Title: A Terrible And Splendid Trust
Fandom: House of Cards (US TV)
Characters: Claire Underwood, Frank Underwood, Edward Meechum
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Everything here belongs to other people and I'm playing with it without their permission.
Summary: In Frank They Trust
Content notes: Handcuffs, breathplay, canon threesome, ball gag, power dynamics/imbalance, light bondage, breaking the fourth wall, voyeurism, exhibitionism, bisexuality
Author's note: A Yuletide treat for Longwhitecoats, whose request almost perfectly fit a fic I already had in progress.
"Do you trust me?"
Meechum, in the process of shrugging off his suit jacket, didn't answer as quickly as he normally would have. His attention had been diverted. Under other circumstances Frank might have been annoyed, but in this case Meechum's lack of attention was completely justified. Claire's silk bathrobe had slipped from both of her shoulders, pooling around her bent elbows.
Frank chuckled. "Yes," he drawled, cupping one of her naked breasts. "She is lovely, isn't she." Both he and Claire looked at Meechum, their smiles encouraging him to raise a hand and palm her other breast.
"Beautiful," Meechum murmured, adding a polite "ma'am" as he leaned in to skim his lips down the side of her neck. Claire expressed her thanks for the compliment by tugging at his tie and belt, slipping each from its place and dropping them to the floor by his stocking feet.
"You haven't answered my question."
Meechum was blinking rapidly as he looked up, clearly nonplussed at the rebuke, as mild as it was. "I'm sorry, Mr. President," he said. "What was your question, sir?"
"Do you trust me?"
The correct answer should be no, for I am wholly untrustworthy, and if anyone in this world knows that as well as Claire and our dearly departed Doug Stamper, it is the Secret Service agent who lurks in the shadows around me twelve hours out of every twenty-four. But that proximity means I have grown to know Edward Meechum just as well, and while he is a brave fellow he is not nearly brave enough to give me the correct answer. Only the one he knows I want to hear.
"Yes, sir."
"With your life?"
"Yes, sir."
"Get undressed and have a seat."
Frank nodded toward the chair Claire had wheeled in from his private office in the Residence. It was far more comfortable than the office chair in their townhouse, though not quite as comfortable as the one in the Oval. Still, it wouldn't do for the three of them to go quite that far; this one would do the trick. It had a wide, heavily padded seat and back, with a headrest high enough to support the neck even when reclining. Claire had added a soft towel to the seat to protect the leather from stains and to keep Meechum's bare flesh warm. He settled back wearing only his dress shirt, unbuttoned and hanging open so his muscled chest and abdomen were on display.
Claire knelt between his legs, stroking her palms along his upper thighs, head cocked slightly to one side as she studied his face. With each pass up and down, she drew her hands in closer toward his erection, never quite close enough to touch it, but grazing areas sensitive enough to make his legs twitch.
"You have the keys for these, I assume?" Frank said. Meechum's handcuffs were dangling from the end of Frank's forefinger, brushing against one smooth, hairless pectoral as they swayed back and forth.
Meechum's eyes widened. "Of course, sir."
"Good." Frank slapped one of the cuffs around the metal bar at the base of the chair's left arm. "Put that on." Meechum complied, Adam's apple bobbing nervously. The ratcheting sound of the cuff tightening around his wrist seemed very loud in the thick silence. When it was done, he looked up at Frank and gave the cuff a quick yank to prove it was locked.
"Good man." Frank smiled approvingly and gave Meechum a gentle pat on the shoulder. "Claire," he said, holding out his other hand. She reached into the pocket of her robe and withdrew a red ball gag on a black leather strap. Meechum had worn this before, and he opened his mouth without being told to let Frank slip it between his teeth. "One small step at a time, Meechum," he said, securing the strap around the back of Meechum's head. "Maybe next time, we will tie you to that bed over there. The bed where presidents have been fucking their wives for two hundred years. First on your back, so Claire can ride you. Then on your stomach, so I can." He adjusted the strap to its most comfortable fit. "There. You don't remove that unless you are given permission, understand?" He turned his back before Meechum could respond, but he knew as surely as he knew he was president Meechum had nodded his head.
He smiled down at Claire, who smiled back in that way of hers that made rational thought an impossibility. Frank stripped out of his boxers and knelt on the floor behind her, thankful for the thick carpeting cushioning their knees. "In the meantime," he said, wrapping his arms around Clair's waist and pulling her flush against his chest, "you can sit there quietly and watch me fuck my wife."
The curve of Claire's neck smelled sweet where Frank nuzzled it. Her nipple was taut between the fingers of one hand, her clit wet and slick against the fingers of the other. Each of his hands moved with its own separate rhythm, stroking, teasing, first a whisper of friction to make her gasp, then a pinch rough enough to make her moan. She squirmed in his arms, grinding her ass against him in a kind of backwards lap dance that lit a fire in his balls. Her silk robe was warm and slippery around his dick where their bodies met, a tantalizing foretaste of what it would feel like to be inside her. He held his hips rigidly in place, refusing the temptation to dry hump her ass in return. No sense in getting overstimulated just yet. The night was still young.
Frank looked at Meechum as Claire rested her hands atop his own, touching herself, guiding his fingers in their exploration of her clit. Meechum's eyes were locked on their joined hands as they moved between her legs, his free hand wrapped around his erection, squeezing but not stroking. He didn't get to come yet, and he knew it. He'd only once been permitted to orgasm before Frank did, and then only because Frank had thought himself too tired to join in.
That night, he had been leaning on a pile of pillows, ankles crossed and glasses low on his nose to facilitate the reading of a dull, multi-page memo from the Secretary of the Interior, while an arm's length away Claire straddled Meechum's dick. He reached the end of the fourth page, and as he flipped to the fifth he happened to catch a glimpse of their reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. Claire's ass rose and fell, muscles flexing as she took the full length of Meechum's glistening cock. Frank put down the memo. Before the evening was over, Meechum had bent his head to suck Frank off while Claire lay on his other side, fondling his balls and whispering obscenities in his ear. He'd come hard down Meechum's throat, as good an orgasm as he'd ever had in his life, but it had all felt rather empty, somehow. In the months since Meechum had joined them in bed, it was the first time Frank had felt like a third wheel. It was an unwelcome and disquieting feeling, one he'd vowed he would never experience again.
That was when the experiments with bondage had begun.
Claire shivered now, the muscles in her back tense against Frank's chest. "I'm so close, Francis," she whispered, leaning her head against his shoulder. This declaration was strictly for Meechum's benefit, Frank thought; he'd already known she was nearing the edge from the ragged cadence of her breathing, the way she kept jerking her pelvis forward to force his fingers into her cunt. He kissed her roughly on the side of her neck, then pushed her forward, bending her over between Meechum's spread legs until she was face-down on his belly, his cock trapped in the hollow between her breasts. Flipping the hem of her robe up onto the small of her back, Frank pushed inside her with enough force to make the chair shift on its wheels. He grabbed hold of the chair's arms, one in each hand, to hold it steady as he jerked his hips forward, sliding in deep.
Meechum watched, just as Frank had instructed. He may not have had a direct line of sight to where their bodies met, but Frank knew Meechum could see every detail in his mind's eye. The dull flush of his skin and rapid breathing around the ball gag gave his arousal away. And he could feel it, Frank made certain of that. Every thrust made Claire rock forward and back in Meechum's lap, her movements exaggerated to further stimulate them both. One of Claire's hands was still moving between her legs, the other splayed flat against Meechum's chest. Her fingers curled into a fist when she came, hard, with a harsh intake of breath that sharpened into a cry, and Meechum clasped her hand to keep her anchored while she rode it out.
Frank withdrew once the last wave of Claire's climax had stopped pulsing around his cock. He had one hand on the strap of the ball gag, meaning to pull it from Meechum's mouth and replace it with his dick, electrified by the idea of Meechum tasting both himself and Claire at once. But then Claire bowed her head and slid her lips down the shaft of Meechum's cock, and a different idea occurred. Meechum's free hand rested on the back of Claire's head, caressing her hair but not pushing her down further. Nor did he attempt to thrust up deeper into her mouth. His thighs quivered with the strain of holding himself back, but he knew it was not his place to make any demands of her. Of either of them. He simply sat there and took it, and it was a thing of beauty for Frank to watch.
"Hold your breath," Frank whispered.
Meechum's brow furrowed, confusion obviously the reigning emotion for a heartbeat or two until Claire's tongue made him re-focus. "Hold your breath," Frank urged him again, lightly pinching Meechum's nostrils shut as he slowly counted to five. Meechum's chest stilled, and Frank felt a spike of excitement shoot straight down to his balls; Meechum could have breathed around the gag if he'd wanted to, but he had chosen to obey Frank's command instead.
"Breathe," he said, releasing his grip. Meechum sucked in a deep breath and moaned through the gag as Claire's mouth worked its magic. Frank stroked his palm along his own erection and said, "Again," squeezing Meechum's nose between his thumb and forefinger a second time. A slow count to seven and he removed the pressure, but left his hand in place. When Meechum took a breath, Frank clamped his fingers shut again and said, "Not until I tell you." Another count to five and he backed off. Meechum waited obediently. Claire's head continued to bob, one hand now wrapped around the base of Meechum's cock. "Breathe."
The pink flush that heralded the imminent arrival of Meechum's orgasm began to spread across his torso. Frank fumbled with the strap and pulled the gag loose, tossing it across the room. "Hold your breath," he barked, bending to kiss Meechum, pushing his tongue roughly inside the still, still, quiet mouth while he jerked himself off. He straightened and came on Meechum's chest with an incoherent shout, answered by a long, low groan as Meechum's hips arched upwards and his eyes rolled back in his head. He hadn't waited for Frank's permission, but Frank wouldn't hold it against him.
Not this time.
***************
The tip of the cigarette glowed bright orange in the darkness. "We could be asking for a lot of trouble here, you know," Claire said, expelling the smoke in a long stream.
Frank took the cigarette from her and looked out over the lawns. The view of the Washington Monument from the Truman Balcony was truly spectacular at night. "How so?" he asked, taking a drag.
"Politicians have faced major scandal and removal from office for less than what we're doing," she replied. "Threesomes in the White House? A bisexual affair involving both the President and the First Lady? Outrageous!"
Frank laughed softly. "I'm not worried. The only way we'll be discovered is if one of us talks. And I know neither of us will."
"What about Meechum?" Claire took the cigarette back and tapped it over the ash tray.
"I'm worried about him least of all. I promise you, as long as we keep that boy's dick hard, he will never breathe a word."
The cigarette tip glowed again, accompanied by the faint sizzle of burning paper. "And when we get tired of him?" Claire said quietly.
Frank watched the aircraft warning light on top of the monument blink slowly on and off, on and off. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he said. "But I don't see that happening for quite some time, do you?"
She shook her head. "No, I suppose not. I just hope you're right."
Frank put a hand on her arm and stroked it gently with his fingers. He could feel the goosebumps bubbling up on her skin in the cool night air where his fingertips traced a path. He took the cigarette in his other hand and crushed it out in the ash tray.
"Trust me," he said.