upstairs, I would say so. Now, where do you wanna go, princess?”
“Well,” Daniela shrugs, doing her best to act casual, despite Sophia’s words. “You want slushies?”
Sophia beams.
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“So,” Daniela says, leaning back against the passenger seat. “Why are we really here?”
They’re parked outside the convenience store, the fluorescents just bright enough to see each other less than a foot apart. The radio is still humming along, a track that Daniela doesn’t recognize.
Sophia stares back, sipping her slushie in a way that somehow manages to look contemplative.
“Because you asked for slushies?” She tries.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it, Soph.” Daniela leans over to flick Sophia in the shoulder.
“Is it that hard to believe I wanted to see you?” Sophia smiles, tilting her head as she watches for Daniela’s response. “That I would drag myself across the city at midnight to come get you?”
“You were wide-awake in the middle of the night BEFORE you showed up outside my apartment,” Daniela says. “Why?”
“You were awake too, you know,” Sophia muses, toying with her straw between her fingertips.
“I asked first.”
“Seems a bit petty,” Sophia snorts, and Daniela leans sideways into the seat, making sure Sophia has a full view of her exasperated eye-roll.
“It’s just work stress, babe, don’t worry,” Sophia’s voice goes lower, and she places a shushing finger over Daniela’s mouth. “I came to you because you make things better,” She giggles in an exhausted sort of way.
“Do you want me to fire them.” Daniela mumbles around Sophia’s hand, where it’s still held to her lip. “I can fire them.”
“Who?” Sophia giggles. “Everyone at the company who annoys me?”
“Yes,” Daniela breathes, with zero hesitation. She can’t even have the sense to be embarrassed about it, when it makes Sophia glow like that.
“You’d do that for me?” Sophia whispers, almost like a challenge. “What a sweetie.”
“Yeah yeah, don’t make it a thing,” Daniela blushes, turning to stare out the window. Through the reflection, she continues to watch Sophia’s stupidly brilliant smile. “You tell me how I can fix it, and I’ll fix it.”
“You could take this off,” Sophia fires back, trailing her colder hand up Daniela’s exposed shoulder to tug on her shirt collar.
“We’re in a parking lot,” Daniela glances back, knowing her face is saying everything her mouth isn’t.
“No fun,” Sophia whispers, leaning close to Daniela’s face.
Daniela purses her lips, then nods toward her own lap, patting her thigh twice. The implication is clear, and after a few moments of giggling and struggling over the center console, Sophia slides to her (now established) place in Daniela’s lap.
It’s so fantastically new, getting to discover their dynamic like this. Cataloguing all of Sophia’s favorite places to kiss, her love of straddling Daniela, holding her by the jaw.
“You’re so warm,” Sophia sighs, running her hands under the fabric of Daniela’s shirt and up against her ribs.
“Actually, your hands are just freezing from your drink,” Daniela replies, shivering as the ticklish nature of Sophia’s touch moves up her back.
“Still feels nice.”
Sophia’s breathing smells like fruit juice, and sugar, and hints of her fancy lipgloss. Daniela wants to bottle it, make it her signature scent.
“You know,” Sophia hums. “No more work stress if I just stopped going to work.”
Daniela snorts.
“No, really, I could just be a trophy wife. Have you pay for anything I wanted…”
“You’re ridiculous.” Daniela stares up through her bangs at Sophia’s slow-blinking stare. “I’m not being your sugar daddy-”
Sophia pouts, scrunching her nose up in that way that makes Daniela want to nip at it.
“Especially considering,” Daniela continues, suppressing another snort at Sophia’s antics. “That if you quit, we’d both be unemployed, and my tastes are far too expensive for that.”
“Both, huh?” Sophia murmurs with a grin. “Are you implying that if I quit, you’d follow me?”
Daniela shrugs, and doesn’t deny it.
“How scandalous,” Sophia purrs, dragging her nails in gentle scratches down the back of Daniela’s ribcage. “Is that even allowed? What would your mommy and daddy think?”
“Don’t bring up my parents while your hands are under my shirt,” Daniela groans, scrunching up her face the way one does when they get an unwelcome mental image.
“Fair enough,” Sophia snorts. “Too much talking anyway.”
She brings her hands higher, holding Daniela’s face and kissing along the line of her cheekbone, moving to her jaw
“I really would fire everyone in our department, you know,” Daniela hums, playing with Sophia’s perfectly soft hair. The dark waves tumble over her hands like water.
“Dani, baby,” Sophia purrs, leaning back to look Daniela in the eyes. “There’s a much easier way to reduce stress.”
“Yeah?” Daniela gently tangles her fingers against the fabric of Sophia’s own t-shirt, feeling that wonderful fire start to spark under her skin.
“Mmhm.” Sophia tilts her head, glancing down at Daniela’s hazy eyes and flushing cheeks.
“Help me relax.”
And if that isn’t an order that Daniela can follow, well. What else is there, really? Mumbling something about “living to serve,” she shifts her hands lower and pulls Sophia forward by the hips.
There’s none of the rose-tinted haziness of before. Daniela feels this moment in absolutely perfect clarity.
The way Sophia kisses, pressing all her weight against Daniela, clutching her shoulders, her jaw, grabbing at her shirt, like she’s trying to prove something. Daniela thinks it would be painfully on-brand for wanting to ‘win’ at making out, which has her giggling against the softness of Sophia’s lightly sticky lip.
Her mouth is dyed a deep purple, tongue and teeth steeped in berry-flavored sweetness. Daniela licks unashamedly into it, and Sophia snorts a tiny little laugh of her own.
“Are you licking me?”
“Lil bit,” Daniela admits. “Thought yours was grape, but it’s not. It’s yummy.”
Sophia stares back with a baffled grin. At least, as much of one that Daniela can see in the backlit fluorescents.
“I’m getting the feeling that you’re laughing at me,” Daniela attempts to huff.
“Well, quit being so stupidly cute,” Sophia shoots back, giving a performative eye-roll.
“I’m not cute.”
“Yes. You are,” Sophia replies, matter-of-factly. “You’re absurdly, painfully cute. And right now, you really need to quit it.” She trails off into a mumble.
“Yeah?” Daniela doesn’t know why, but this feels like something to needle at. “Why should I?”
Sophia exhales heavily, leaning forward to speak directly into Daniela’s ear. “Because I don’t have enough self-control to handle it.”
That particular confession hangs in the air as Daniela’s grin turns devious.
“So I’ve got you all riled up right now?” There’s genuine wonder in her voice. “The cutesy brat thing, that’s what does it for you?”
Sophia scoffs.
“What do you need self-control for, huh?” Daniela keeps pushing. “You holding back on me?”
“Something like that,” Sophia breathes, reminiscent of a growl.
“You know I can’t stand it when you do that,” Daniela hums, savoring the view of Sophia’s furrowing brow.
“Dani,” Sophia says, a warning tone in her voice. “I know you know what you’re doing.”
She does. Still, Daniela can’t help it. It’s too fun.
“It’s not my fault,” She says. “I can’t help it, when it’s you. When you snap on me. You just taste so sweet. I want you. Want you bad.”
Daniela watches in real-time the effect this has.
“You better not talk like this to anyone else,” Sophia murmurs, jaw clenched as her thighs pin Daniela further against the seat.
“There’s nobody else,” Daniela replies sweetly, leaning forward to nuzzle against Sophia’s jawline. “My ‘stress-relief services’ are reserved for you alone.”
“Jesus,” Sophia sighs, almost whining. “Here I am, being courteous, being patient. Trying not to overdo it. This is mean.”
Daniela nearly laughs, she’s so pleased with herself. It’s wildly fun, to drive this girl crazy.
“And who told you to do that?” She asks. Sophia leans back to glare in a way that makes Daniela’s spine tingle.
“The way you look at me,” she continues, pushing this invisible barrier as far as it will go. “Like you wanna ruin me. You want me, then have me. However you want. There’s nothing stopping you.”
It’s bold, bolder than Daniela had planned, but it pays off. Finally, Sophia breaks. Daniela grins as the remnants of that pesky self-control fall apart.
The next kiss is all teeth. Aching, gnashing teeth. Daniela thinks she might have split her lip, and she doesn’t even care. Hell, it isn’t until a moment later that she feels the firm, purposeful movement of Sophia’s hips grinding down against her stomach.
‘Oh,’ Daniela thinks, suddenly feeling like her insides are melting. Her skin rises several degrees warmer as Sophia keeps mumbling her name amongst strings of profanities.
Carefully, she shifts lower in the seat, giving Sophia more access to her hips, and her thighs, and anywhere else she could possibly want. It’s a herculean effort not to buck her own hips, to grind back, but this is about Sophia.
All for Sophia.
In turn, Sophia leans forward gripping Daniela’s shoulders as her eyelids flutter, and holy shit, Daniela could ascend right now. Her own breathing speeds up as her kiss-swollen lips graze the muscle of Sophia’s throat.
One of Sophia’s legs presses forward, knee bumping against the seat, deepening the contact. Daniela palms the thigh, caressing the skin, wishing she could sink her teeth-
Sophia makes a noise, a perfectly heinous noise, one that has Daniela’s jaw drop, mouth watering.
“Holy fuck,” Daniela whispers, to herself, to her lucky stars, to nobody in particular. Her other hand slides up Sophia’s back. Sophia’s breathing goes up in pitch as Daniela’s fingertips trace down her spine, meeting the space between her shirt and shorts.
“D’you want me to-” Daniela starts, toying with the waistband. She's not even certain what she's offering, but that's irrelevant. Whatever Sophia wants, Daniela will do.
Sophia shakes her head. “Want this. Need it- need you like this,” she breathes, and Daniela’s whole body feels like fire. Sophia is actively using her, and she’s so much more than okay with that.
Knowing any verbal response she tries to give is going to come out as nonsense, Daniela just nods, pressing her mouth against the sweat-damp skin of Sophia’s neck, and tries her best to commit to memory the way Sophia rocks against her until she falls apart.
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Daniela wakes up the next morning, achingly soaking, still tasting lipgloss and slushies.