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Tony Stark met Pepper Potts in High School; he was the popular boy, that surprisingly wasn’t a jock, and she was the popular girl that was almost as studious as Tony. Their first encounter was in Science class where they were paired up to work on an experiment to present at the Science Fair. She was the one that didn’t want to procrastinate and he was the one that had too big of a brain to care.
She complained multiple times to her friends how much of a horrible partner Tony was, and they all told her to not worry because that’s how he always was. They reassured her that even though Tony was a slacker, he always came through in the end.
Five weeks into the project, Pepper found it odd how much time he spent around her even though every word that came out of his mouth was about everything but the project. She disregarded it and thought that he was being annoying.
She was surprised to find that during the last month of the project that her friends were right; Tony came through in the last three weeks of the project, fact checked all the data, looked online for more information to make their presentation more filling, and bought all of the supplies for their poster board. They met at her house to set everything up and made sure all the information looked good.
They won first place at the Science Fair.
They didn’t have a class together during their second year of High School, but they hung out often and ate together along with their friends.
They had three classes together during their third year of High School. Tony often teased Pepper during class and during their down times. She complained about it to her friends, and they all laughed and made fun of the fact that she had no clue what was going on.
He gave her chocolate on Valentine’s Day, and told her it was just a coincidence. He explained that his mother bought too much chocolate at home. She was still confused and ate the chocolate, because she absolutely loves chocolate.
He started to hug her a lot; he hugged her at the end of the day when they part ways and he tried to subtly one-arm hug her when they hung out with their friends. She also noticed that his hand hovered around the small of her back; she wondered when it started.
Bucky, one of their mutual friends, asked Pepper out to Junior Prom a week before Tony was planning to. Tony got pissed and decided not to go to prom, even though she tried to persuade him to.
After Junior Prom, Pepper could tell that Tony wasn’t as friendly with her anymore. He didn’t hug her when they went home for the day, he didn’t hover around her like he used to, and he didn’t offer her a bite of his food during lunch time.
When she asked him, he told ignored her and told her it was nothing.
She asked a second time, and he still ignored her.
On the last day of school, she didn’t ask. She told him that she wasn’t going to be home for summer and that she was going on vacation with her parents in New York. He tried to act like he didn’t care, but he did.
When she was about to leave campus, he decided to suck it up and tell her how he felt. He grabbed her hand and led her to a nearby classroom where he put his heart out on the table; he told her how he wanted to take her to prom, and how he wanted to kiss her that night and ask her out. He confessed that he started to ignore her, because he thought she was dating Bucky.
She beamed at him, and told him she and Bucky went to prom as friends and nothing more. He almost teared up in happiness and hugged her as tight as he could. Although she was still going to be gone during the summer, he promised her that he’d take her somewhere nice on their first date.
The night before she was supposed to leave, he got a text from her saying their dad had an emergency at work so her vacation was canceled. He was overjoyed, and they had their first date the following day.
He met her parents a month into their relationship; her parents were nice yet unforgiving, and told him the consequences should he ever break their daughter’s heart. He laughed it off and later texted Pepper asking if they were serious.
Pepper never met Tony’s parents; she asked about them two times, and both times, he changed the subject. She didn’t want to pry and never asked about them again.
They had sex when they were two and a half months in their relationship. They were each other’s firsts and that night was absolutely magical for them. He coordinated the whole evening when he found out his parents were going to be out of town.
She didn’t ask about his large mansion-like house; she didn’t ask about the large paintings that were of him and his parents, and she didn’t ask about the painting of a much older gentleman whose plaque said ‘Jarvis’.
Their extra special evening was slow, sensual, and a learning experience.
Their relationship was talked about all throughout their High School. They were absolutely in love, and everyone could see how much they cared for each other. He gave her a necklace for Christmas, he kissed her on New Year’s Eve, he took her somewhere nice for Valentine’s Day, and cooked a meal for her on her Birthday (even though it was mostly burnt, it was the thought that counted).
Their relationship was a smooth sailing ship, and there were even talks of them being a shoe-in for Senior Prom King and Queen.
A day before the results were going to be announced, Pepper broke up with Tony.
When word got out around school, everyone was confused; they wondered if there was some underlying trouble in paradise that no one knew about. Rumors about Tony’s parents breaking them up began to pop up.
Rhodey, Tony’s best friend, could see that his heart was broken. When he asked his best friend what happened, he shrugged him off and walked the other way.
Pepper told her friends that she was moving to Australia the very next day. Her friends were shocked. They asked her if it was the reason why she broke up with Tony. She didn’t answer, and only told them that she wouldn’t be coming back. She explained that her father got a new job in Australia, and the cost to fly back and visit was too much, especially for someone of her age if she chose to go alone.
She asked them not to tell Tony.
What Pepper didn’t know is that her friends told Tony the same morning she was leaving. No one told her how Tony hastily drove to the airport to try and say good-bye to her. No one told her how Tony got as far as the gate she was at before being detained by Airport Security for trespassing. No one told her about the tears he shed when he watched her plane leave from the window beside the entrance to the gate.
Australia gave her a new number, new friends, and a new life. To say that she didn’t miss Tony was a lie.
She went to college in Australia and got her Bachelor’s Degree in Finance and Accounting, and a Master’s Degree in Business Management.
She dated seldomly, and none of her relationships lasted for more than a year.
She reconnected with her old friends from High School when she finally decided to join social media. She didn’t ask about Tony Stark, and they didn’t mention him.
After she graduated from her Master’s program at 24 years old, she stayed in Australia; she worked in a startup company for two years, got a better job at a well-known tech company and spent four years there, got an even better job at a Fortune 100 company and stayed there for four years, and eventually landed her dream job at AIM, Advanced Idea Mechanics.
Two years into her job at AIM, she was promoted from accounting to manager in the finance department. Three years later, she was promoted to Deputy Division Manager. Her bosses were raving about her; they loved her and adored her, and she loved her job. Deep down, she felt like she was on cloud nine; she felt like she was living her idea of a perfect life. The only thing she had to look forward to was retirement.
The curveball that spiraled her life out of control came at 9:12 AM on Monday morning.
Aldrich Killian, the CEO of AIM, walked into her office and asked to speak with her. He was always seen as friendly, and she never had any problems with him, so when he asked to speak with her, she didn’t think anything of it.
“This may come as a shock to you, Miss Potts,” he began as they walked towards his office. “But, Mr. Sonada is retiring in a couple months.”
Pepper’s eyes widened in shock. Mr. Sonada was the CFO, the Chief Financial Officer, and had worked for AIM for as long as Aldrich has. He was her mentor and her friend. His retirement was almost out of the blue, but given that Mr. Sonada was midway through his sixties, she thought it was an appropriate time.
“Oh—Do you want me to sit in for interviews for the position?”
Aldrich stopped and turned to face her; he rested his hands on her shoulders and lightly squeezed them. His smile caught her off guard.
“Actually, I was wondering if you might be up to the task.”
“What?” Pepper almost choked on her saliva from shock. “Me? Why me?”
“You’ve worked here for almost six years, Pepper.” He paused and beamed at her. “I think you’re ready.”
“Am I?” She was worried she wasn’t.
“I know you are,” he replied reassuringly. “Would you like your first test?”
“Uh… Okay.” She felt overwhelmed all of a sudden.
“We’re actually late for a meeting, and I want you to sit in and see what you make of it, okay?” He continued to walk; he passed his office and walked towards one of the large conference rooms.
“Okay…” she replied nervously. “What is this meeting about?”
“You remember our Green Initiative?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “I helped Mr. Sonada plan out financial scenarios and possible budgets.”
“When I pitched this idea to the United Nations, thousands of companies tried to get their hands on this contract. It was ultimately decided that a trial was going to take place, and the United States government was the first to volunteer. This contract will give the company of our choosing permission to instate the Green Initiative across all of United States.” He reached for both handles of the large double doors that led to the conference room, and turned to face her. “I’ve narrowed it down to two companies, and I want your opinion on their plans, their motives, and their overall status as a potential customer of ours.”
Pepper looked like she was about to have a heart attack. The amount of information that was fed through her mind in the last five minutes was almost too much for her to process. “Okay…”
Aldrich pulled back the double doors with ease, and then unbuttoned his black blazer. He spread his arms out and greeted the two CEOs that stood in the conference room.
“Hello, hello, my friends. I apologize for my lateness. There was a change in our roster recently and I wanted to get her up to speed.”
Pepper was too busy writing down notes in her notepad to realize that Aldrich was greeting each CEO individually.
When she looked up, Aldrich was heading back to his seat, and for a fleeting second, her gaze locked with the one man she thought she would never see again.
Tony Stark stood opposite of the large laminated wooden table in the middle of the conference room. He was dressed in a gray three piece suit that was accompanied by a red silk tie; his hair was slightly grayed and his soft brown eyes looked sad (she assumed it was jetlag). He stared at her with his mouth slightly gapped in surprise.
The other CEO was someone she had never seen before; he had dark blonde hair, wore black rimmed glasses, and looked like a complete tool.
“This is Miss Pepper Potts. She will be taking the role of Chief Financial Officer in a couple months,” Aldrich stood beside her as he introduced her. He then gestured to the two CEOs. “This is Justin Hammer from Hammer Industries and Tony Stark from Stark Industries.”
Pepper shook Justin’s hand and greeted him professionally. She shook Tony’s hand and greeted him by his last name, and not his first name. She tried to avoid all eye contact, but she couldn’t keep her eyes off him, especially since she hadn’t seen him since High School, and how grown up and hot he looked. Stop it, Virginia…
Despite her being there, Tony didn’t falter on his plans to instate the Green Initiative. He talked about drones, robots, and unmanned suits that would do all the heavy lifting. He talked about his plans to supply each of the robots with their Green Initiative technology so a lot of the money would go towards operations and not research and development. When Justin Hammer asked about his plans to incorporate the Green Initiative tech into the robots, Tony smirked and told him that he already had hundreds of tested prototypes.
Justin Hammer’s plans weren’t exactly competition for Tony’s, but, while Tony’s plans were more about the future of his company and the United States, Justin Hammer’s plans were more about the future for the entire world. He had practical ideas that weren’t nearly as futuristic as Tony’s.
Aldrich took a few seconds to sift through his thoughts, and decided that he would talk with the rest of his team and get their input.
He dismissed everyone for the meeting and said that they would be making a decision in a few days. While he caught up with Justin Hammer about a few things, Tony took the opportunity to talk to Pepper, but he was saddened to see that she had already left the room.
In a desperate attempt to correct his life in some way, he walked out of the conference room and caught her walking down the hallway. She was at the drinking fountain when he finally caught up to her.
“Miss Potts,” he greeted her.
“Mr. Stark,” she replied as she finished at the drinking fountain. “What can I do for you?”
He pressed his lips in annoyance. “I didn’t know you were working for AIM.”
“I didn’t know you had your own company,” she retorted, albeit professionally. She glanced down at something shiny that caught her eye. “And apparently married.” Was it jealousy she was feeling, or was it envy? She couldn’t tell.
He glanced down at his left hand and rolled his eyes. “If only I could take this damn thing off,” he whispered, but just loud enough for her to hear.
She furrowed her eyebrows. “What?”
He changed the subject. “You changed your phone number.”
She blinked. “Well, yes, I did move to a different country.”
He forced a smile. “That would’ve been nice to know.” That was a low blow, but she deserved it. “You know, if you didn’t like me, you could’ve just told me instead of moving to a different continent.”
“I didn’t—”
“Save it, Pepper. The fact that you didn’t tell me you were leaving really hurt. I had to find out from your friends—not you,” he snapped at her. “And you didn’t even want to keep in contact? Did you really think that lowly of me?”
She tried to keep her composure. “Is this coming from the last twenty-one years of pent up anger?”
The angrier he got, the closer his face was to hers. “You have no idea how fucking mad I am.” He was practically seething with each word narrowly passing through his teeth.
She ignored her feelings for him. “Then it’s a good thing we don’t know each other anymore.” She passed by him and got back to work, while he stood there, alone in the hallway, wondering what happened in the last two decades. He thought he was over her, he thought he was done thinking about her or about what she was up to; he thought he came to terms with how they exited each other’s lives, but that day, he learned that he was still very much in love with her.
When Pepper closed her door to her office, she tried her best not cry; all of the memories started flooding back; she remembered their first date, their first kiss, their first Christmas together, their first time they made love, and the first time he told her how much he loved her. And then she remembered the day she forced herself to make a decision; she remembered seeing his face when she shattered his heart. She remembered walking away from him and never turning back.
She remembered when Rhodey talked to her about how she utterly destroyed Tony. She cried on Rhodey’s shoulder, and confessed to him about her departure and that she had to do it so he could move on. While Rhodey didn’t approve of her actions, he comforted her, and promised her that he would take care of Tony.
Pepper’s legs gave out as she slid down the wall of her office; tears fell down her face for almost an hour. She left work early that day and told Aldrich that she wasn’t feeling well.
At 3 PM, she went to the nearest bar she could find and planned to drink enough to forget about the meeting.
She didn’t expect the bartender to tell her that someone had already paid for her tab, and she certainly didn’t expect that ‘someone’ was Tony.
It turns out that the same bar she was drinking at was in the same hotel he was staying at.
She forced herself to face her demons and walked towards Tony at the other end of the bar. She thanked him for paying for her drinks, and in exchange, he asked for her to join him.
Pepper was the one to end their mutual silence; she asked about Rhodey, and he told her that he worked for the United States Military as Colonel James Rhodes.
She asked about Nat, Bucky, Steve, Bruce, and Hope. He told her that he had only kept in contact with Nat and Steve; he also told her that Nat and Steve have been married for almost ten years. Pepper laughed as she could hardly believe what she was hearing.
He loved it when she laughed.
“And what about you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
She held up her left hand and he realized she was asking about his marriage.
“Business politics,” he replied simply. “Two companies wanted an excuse to merge and used their children as bait.” Pepper furrowed her eyebrows. “Stark Industries wanted to merge with MEDA Corporations. An arranged marriage was set up.”
“Marriage life not as you expected it to be?” she teased him.
“I don’t love her and I never will. She’s pretentious, a brat, and only thinks about herself,” he scoffed. “I only see her for charitable events where our marriage has to be present. Other than that, I don’t even talk to her over the phone. We communicate via good ole’ e-mail.”
“Why don’t you guys get a divorce then?”
“Because once the press finds out that our marriage wasn’t a ‘real’ marriage, stocks in both companies will go down and the Board of Directors will release us as owners of the company. Good-bye money, good-bye funds, and good-bye life.” He forced himself to smile. “But enough of my happy life – tell me about yours.”
She almost laughed. “What about mine?”
“You seemed happy to be working at AIM,” he said in observation.
“I am…” she paused. “…But…”
“But?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I love my job, I love my life, I love the people I work with, and I love where I am. I just feel like… like I’m missing something.”
“Boyfriend?” He felt a pang in his chest.
She shook her head. “No time for one.”
He smirked. “Then you’re living the good single life. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
She looked off to the side as she became lost in thought. “Yeah…” She wondered what her life would be like if she were married, with and without children of her own.
They mutually parted ways and on, what felt like, neutral terms.
She got a surprise call from Nat a day later, and while they caught up, Pepper mentioned her run-in with Tony. Nat couldn’t contain herself when she heard about their fated reunion.
“You can’t say he’s not the one for you, Pepper.”
“I can, actually,” Pepper said with certainty. “We can be friends and nothing more.”
“Think about it, Pep, you’re single and he’s married but he hates his wife. What more can you do to tell two people that they belong together. I mean, it’s been like, what, two decades?” Nat sounded very happy to hear about the newly acquired gushy romance drama. It was almost like a cliché novel to her.
“Twenty-one years,” Pepper corrected her.
“You’ve been counting!” Nat squealed.
Pepper rolled her eyebrows. “I did the math, you dummy.”
“Uh-huh,” she teased.
“Besides, Tony has probably already left Australia. I don’t think I’ll be seeing him again.”
Nat let out a short laugh. “Please, Honey, you have no idea how much Tony loves you. He’s the CEO of Stark Industries. He can go where he pleases and when he pleases, and after all these years, you two just happen to work for collaborative companies? And your boss specifically chose his company? C’mon. Let’s be real. It’s fate. He’s probably trying to think of a way to rekindle your guys’ relationship.”
“I doubt that. After I broke his heart and left the country? He moved on just like I did.”
“After what he did for you, I don’t think he moved on.”
Pepper furrowed her eyebrows and replayed Nat’s words a dozen times over. “Wait… what do you mean by ‘what he did’ for me?”
Nat paused. “Wait, no one told you?”
“Told me about what?”
That night, Pepper found out that Tony tried to see her off at the airport; he got detained by Airport Security. His father, CEO of Stark Industries, picked him up at the airport and reprimanded him for his actions. The press eventually caught wind of Howard Stark’s son being detained at the airport. As punishment, Tony was taken out of High School and assigned a prestigious private tutor. At a young age of 18, Tony was meticulously trained by Howard to eventually take over Stark Industries. Three years later, a marriage was arranged between Tony and the daughter of the CEO of MESA Corporation.
Another three years later, Tony’s parents were fatally injured in a horrific car accident nearing Christmas Day. He was forced to take over Stark Industries and cooperate with the Board of Directors’ will and wishes.
From all the times Nat talked to Tony, she could never recall a second where he sounded happy or pleased with his life. She told Pepper that he always sounded sad and exhausted.
Pepper never heard about the death of his parents, or about his life after she left. She always thought he finished High School, fell in love with someone else and forgot all about her, went to a nice college, and studied for his Ph.D. in something related to science.
“I had never seen him cry like that before, Pepper,” Nat said solemnly. “If he were at the airport a minute earlier, he would’ve been able to say good-bye to you.” Pepper’s heart was slowly, but surely, tearing at the seams. She never knew how much pain she caused him, and she didn’t think it was spiral out of control like that. “He would’ve been able to tell you how much he loved you.”
“I know how much he loved me,” Pepper choked out through quiet sobs.
“No,” Nat replied. “No, you don’t.”
Her call with Nat ended around midnight, and Pepper couldn’t sleep. All she could think about was him. She couldn’t think about her next meeting, or her dinner date with her parents over the weekend. All she could think about was how guilty she felt for making Tony’s life a living hell.
She pursed her lips together, and grabbed her coat and keys. She drove to the hotel where she previously met him at the bar and asked the people at the desk what number his room was. She had to tell him that it was an emergency and that she was a distant relative with terrible news about his wife. The workers were forced to tell her the room number.
When she arrived at the front door of his room, all she could feel was anger; she was pissed off, and in a fleeting moment, she thought it was a wise idea to angrily pound on the door.
He answered almost immediately and it looked like he wasn’t asleep just yet. He was in a pair of pajama pants and a white t-shirt when he came to the door. His hair was disheveled, and he looked utterly confused. God damn, he looked hot.
He squinted from the bright light in the hallway. “Pepper?” He raised an eyebrow. “What are you—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she yelled.
His eyes went wide in confusion. “Tell you what? Are you okay? Are you drunk?” He leaned in to sniff her breath, but she swatted him away. She hit him multiple times on the arm. “Hey! Ow! What are you doing?”
“You asshole!”
“Excuse me?” he gasped. “Language.”
“You fucking asshole!” She hit him again.
“What the hell did I do?”
A tear slipped down her cheek. “Your marriage… it was my fault.”
Now he was really confused. “What?”
“You tried to catch me at the airport before I left. You got arrested by security. Your father took you out of school… and then…”
Tony lowered his defense and frowned at the remembrance. “Nat told you, huh?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” he asked impatiently. “Tell you that I loved you? Tell you that you broke my heart? Tell you that I would’ve done anything to be with you?” She didn’t answer. “We were still kids, Pepper. I couldn’t have said that to you.”
“Why?”
“Because I wasn’t sure,” he confessed. “And regardless of whether or not I said good-bye to you before you left, my father would’ve still put me through the wringer to run Stark Industries. So, don’t blame yourself for my life, Pepper. It’s not your fault, and it never was your fault.”
“Are you?” she whispered.
He furrowed his eyebrows. “Huh?”
“You said you were unsure before.” He saw her red eyes and puffed cheeks; he knew she had cried for many hours. “Are you still unsure?”
He began to smile. “I thought I could move on. I thought my life would be simpler if I did, and for a while, it was… until I saw you the other day in that conference room. All I could think about was how you were doing, what you’ve been up to, and how gorgeous you looked with your hair curled at the ends. And that’s when I realized that I never moved on.” He paused and saw the world in her beautiful blue eyes – his world. “No matter how much I try, I don’t think I could ever stop falling in love with you, Pepper.”
Pepper’s mouth gapped at his words, and without a second thought, she crashed her lips onto his. He hummed against her mouth for a second and decided that there was no use in fighting the urge. He wanted her as badly as she wanted him.
Their mouths danced with each other, and their tongues greeted each other, first slowly and calmly, and then fast and without hesitation. He wrapped his arms around her waist as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He moved them inside his hotel room and closed the door with a kick of his leg in the right direction.
He pressed her against the nearest wall and moved his lips down her neck, sucking at each patch of skin he could get his mouth on. She moaned uncontrollably and in delight as he pressed his groin up against her body.
She held his head to her neck and begged him to continue; her hands wrapped around his head, scratching and massaging at his scalp.
He slipped her coat off and then massaged her hip with his hands. She could feel that slight spark against her skin whenever she felt his skin come in contact with hers. His thumb rolled against the hem of her shirt; he slipped his hand underneath her shirt and lifted it above her head.
Tony pressed her body further against the wall, allowing her to lift her legs up and wrap them around his hip. He held her there, kissing her, and begging her to not be a dream. He moaned lowly as she pressed his mouth against the curvature of her breasts.
He turned their bodies and laid her on top of his bed. With ease, she rolled his t-shirt up and over his head, and tossed it. He scooted them further up the bed and continued to kiss her, as if he was making up for all the lost time.
Every time his groin rubbed against hers, his cock stirred, and within a few seconds, he was fully erected and rock hard.
He paused and pulled his mouth away from hers. His gaze locked with hers, almost as if he was asking for permission. He didn’t want her to wake up the next morning and realize that everything they did was a mistake.
When she realized what he was asking, she beamed at him and pressed a soft, sensual kiss against his lips. He took that as a sign and kissed her slowly, setting a loving and careful pace; one that was very much opposite from the last few minutes.
He pulled down his briefs and pajama pants just enough for him to set his cock free if it’s painful imprisonment. He used his free hand to slip off her short pajama shorts and her underwear. He pressed his bare groin against hers and shallowly thrust his hips, letting her feel exactly how hard he was.
He gasped when he realized how wet she was; the underside of his cock was already slick with her juices and he could easily grind his shaft against her clit. He massaged her boob with his left hand and grinded the underside of his shaft between the her folds with the other. He moaned against her mouth with each pass of his hard cock.
“Fuck, Pepper,” he groaned and then laughed. “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted this.”
She cupped his face with her hands and wiped away a stray tear. “I love you,” she muttered.
He searched her eyes for signs of regret, but there was none. Her blue eyes were as calm and inviting as the ocean; it reminded him of their first time together. “I love you, too, Pepper.”
He guided the head of his penis through her folds and bumped it against her drenched opening. He pressed against it a second time to warn her that he was about to push in. He then slowly pressed his head through her opening, but she was so wet, he accidentally went too fast and buried himself in her a little too much.
They both moaned loudly as they felt each other; his head spun from the warmth and feeling of being inside her, and she could barely think straight from how full she felt.
“Are you okay?” he asked worriedly. “Do you want me to stop?”
“No, no,” she reassured him. “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded.
He kept his gaze on her as he pulled back and slowly thrust back in. He wanted to see what total bliss looked like, and her various moans and grinding of her hips showed him just that. He kept his slow thrusts until she urged him to go faster. He sped up little by little, and each time he thrust into her, she moaned.
“Oh god, Pepper,” he moaned with her. “I love hearing you moan.”
“Faster, Tony,” she urged him.
He pulled out with just the head in, and thrust into her with a moderate amount of force. She threw her head back, tightened her grip on his lower back, and moaned very, very loudly.
“Yes!” she screamed and moaned. “Oh god, yes! Oooh, Tony!”
Her moans made him thrust slightly faster, and each time he buried himself to the hilt, her walls squeezed him, making him moan along with her. The feeling of her walls milking his hard cock made him feel like he was drunk on pure bliss.
“Oooh, Pepper!” he moaned. “You feel so good. Oh god—”
She began to push her hips up to meet his, and then the spot below his stomach started to feel warm; the sensation felt so good, he wanted to feel it again and again, so he increased his pace and thrust harder into her.
She gladly welcomed it and hung onto him as he piston into her. He whispered sweet nothings into her ears and chanted her name as if he worshiped her. And she whispered apologies and words she wish she told him sooner.
His throbbing cock shallowly thrust into her once, twice, and on the third time, he buried himself inside her to the hilt and moaned loudly. She moaned alongside him in unison as her orgasm ripped through her; she could feel every jet of hot come that spurt into her. He thrust a few more times into her to help ride out her waves of pleasure, and on the fifth thrust, he moaned again, but this time, it was low and more drawn out. She felt more jets of come paint the inside of her walls, and when he came down from his high, he stared at her in astonishment.
“Wow…” he gasped as he pulled out of her. “…I… uh…”
Pepper began to chuckle. “You came twice.”
“Yeah.” He let out a short laugh.
“Have you ever…”
“Nope,” he confessed. “That was really something.” He tried to regain his composure. “I think I need to lay down.” He rolled over and flopped onto the space beside her.
Pepper rolled to her side and wrapped her arm around his bare middle. He wrapped his arm around her neck and leaned in to kiss the side of her head multiple times.
“I’ve missed you so much.”
Her eyes closed as he whispered into her ear, and hugged him tighter. The realization that their night together wasn’t permanent set a lot quicker than she thought.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked.
He didn’t want to think about that. “Live in the moment.”
“So, this was a one-time thing?” She sounded curious; she didn’t sound mad or upset.
“No,” he replied. “It’s not.”
“What about your wife and—”
“I don’t have a wife,” he said with a sigh. “When the time comes, I’ll do what’s right and end my time at Stark Industries.”
“Tony, you don’t have to—”
He smirked. “What, you think I’d do it for you?” She hit him in the chest. “Ouch—I’m kidding. I’ve actually been thinking about it for a long time. I actually planned for the Green Initiative to be my last project with the company.”
She raised her eyebrow at him. “And you think you’ll beat Justin Hammer for the contract?”
He snorted. “Please. Hammer is as dumb as he looks. The moment I knew Hammer was competing against me, I already knew I had that contract in the bag.”
“And after the contract?”
“Marry you.”
She leaned up and stared at him. She wasn’t sure if he was being serious, and if he was serious, she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. They only reunited a few days ago. Marriage seemed rushed and out of the blue. “Really?”
He turned his head ever so slightly to gaze lovingly at her. “The contract will take years. I think that’s plenty of time to woo you all over again.” She smirked and shook her head at him. He leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. “I’m not going to let you leave this time.”
Tony was right; he got the contract from AIM to instate the Green Initiative for the United States.
Pepper told Tony that she was going to stay in Australia and keep working for AIM until he finished the Green Initiative. Thankfully, being the CFO meant having to meet with whichever company at least once a month. It was part of the contract as a means for constant communication about the project’s progress.
For every time they had to meet professionally, he took her on a date later that evening.
The project lasted for nearly three years. When the project was done, he announced his divorce and his departure from the company. Six months after that, Pepper left AIM and got engaged to Tony. And five months after that, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts got married in front of all their friends, new and old.