Darling,

The hotel they’re staying at is a nice one, comfortable, probably a little on the pricey side (they’re spoiled). It’s a classy kind of place, and Arthur and Eames have enough decency to at least make it through the lobby and into the elevator before doing anything that might offend the refined tastes of the other guests. After that, though Arthur can’t manage to think anything else other than Eames, Eames, Eames.

Eames’ lips are hot against Arthur’s skin, mouthing at Arthur’s neck and determinedly trying to draw inappropriate noises out of Arthur’s throat. Arthur bites his tongue to stifle any sounds he might want to make; he doesn’t want to seem that weak, that easy.

He fumbles for a moment with his room key before successfully unlocking the door with Eames providing an immense distraction all the while. As soon as they’re in the room, Eames pushes Arthur back roughly against the door and Arthur drops his room key to the floor. Eames pushes his lips to Arthur’s almost immediately, swallowing the half-startled, half-aroused gasp Arthur makes.

Clothes are discarded on the way to the bed, and had Arthur been any more sober, had he been less under the influence of both alcohol and burning lust, he probably would have thrown a fit over how his suit is being treated, but Eames skilled mouth at Arthur’s exposed skin wipes away that thought as soon as it occurs to Arthur. When Eames goes to remove Arthur’s shirt, however, and decides after a moment of fumbling with the buttons that it’s easier to simply rip it off, Arthur grabs Eames’ wrist with a grip tight enough to leave bruises.

“Don’t,” he snaps, pushing Eames away from him enough to speak. “It’s fucking expensive, and I don’t want you ruining it.”

Eames just smirks and leans in to take Arthur’s earlobe between his teeth and Arthur’s thoughts turn to mush.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Eames promises and then proceeds to pull Arthur’s shirt off of his body.

The sound of buttons scattering across various surfaces reaches Arthur’s ears and he knows he’s going to regret this in the morning, knows that he really shouldn’t be doing this, that it’s dangerous and wrong and entirely inappropriate. It’s always been his rule, always, to never mix work and pleasure and he doesn’t want to break that. It’s just not going to work; it’ll lead to all sorts of unwanted things and he doesn’t want that. He just doesn’t want to deal with it and he knows all this, but right now, with Eames’s large, warm hands roaming his newly exposed skin and lips following to map Arthur’s chest and stomach, Arthur can’t find the room to worry about any of that.

Arthur gasps involuntarily and his back arches as Eames takes him into his mouth, his toes curling into the sheets below his body. He hears these pathetic almost whimpering noises and realizes belatedly, with some degree of shock and embarrassment that the noises are coming from him. He’s far too drunk to do anything about it, though, and Eames seems quite pleased with how Arthur is reacting, so Arthur doesn’t really do much to stop (he’ll hate himself for that in the morning).

And so maybe it’s just been a while since Arthur’s been laid or maybe Eames is just ridiculously good at this (neither would surprise him, really) but Arthur feels himself getting close, really close, body trembling, breath falling short, even though somewhere in the back of his head he knows it hasn’t even been that long since this all started. He can’t bring himself to care, though, and all he can focus on is the heat coiling tight in his lower stomach and Eames’s mouth and those ridiculous lips and Arthur is close, he’s so fucking close—

And then Eames pulls away and Arthur contemplates murder. He glares as best he can at Eames considering the state he’s in, and thinks to himself that Eames better have a goddamn good reason for stopping or else (or else what, Arthur doesn’t know, but it’s sure to be something painful and torturous).

“Problem, love?” Eames drawls, crawling up along Arthur’s body to lick a stripe along his pale skin.

Arthur narrows his eyes at Eames and opens his mouth to toss out a biting retort, only all that comes out is a soft “ah!” because Eames has his fingers in Arthur, spreading him, and Arthur is panting and breathless again and his hips are bucking down onto Eames’ fingers, and Eames’ lips are at his neck, sure to leave a mark, too good for Arthur to make a fuss about. And then Eames is pushing into Arthur and he comes completely undone.

He’s languid and pliant under Eames, throwing his head back into the pillows and muttering absolute filth into Eames’ ear. He can’t even for the life of him comprehend what he’s saying, but Eames can and he’s not sure he really expected Arthur to be much of a dirty talker. It’s pretty safe to say he’s quite pleasantly surprised.

The pressure and heat in Arthur’s stomach builds and builds and builds, and he doesn’t think he’s going to last much longer. By the sounds of it, Eames likely won’t either. And neither of them do. Arthur comes first, hard, shuddering, and Eames soon afterwards at the tightening of Arthur’s muscles around him. Eames’ vocabulary seems to have been reduced to a string of expletives and Arthur’s name being repeated over and over and over again.

They collapse onto the bed in a sweaty heap and Arthur falls asleep with Eames’ warm body next to his. And in the haze of lust and alcohol and exhaustion, Arthur thinks he’s never been happier. That is, until he wakes up the next morning with the worst hangover of his life in an empty bed with no sign of Eames as far as he can see.

Arthur groans at the harsh sunlight streaming through the crack in the curtains and buries his head in his pillow, which, he notices, still smells faintly of cigarette smoke and whiskey and aftershave, of Eames. He wonders how long it’s been since Eames left. He then wonders what he’s even doing awake and resolves to get some more sleep when his cell phone, ringing from somewhere across the room, interrupts his valiant attempts to sleep off this killer headache.

Arthur ignores his ringing cell phone for a moment or two before he realizes that it’s not someone calling him, it’s an alarm, and he really should go check what exactly his phone is trying to remind him to do. Arthur untangles himself from the bed sheets, only too aware of how naked he is and how sore he is, and it all serves as a cruel reminder of what happened the night before, but Arthur forces himself to ignore it. Ignore it until he finds his cell phone and makes that earsplitting ring stop.

Arthur finds his phone in the pocket of his pants some ten feet away from the bed. He glances at the message that pops up on the screen and curses. It’s a reminder that his flight leaves in just under an hour and he needs to finish packing and get to the airport and get checked in. He scrubs his face with his hand and digs through his half-packed suitcase to find the bottle of Advil he always brings with him. He swallows two pills and then packs away the suits he still has hanging in the closet, scowling at the wrinkled mess the suit he was wearing last night has become. And again, he pushes the thoughts of Eames out of his head even though they’re forcing their way in.

He gets to the airport in record time and all but throws the money at the cabbie, saying hurriedly, “Keep the change.”

He manages to check in his luggage and get through security just in time, as the final boarding call for his flight is being called just as he arrives at the gate. He lets out a breath of relief as he settles into his seat and closes his eyes, his temples still throbbing painfully. The flight takes off and it’s not until they’re in the air and Arthur has absolutely nothing to think about but the mistake he made last night that he thinks about Eames.

Fuck, he thinks, the next time they see each other, whenever that may be, things are going to be really awkward.