Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 45B
Title: Lightning Strikes Twice
Author: AriaAdagio
Rating: M
Pairing: Mer/Der
Summary: Post Time After Time. Derek takes Meredith to visit his family in Connecticut, but nothing goes as planned.
~~~~~
Meredith lay on his bed, reading a book propped up against her knees. She gave him a ghost of a smile when she looked up. "Hey."
"Hey," he replied as he glanced around at the empty room.
"Your family left," she said as she slammed her book shut and put it on the bed beside her. "They figured after you got back we probably would want some alone time. Are you...?"
"I'm okay, Mere," he said. He hobbled to the bed and sat down on the edge. "Tired. But okay."
"Is she okay?"
"No. But she will be. I think we... I think we're finally through."
"You weren't through before?" Meredith said. Her voice held curiosity, not condemnation.
"I needed to tell her I was sorry. I needed to tell her that and mean it, no interruptions."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. It's done. I'm okay."
"Okay," she said. She scooted to the edge of the bed, wrapped her arms around him, and he couldn't stop the shudder that tore through his frame. "Derek?"
"I want to go home, Mere," he said tiredly.
"One more day, Derek," she said. "You can make it. Dr. Weller stopped by. He said the MRI looked great."
Derek sighed. A swell of relief slammed into him, and his eyes dipped shut. His eyes stung, but tears seemed beyond him for the moment. Emotional whiplash. He was pretty sure he was done. Done for a while. Done feeling.
Meredith rubbed his back, and he leaned into her. Leaned into her heat. Her quiet support seemed still and silent to the churning tumble of everything else. He dipped his head against her shoulder and kissed her in the crook of her neck, relishing the soft taste of her skin. She gasped as he pushed down her shoulder, moving the neckline of her shirt with him. The warmth of her reached into him and tore apart the chill.
"Mere, will you..." he whispered against her skin.
"What?" she said.
"Shower. I feel... I need..."
"Sure," she said. "Do you want help?"
"No. I think I can..." he replied. "Just sit with me?" He pulled away from her.
"I can do that," she said. "I'll go get a shower cap for you."
She left as he heaved himself to his feet and released his intravenous line from the catheter in his wrist. He walked into the bathroom in a daze. She returned in moments, and he sat down on the toilet seat while she taped his wrist with scrutiny she usually saved for cutting someone open. Her fingertips brushed the lines of surgical tape around his wrist and upper forearm, checking for kinks or holes. The touch sent a shiver of needing through his frame. She smiled.
"What?" he said as he stood up.
"I love you," she replied. "I really, really do."
He smiled at her. "I love you, too."
She handed him a shower cap she'd opened, and as he stepped into the shower, he saw her sit down on the toilet seat with a book. He stripped off his dirty clothes, feeling marginal relief from just peeling the soiled, warm cotton away from his skin. He was happy. Happy that she hadn't seemed to expect a big production. Stripping. Washing himself off without her help. He loved her. But right then? Right that moment? He felt tired, unattractive, and weak, and if he could bathe himself, finally, he'd like to.
He put on the shower cap and lumbered to the faucet, spending only moments adjusting the water before he had sheets of warmth pelting him. Steam curled around him, and he sighed as everything fell away from him. He leaned against the wall and let it. For a long time. Not out of necessity, but because the spray of water relaxed him. It was gratifying to be able to relax into it and not worry about falling down.
He smiled. He wasn't worried about falling down at all, he realized. He'd gotten tired from moving around that morning, from chasing Addison, from sitting and standing and walking back, but the fatigue hadn't seemed to linger too long after he'd stopped to rest. That was a relief. It was like he'd worked his way out of a deficit and was finally starting to accrue something again. Something that made him whole.
He washed himself off, working the soap against his muscles, rubbing in deep, massaging circles that made everything seem to loosen. The coil of emotional wreckage from the last few days began to untwist. He watched the swirls of water as they meandered to the drain, imagining it was everything. Everything that had upset him. Mark. Addison. His mother. Being sick and stared at.
"Doing okay?" Meredith called.
"Yeah," he said, his voice low and breathy as he leaned against the wall again and let the water strip the suds away from him. His muscles quivered, and behind his eyelids, he found peace and sanctuary. He wanted to dip his head under the spray and let the thunder take the rest of the world away, but he didn't. The shower cap might not hold up so well under direct assault. He settled for the leaning. With his ear pressed against the wall, the beat of the water seemed like a roar and a rush, and the tiles were cool against the heat of his skin.
It was an idle thought that brought her into his sanctuary with him. Early on, when they'd just started dating, and there'd still been a tense sort of unfamiliarity lingering between them, he'd been taking a shower, and she'd walked in, announcing her presence, nervously saying she just wanted to brush her teeth and then she'd be gone.
I'm sorry. I'll be out of here really fast, she'd babbled. Izzie left out some chocolate frosty cupcake things, which I stupidly tried. I have to get rid of the aftertaste. It's all nutty and gooky, and it's sticking to the back of my throat. I'm hoping mint will cure it. Anyway, I'm not trying to barge in or anything. Not that I barged. I did knock. And you said it was okay. I hope it was. Okay, I mean. Because, I mean, I've seen you. But showers are sort of different. And I'm not trying to intrude on your privacy or anything. Just... Teeth. You know. They need cleaning. Ick.
He'd slid the door open and poked his head out, quietly amused by her rambling. You could join me, he'd suggested. She'd stared at him, wide-eyed, toothbrush dangling from her mouth.
He grinned at the memory. The water pelted down around him, and he stood there, engrossed in the recollection, his breaths shortening. Pressure began to pulse, low and steady in his groin, as he remembered the curve of her thigh, the way she'd stepped in foot first, tantalizing him before she'd gifted him with a full view. He sighed as the excitement he'd quashed before coursed back into his veins.
"Mere," he called over the rush of the water, "Do you want... Do you want to come in?"
He leaned against the wall in the silence that followed. The spark of arousal he'd felt drained quickly in the crush of sudden nerves. He hadn't had sex with Meredith in a week. He wasn't even sure he could. He just knew he wanted it. He'd known all morning that he did. But it was different, now. He was weak. It wasn't even self-deprecation. It was a fact. He was weak. He wasn't sure what he could manage even if he was physically able. And he looked...
He didn't look sexy anymore.
"To help?" Meredith asked after a long pause.
"No. I want to... Um," he said, and he felt the blush creeping over his cheeks even under the heat of the water. He didn't know why it was suddenly a big deal. Sex. They'd talked about it all week in both veiled and direct ways. He started to shiver despite the heat. He hadn't really thought this through that much. If she didn't want to, or if he couldn't, that would really put a damper on things, possibly making it even worse when they got home and tried to resume something resembling a normal sex life.
Meredith didn't leave him stranded in the doubting for more than a few seconds. "Okay," she said as she stepped into the shower with him, already naked.
His breath fell away from him at the sight of her. She had toned, curvy shoulders. Her body narrowed slightly before swelling at the hips and tapering down to her delicate feet and little toes. In the time that she'd changed out of her clothes, her nipples had already perked up, crowning the swell of her breasts, and she looked... She looked beautiful.
Water droplets clung to subtle hairs, only to join the stream sliding down her body when she stepped into the spray with him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "You mean sex, right? Not just company?" she asked, direct, to the point, not nervous at all. "Either is okay, Derek."
He clasped her shoulders with his fingers, squeezing before he let his grip roam lower, down her back to the curve of her ass. "Oh, I meant sex," he said. He kissed her on the lips, plunging with his tongue as if he could pull the taste of her back inside himself. Her panting whispered against the walls as he backed her up against the tiles and roamed down the side of her neck with his lips, nibbling on her clavicle, her shoulder. "Definitely sex," he added, her lack of hesitation bolstering his confidence more than any reassurance or murmured encouragement ever could.
The water made their skin slide together as he ground into her, instinctual. Her fingertips trailed down the curve of his spine, and he sighed, sighed into her mouth between kisses. His ribcage rippled with the strain of breathing, not because his motions tired him, but because this was Meredith, he hadn't been with her in a week, and suddenly he found he could want her again. The last shower, when she'd stripped in front of him, he could remember thinking she was beautiful, but it hadn't done a thing for him. He'd been tired, upset, depressed, sick, and it hadn't done a thing. It did things now. It did lots and lots of things.
He tilted his head back as she licked her way up his neck. The water thundered down around them, warm, inviting, like a cocoon. The sounds of the hospital were gone, replaced only by the roar, and the roar itself became a sort of silence.
"Jesus, Mere," he wheezed when her roaming grip brushed against his hips and found home. He thrust into her hand as she wrapped her fingers around his length. She cupped him, kneaded him, and he couldn't hold onto reason. The throbbing pressure he'd lost before began to climb into something almost unbearable, and he pushed against her, jamming her hands between his groin and her abdomen as he slammed them into the wall. He reached over her head and braced himself against the tiles on the wall, raining breathy, shivery kisses down against her when he could manage them between his struggles for air.
She laughed softly, kissing him, licking him, tasting him. "God, I missed you," she moaned as he pressed into her again, stopping her ministrations until he pulled away to give her room again.
"I missed you, too," he agreed, breathless, breathless, burning. "And I really missed wanting you."
"There was definitely missing involved," Meredith whispered. She stopped kneading him, leaning back against the wall, her head hitting the tiles with a soft, dull thunk. She sighed, and her fingers tickled his hips, his ribs, his chest. "When did you?" she said between pants, only to devolve into a moan when he slipped his fingers between her thighs and rubbed her.
"Earlier this morning," he said. "It was embarrassing."
She laughed. "Oh, Derek. You could have told everyone to leave."
"Yeah, and explaining why would have been so fun for me," he growled, withdrawing his hands.
"No," she hissed, drawing him back to her. "Touch me."
He laughed, descending on her mouth. She tasted like his mint toothpaste. He delved, devoting careful attention to every bump and cavern, every taste bud. Her slippery skin danced against his. She sucked on his lower lip, moaning as he pulled away to take a breath.
"Please, Derek," she whispered, her breaths hot and desperate. "Take me, now."
The words fell against his ears like salve. He was hard, and ready, and just as desperate as she sounded. Desperate to feel her slick insides clenched around him, desperate to feel the freefall of the end, when he would spill himself inside her. He panted, lowering his hands past the curve of her ass and sweeping under her thighs. He squeezed her quads.
It wasn't until he tried to lift her that reality came crashing back. He technically wasn't supposed to be lifting anything more than five pounds, and Meredith, light as she was, was a far, far greater weight than that. But she was shorter. She was shorter, and he'd never be able to... He pulled her up anyway, his muscles quivering as he held her at the right height and angled to push into her. She gasped, flexing her knees against his waist as he sheathed himself with her and flattened her back against the wall.
He felt like he was going to die as her wet, slick heat slipped around him to the hilt. Everything inside of him throbbed, and want, want for her, want for her heat and her taste and her sex sucked him down into a cyclone.
"Oh," she moaned, leaning back against the wall, arching into him, as he fought with himself, fought to catch his breath. He leaned forward, kissing her shoulder. Her breasts mashed into him, and he wanted to move, he wanted it so badly that black, fuzzy spots started to overwhelm him, sending him to a dim, surreal place hugged with desire and desperation, but sliced by weakness he couldn't overcome. He wanted to go, but just holding her up had pushed him to his limits.
Meredith squeezed around him, and he moaned, deep and throaty. She rocked a little in his grasp, obviously as hungry for movement as he was, but he couldn't. He couldn't do it. The thought of trying to move, trying to thrust made him quiver. His fingers slipped along the wet skin of her thighs as he fought to keep his grip, panting, not from desire, but because he just wasn't strong enough to do this yet, wasn't strong enough at all. He sucked in air, sucked it down in choking swallows as he leaned his forehead against the wall.
She kissed his shoulder, but she stilled, as if she realized that his lack of movement wasn't some sort of game, wasn't foreplay, wasn't anything but failure. "Derek?" she whispered.
"I can't," he murmured into her neck as heat flushed his skin. "I can't, I'm sorry. I can't... You're... I can't."
What he wanted didn't mesh at all with what he could do, it seemed. In what was the hardest act of aborted sex he'd ever experienced, he pulled out and let her feet slip to the ground. He leaned against the wall, letting the hot water pour down his back, his chest.
"I can't lift you," he said, sighing so heavily it rolled down his entire spine. He tried to ignore the embarrassing need to push himself against something, anything to alleviate the tension in his groin. Steam made the air thick and hard to process, which only made breathing more difficult. He felt awful. Awful for leading her on, awful for not being able to follow through, and awful because he couldn't stop wanting her even then, and he didn't want to jack off to fix it while she was just standing there, her gray eyes peering at him under the hood of dark, wet lashes.
For a few seconds, she regarded him in silence, and then she smiled. The water roared. "Is that all?"
"What?" he said, panting. "What do you mean, is that all? Yes, that's all." He wouldn't do this in a hospital bed. He wouldn't. Not with his family loitering god knew where, while he was under constant observation by nurses and doctors who could walk in at any time. He was already on display enough. Which left what, exactly?
"Do you still want to?"
"Yes," he hissed. "God, yes, Mere."
She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. She kissed his lips, his chin, his throat, his pectorals, tilting up and down on her toes. Desire which had barely waned despite his embarrassment started a slow crawl toward unbearable. He plunged his fingers into the wet tendrils of her hair, ground against her helplessly, groaned. "Mere, please, I don't want you to..." His voice fell away as she touched him, sliding a nail up along the underside of his erection. All he could manage was a low, rumbling groan. I don't want you to make this a service, he'd meant to say.
He wanted to have her, wanted to move with her, wanted to be inside her. He wanted to love her. Again. Like he had before. The way that'd made her quiver and scream and melt. He didn't want to get jerked off like an invalid. He just... God. She kissed him, sending a flare of sensation sprawling through his body like exploding fireworks. Again, again, again.
"I'm not going to," she answered his unfinished request. Her own words were breathless, needing, quivering with desire. She blinked, her body shuddered, and he realized he'd driven her to the same state he found himself in. Needing. Needing badly, but not wanting anything less than connection, flesh to flesh, him inside her, buried, groaning, gasping. But, unlike him, she didn't sound frustrated.
Her wet fingers slipped against his hips as she drowned him with kiss after desperate kiss. He followed her. She shifted him around, guiding him with light pressure, and they twisted to the other end of the shower like a pair of dancers in a twirl. She pushed him down onto the bench at the rear of the shower, lifting her knees up onto the bench to straddle him only for a moment before she slipped down on top of him again, and he was inside. Inside her. His breath caught, and he wrapped his arms around her waist to support her.
The spray that fell down around them was a hot, misting remnant of the main runoff from the showerhead, keeping them damp and slick and warm. She slid up his legs, grinding more deeply against him, only to settle. He touched everything inside her, everything. There was nowhere left to go. She tightened around him and laced her hands together behind his shoulders, resting against him. It was an awkward position, awkward for fast, desperate movement, awkward for pistoning, driving thrusts that would bring their lovemaking to completion in moments, but perfect, perfect for the sort of loving he needed then, the sort of loving he wanted to give, the sort of loving he could give. Slow. Attentive.
"You're very resourceful," he said, panting. Sitting. They hadn't really tried chairs before. The angling wasn't exactly intuitive, and it wasn't the best position for either of them to move very much. When he and Meredith had sex, there was usually a lot of movement. A lot. She rocked against him, squeezing herself along his length in a way that made him sigh and lose track of the world. Rational thought tumbled away, resettling only after a shivery, precarious moment where he thought his heart would stop.
"I totally am," she agreed. "This is sort of like a lotus, I think. Well, not really." She panted. "I'm kind of kneeling more than lotusing, I guess. Is lotusing a word?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Kama Sutra?"
"Don't ask."
He laughed. "Well, you are very flexible," he said as he dipped his head and kissed her.
"I am," she purred.
She shifted, moving her lower torso in tight, slow circles. He wasn't in a position to do much more than receive, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter at all, because he was inside of her. He was home. And he no longer felt any sort of pressure to perform, any sort of pressure to keep going. He just let it take him.
The moments slid away from him into a blur of needing as she rolled her torso into him like a wave. She pushed herself against him, pulling with her own arms to support herself, freeing him to do other things like petting, squeezing, caressing. Her breasts were full and round and heaving. He touched them, laving her chest, her neck, her lips with kisses until he couldn't think anymore, until every breath falling from his lips was a grunt or a groan or a moan. The pressure built, slowly, more slowly than before. Either from the pace or the codeine or whatever, he didn't care by the end. He just needed to finish.
She gasped, her breaths falling against his face. Her fingers clutched the skin of his neck, his shoulders, wherever she roamed. Her body quivered, and then she tensed, leaning into him, over his shoulder. A long, low moan fell from her lips, her grip went slack, and he held her up, held her up despite the fire burning his coherency into dust. "Oh, fuck, Derek, yes," she chanted until it became a mantra. "Yes. Fuck. Yes, yes, yes." She shivered in his grip, shivered like a leaf, and he felt her tense around him, felt her rapid throbbing up and down his length. He leaned back, unable to stop the woeful groan that pealed from his lips, not wanting to stop it. She shook and shook and shook. It was a quiet orgasm, but no less intense than anything he'd ever watched her experience before. It took her several moments to start moving again.
"Are you close?" she whispered as she licked a trail past his ear. Her fingers brushed his face, pushing him back into a muted arch that presented his ribcage to her. She splayed her palms against the curls just over his groin and slid up, up, up against his torso. He caught himself, throwing his hands behind him, resting his weight on his quivering limbs.
"Yes," he managed in the whining blur. Desperation pulsed like a sound behind his ears until it became a long, continuous, shrieking wail, and all he wanted was to finish it. "Mere," he said, his voice throaty and raw from... Everything. His eyes slipped shut as she took advantage of the open angle to slide more vigorously against him. He felt himself shift inside her, felt the tightening of everything.
His whole body tensed, and for a long parade of moments, she continued moving with no results. He hung there, stuck on the precipice until he couldn't speak, couldn't do anything but moan her name, again, again, again. He sat up straight, and in desperation, pulled her into him, mashing his torso to hers. The warmth of her skin burned against him, hot and heaving. He ran his hands through her wet hair, needing to move, or do something, or have an outlet for the place he was stuck at, stuck tense and ready and not going. A stuttering sound of pain fell from his lips as she rippled up against him again and again and again, but it wasn't pain, just needing, needing, needing that wouldn't stop.
Her movements stuttered to a stop as she came again, writhing against him. "Oh," she moaned. "Oh, god. I love you, I love you, I love you. Fuck." Her skin shivered as he slipped down along her hot, wet skin, kissing, tasting, licking, needing. Beyond reason, beyond anything but the fact that he was near, and far, and stuck, stuck, stuck. The twitching, shivering jerks of her second orgasm as it racked her insides along his length finally pushed him over.
For a moment, his breaths seized up in his chest. He leaned back against his hands, shaking, unable to draw air, and the world around them seemed to shimmer and blur and disappear, until all he could see was her, her milky, freckled skin, slick with water, puckered in places from oversaturation, her soft, gray, sparkling eyes. He barked with a half-groan, half-shout as the tension sprang him into blissful release. She clenched around him, her arms sliding under his and wrapping around his back, holding him, supporting him as he fell into hard-earned oblivion. He jerked inside of her, robbed of the ability to stop the flexing of his muscles from the ends of his fingers to the tips of his toes, robbed of the ability to hold himself upright.
"Fuck," he grunted as the spasms subsided, and her grip eased.
She knelt on top of him, panting, and they listened to the pelting thunder of the water, not speaking, just breathing. Steam curled around them, thick in the air from the constant replenishment. He wrapped his arms around her, leaning his forehead down onto her shoulder as he tried to recover anything resembling thought.
"I love you," she murmured into his ear as he rested against her. "I love you so much. Thank you. I missed you. I missed you so much. I needed. I needed you so much. Thank you." Her voice warbled, almost crying, but not. Her body quivered, and he realized that, though she'd meant it when she'd said she hadn't wanted to pressure him, hadn't wanted to force him into something he wasn't ready for, she really had needed this, needed it badly.
"Mmm," he groaned. It was supposed to be an I love you. It was supposed to be a thank you. It was supposed to be a lot of things. But his brain wasn't connecting with his mouth, and he just sat there, spent, utterly spent. A warm, dull hum spread through his body as the remnants of his orgasm settled into every muscle, every pore, every space held between the edges of his skin. He was still inside her, still connected, and he felt complete, sated, perfect.
Exhausted.
But, for once that week, it was an exhausted that he could live with.
He definitely felt okay today.
Author: AriaAdagio
Rating: M
Pairing: Mer/Der
Summary: Post Time After Time. Derek takes Meredith to visit his family in Connecticut, but nothing goes as planned.
~~~~~
Meredith lay on his bed, reading a book propped up against her knees. She gave him a ghost of a smile when she looked up. "Hey."
"Hey," he replied as he glanced around at the empty room.
"Your family left," she said as she slammed her book shut and put it on the bed beside her. "They figured after you got back we probably would want some alone time. Are you...?"
"I'm okay, Mere," he said. He hobbled to the bed and sat down on the edge. "Tired. But okay."
"Is she okay?"
"No. But she will be. I think we... I think we're finally through."
"You weren't through before?" Meredith said. Her voice held curiosity, not condemnation.
"I needed to tell her I was sorry. I needed to tell her that and mean it, no interruptions."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No. It's done. I'm okay."
"Okay," she said. She scooted to the edge of the bed, wrapped her arms around him, and he couldn't stop the shudder that tore through his frame. "Derek?"
"I want to go home, Mere," he said tiredly.
"One more day, Derek," she said. "You can make it. Dr. Weller stopped by. He said the MRI looked great."
Derek sighed. A swell of relief slammed into him, and his eyes dipped shut. His eyes stung, but tears seemed beyond him for the moment. Emotional whiplash. He was pretty sure he was done. Done for a while. Done feeling.
Meredith rubbed his back, and he leaned into her. Leaned into her heat. Her quiet support seemed still and silent to the churning tumble of everything else. He dipped his head against her shoulder and kissed her in the crook of her neck, relishing the soft taste of her skin. She gasped as he pushed down her shoulder, moving the neckline of her shirt with him. The warmth of her reached into him and tore apart the chill.
"Mere, will you..." he whispered against her skin.
"What?" she said.
"Shower. I feel... I need..."
"Sure," she said. "Do you want help?"
"No. I think I can..." he replied. "Just sit with me?" He pulled away from her.
"I can do that," she said. "I'll go get a shower cap for you."
She left as he heaved himself to his feet and released his intravenous line from the catheter in his wrist. He walked into the bathroom in a daze. She returned in moments, and he sat down on the toilet seat while she taped his wrist with scrutiny she usually saved for cutting someone open. Her fingertips brushed the lines of surgical tape around his wrist and upper forearm, checking for kinks or holes. The touch sent a shiver of needing through his frame. She smiled.
"What?" he said as he stood up.
"I love you," she replied. "I really, really do."
He smiled at her. "I love you, too."
She handed him a shower cap she'd opened, and as he stepped into the shower, he saw her sit down on the toilet seat with a book. He stripped off his dirty clothes, feeling marginal relief from just peeling the soiled, warm cotton away from his skin. He was happy. Happy that she hadn't seemed to expect a big production. Stripping. Washing himself off without her help. He loved her. But right then? Right that moment? He felt tired, unattractive, and weak, and if he could bathe himself, finally, he'd like to.
He put on the shower cap and lumbered to the faucet, spending only moments adjusting the water before he had sheets of warmth pelting him. Steam curled around him, and he sighed as everything fell away from him. He leaned against the wall and let it. For a long time. Not out of necessity, but because the spray of water relaxed him. It was gratifying to be able to relax into it and not worry about falling down.
He smiled. He wasn't worried about falling down at all, he realized. He'd gotten tired from moving around that morning, from chasing Addison, from sitting and standing and walking back, but the fatigue hadn't seemed to linger too long after he'd stopped to rest. That was a relief. It was like he'd worked his way out of a deficit and was finally starting to accrue something again. Something that made him whole.
He washed himself off, working the soap against his muscles, rubbing in deep, massaging circles that made everything seem to loosen. The coil of emotional wreckage from the last few days began to untwist. He watched the swirls of water as they meandered to the drain, imagining it was everything. Everything that had upset him. Mark. Addison. His mother. Being sick and stared at.
"Doing okay?" Meredith called.
"Yeah," he said, his voice low and breathy as he leaned against the wall again and let the water strip the suds away from him. His muscles quivered, and behind his eyelids, he found peace and sanctuary. He wanted to dip his head under the spray and let the thunder take the rest of the world away, but he didn't. The shower cap might not hold up so well under direct assault. He settled for the leaning. With his ear pressed against the wall, the beat of the water seemed like a roar and a rush, and the tiles were cool against the heat of his skin.
It was an idle thought that brought her into his sanctuary with him. Early on, when they'd just started dating, and there'd still been a tense sort of unfamiliarity lingering between them, he'd been taking a shower, and she'd walked in, announcing her presence, nervously saying she just wanted to brush her teeth and then she'd be gone.
I'm sorry. I'll be out of here really fast, she'd babbled. Izzie left out some chocolate frosty cupcake things, which I stupidly tried. I have to get rid of the aftertaste. It's all nutty and gooky, and it's sticking to the back of my throat. I'm hoping mint will cure it. Anyway, I'm not trying to barge in or anything. Not that I barged. I did knock. And you said it was okay. I hope it was. Okay, I mean. Because, I mean, I've seen you. But showers are sort of different. And I'm not trying to intrude on your privacy or anything. Just... Teeth. You know. They need cleaning. Ick.
He'd slid the door open and poked his head out, quietly amused by her rambling. You could join me, he'd suggested. She'd stared at him, wide-eyed, toothbrush dangling from her mouth.
He grinned at the memory. The water pelted down around him, and he stood there, engrossed in the recollection, his breaths shortening. Pressure began to pulse, low and steady in his groin, as he remembered the curve of her thigh, the way she'd stepped in foot first, tantalizing him before she'd gifted him with a full view. He sighed as the excitement he'd quashed before coursed back into his veins.
"Mere," he called over the rush of the water, "Do you want... Do you want to come in?"
He leaned against the wall in the silence that followed. The spark of arousal he'd felt drained quickly in the crush of sudden nerves. He hadn't had sex with Meredith in a week. He wasn't even sure he could. He just knew he wanted it. He'd known all morning that he did. But it was different, now. He was weak. It wasn't even self-deprecation. It was a fact. He was weak. He wasn't sure what he could manage even if he was physically able. And he looked...
He didn't look sexy anymore.
"To help?" Meredith asked after a long pause.
"No. I want to... Um," he said, and he felt the blush creeping over his cheeks even under the heat of the water. He didn't know why it was suddenly a big deal. Sex. They'd talked about it all week in both veiled and direct ways. He started to shiver despite the heat. He hadn't really thought this through that much. If she didn't want to, or if he couldn't, that would really put a damper on things, possibly making it even worse when they got home and tried to resume something resembling a normal sex life.
Meredith didn't leave him stranded in the doubting for more than a few seconds. "Okay," she said as she stepped into the shower with him, already naked.
His breath fell away from him at the sight of her. She had toned, curvy shoulders. Her body narrowed slightly before swelling at the hips and tapering down to her delicate feet and little toes. In the time that she'd changed out of her clothes, her nipples had already perked up, crowning the swell of her breasts, and she looked... She looked beautiful.
Water droplets clung to subtle hairs, only to join the stream sliding down her body when she stepped into the spray with him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "You mean sex, right? Not just company?" she asked, direct, to the point, not nervous at all. "Either is okay, Derek."
He clasped her shoulders with his fingers, squeezing before he let his grip roam lower, down her back to the curve of her ass. "Oh, I meant sex," he said. He kissed her on the lips, plunging with his tongue as if he could pull the taste of her back inside himself. Her panting whispered against the walls as he backed her up against the tiles and roamed down the side of her neck with his lips, nibbling on her clavicle, her shoulder. "Definitely sex," he added, her lack of hesitation bolstering his confidence more than any reassurance or murmured encouragement ever could.
The water made their skin slide together as he ground into her, instinctual. Her fingertips trailed down the curve of his spine, and he sighed, sighed into her mouth between kisses. His ribcage rippled with the strain of breathing, not because his motions tired him, but because this was Meredith, he hadn't been with her in a week, and suddenly he found he could want her again. The last shower, when she'd stripped in front of him, he could remember thinking she was beautiful, but it hadn't done a thing for him. He'd been tired, upset, depressed, sick, and it hadn't done a thing. It did things now. It did lots and lots of things.
He tilted his head back as she licked her way up his neck. The water thundered down around them, warm, inviting, like a cocoon. The sounds of the hospital were gone, replaced only by the roar, and the roar itself became a sort of silence.
"Jesus, Mere," he wheezed when her roaming grip brushed against his hips and found home. He thrust into her hand as she wrapped her fingers around his length. She cupped him, kneaded him, and he couldn't hold onto reason. The throbbing pressure he'd lost before began to climb into something almost unbearable, and he pushed against her, jamming her hands between his groin and her abdomen as he slammed them into the wall. He reached over her head and braced himself against the tiles on the wall, raining breathy, shivery kisses down against her when he could manage them between his struggles for air.
She laughed softly, kissing him, licking him, tasting him. "God, I missed you," she moaned as he pressed into her again, stopping her ministrations until he pulled away to give her room again.
"I missed you, too," he agreed, breathless, breathless, burning. "And I really missed wanting you."
"There was definitely missing involved," Meredith whispered. She stopped kneading him, leaning back against the wall, her head hitting the tiles with a soft, dull thunk. She sighed, and her fingers tickled his hips, his ribs, his chest. "When did you?" she said between pants, only to devolve into a moan when he slipped his fingers between her thighs and rubbed her.
"Earlier this morning," he said. "It was embarrassing."
She laughed. "Oh, Derek. You could have told everyone to leave."
"Yeah, and explaining why would have been so fun for me," he growled, withdrawing his hands.
"No," she hissed, drawing him back to her. "Touch me."
He laughed, descending on her mouth. She tasted like his mint toothpaste. He delved, devoting careful attention to every bump and cavern, every taste bud. Her slippery skin danced against his. She sucked on his lower lip, moaning as he pulled away to take a breath.
"Please, Derek," she whispered, her breaths hot and desperate. "Take me, now."
The words fell against his ears like salve. He was hard, and ready, and just as desperate as she sounded. Desperate to feel her slick insides clenched around him, desperate to feel the freefall of the end, when he would spill himself inside her. He panted, lowering his hands past the curve of her ass and sweeping under her thighs. He squeezed her quads.
It wasn't until he tried to lift her that reality came crashing back. He technically wasn't supposed to be lifting anything more than five pounds, and Meredith, light as she was, was a far, far greater weight than that. But she was shorter. She was shorter, and he'd never be able to... He pulled her up anyway, his muscles quivering as he held her at the right height and angled to push into her. She gasped, flexing her knees against his waist as he sheathed himself with her and flattened her back against the wall.
He felt like he was going to die as her wet, slick heat slipped around him to the hilt. Everything inside of him throbbed, and want, want for her, want for her heat and her taste and her sex sucked him down into a cyclone.
"Oh," she moaned, leaning back against the wall, arching into him, as he fought with himself, fought to catch his breath. He leaned forward, kissing her shoulder. Her breasts mashed into him, and he wanted to move, he wanted it so badly that black, fuzzy spots started to overwhelm him, sending him to a dim, surreal place hugged with desire and desperation, but sliced by weakness he couldn't overcome. He wanted to go, but just holding her up had pushed him to his limits.
Meredith squeezed around him, and he moaned, deep and throaty. She rocked a little in his grasp, obviously as hungry for movement as he was, but he couldn't. He couldn't do it. The thought of trying to move, trying to thrust made him quiver. His fingers slipped along the wet skin of her thighs as he fought to keep his grip, panting, not from desire, but because he just wasn't strong enough to do this yet, wasn't strong enough at all. He sucked in air, sucked it down in choking swallows as he leaned his forehead against the wall.
She kissed his shoulder, but she stilled, as if she realized that his lack of movement wasn't some sort of game, wasn't foreplay, wasn't anything but failure. "Derek?" she whispered.
"I can't," he murmured into her neck as heat flushed his skin. "I can't, I'm sorry. I can't... You're... I can't."
What he wanted didn't mesh at all with what he could do, it seemed. In what was the hardest act of aborted sex he'd ever experienced, he pulled out and let her feet slip to the ground. He leaned against the wall, letting the hot water pour down his back, his chest.
"I can't lift you," he said, sighing so heavily it rolled down his entire spine. He tried to ignore the embarrassing need to push himself against something, anything to alleviate the tension in his groin. Steam made the air thick and hard to process, which only made breathing more difficult. He felt awful. Awful for leading her on, awful for not being able to follow through, and awful because he couldn't stop wanting her even then, and he didn't want to jack off to fix it while she was just standing there, her gray eyes peering at him under the hood of dark, wet lashes.
For a few seconds, she regarded him in silence, and then she smiled. The water roared. "Is that all?"
"What?" he said, panting. "What do you mean, is that all? Yes, that's all." He wouldn't do this in a hospital bed. He wouldn't. Not with his family loitering god knew where, while he was under constant observation by nurses and doctors who could walk in at any time. He was already on display enough. Which left what, exactly?
"Do you still want to?"
"Yes," he hissed. "God, yes, Mere."
She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close. She kissed his lips, his chin, his throat, his pectorals, tilting up and down on her toes. Desire which had barely waned despite his embarrassment started a slow crawl toward unbearable. He plunged his fingers into the wet tendrils of her hair, ground against her helplessly, groaned. "Mere, please, I don't want you to..." His voice fell away as she touched him, sliding a nail up along the underside of his erection. All he could manage was a low, rumbling groan. I don't want you to make this a service, he'd meant to say.
He wanted to have her, wanted to move with her, wanted to be inside her. He wanted to love her. Again. Like he had before. The way that'd made her quiver and scream and melt. He didn't want to get jerked off like an invalid. He just... God. She kissed him, sending a flare of sensation sprawling through his body like exploding fireworks. Again, again, again.
"I'm not going to," she answered his unfinished request. Her own words were breathless, needing, quivering with desire. She blinked, her body shuddered, and he realized he'd driven her to the same state he found himself in. Needing. Needing badly, but not wanting anything less than connection, flesh to flesh, him inside her, buried, groaning, gasping. But, unlike him, she didn't sound frustrated.
Her wet fingers slipped against his hips as she drowned him with kiss after desperate kiss. He followed her. She shifted him around, guiding him with light pressure, and they twisted to the other end of the shower like a pair of dancers in a twirl. She pushed him down onto the bench at the rear of the shower, lifting her knees up onto the bench to straddle him only for a moment before she slipped down on top of him again, and he was inside. Inside her. His breath caught, and he wrapped his arms around her waist to support her.
The spray that fell down around them was a hot, misting remnant of the main runoff from the showerhead, keeping them damp and slick and warm. She slid up his legs, grinding more deeply against him, only to settle. He touched everything inside her, everything. There was nowhere left to go. She tightened around him and laced her hands together behind his shoulders, resting against him. It was an awkward position, awkward for fast, desperate movement, awkward for pistoning, driving thrusts that would bring their lovemaking to completion in moments, but perfect, perfect for the sort of loving he needed then, the sort of loving he wanted to give, the sort of loving he could give. Slow. Attentive.
"You're very resourceful," he said, panting. Sitting. They hadn't really tried chairs before. The angling wasn't exactly intuitive, and it wasn't the best position for either of them to move very much. When he and Meredith had sex, there was usually a lot of movement. A lot. She rocked against him, squeezing herself along his length in a way that made him sigh and lose track of the world. Rational thought tumbled away, resettling only after a shivery, precarious moment where he thought his heart would stop.
"I totally am," she agreed. "This is sort of like a lotus, I think. Well, not really." She panted. "I'm kind of kneeling more than lotusing, I guess. Is lotusing a word?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Kama Sutra?"
"Don't ask."
He laughed. "Well, you are very flexible," he said as he dipped his head and kissed her.
"I am," she purred.
She shifted, moving her lower torso in tight, slow circles. He wasn't in a position to do much more than receive, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter at all, because he was inside of her. He was home. And he no longer felt any sort of pressure to perform, any sort of pressure to keep going. He just let it take him.
The moments slid away from him into a blur of needing as she rolled her torso into him like a wave. She pushed herself against him, pulling with her own arms to support herself, freeing him to do other things like petting, squeezing, caressing. Her breasts were full and round and heaving. He touched them, laving her chest, her neck, her lips with kisses until he couldn't think anymore, until every breath falling from his lips was a grunt or a groan or a moan. The pressure built, slowly, more slowly than before. Either from the pace or the codeine or whatever, he didn't care by the end. He just needed to finish.
She gasped, her breaths falling against his face. Her fingers clutched the skin of his neck, his shoulders, wherever she roamed. Her body quivered, and then she tensed, leaning into him, over his shoulder. A long, low moan fell from her lips, her grip went slack, and he held her up, held her up despite the fire burning his coherency into dust. "Oh, fuck, Derek, yes," she chanted until it became a mantra. "Yes. Fuck. Yes, yes, yes." She shivered in his grip, shivered like a leaf, and he felt her tense around him, felt her rapid throbbing up and down his length. He leaned back, unable to stop the woeful groan that pealed from his lips, not wanting to stop it. She shook and shook and shook. It was a quiet orgasm, but no less intense than anything he'd ever watched her experience before. It took her several moments to start moving again.
"Are you close?" she whispered as she licked a trail past his ear. Her fingers brushed his face, pushing him back into a muted arch that presented his ribcage to her. She splayed her palms against the curls just over his groin and slid up, up, up against his torso. He caught himself, throwing his hands behind him, resting his weight on his quivering limbs.
"Yes," he managed in the whining blur. Desperation pulsed like a sound behind his ears until it became a long, continuous, shrieking wail, and all he wanted was to finish it. "Mere," he said, his voice throaty and raw from... Everything. His eyes slipped shut as she took advantage of the open angle to slide more vigorously against him. He felt himself shift inside her, felt the tightening of everything.
His whole body tensed, and for a long parade of moments, she continued moving with no results. He hung there, stuck on the precipice until he couldn't speak, couldn't do anything but moan her name, again, again, again. He sat up straight, and in desperation, pulled her into him, mashing his torso to hers. The warmth of her skin burned against him, hot and heaving. He ran his hands through her wet hair, needing to move, or do something, or have an outlet for the place he was stuck at, stuck tense and ready and not going. A stuttering sound of pain fell from his lips as she rippled up against him again and again and again, but it wasn't pain, just needing, needing, needing that wouldn't stop.
Her movements stuttered to a stop as she came again, writhing against him. "Oh," she moaned. "Oh, god. I love you, I love you, I love you. Fuck." Her skin shivered as he slipped down along her hot, wet skin, kissing, tasting, licking, needing. Beyond reason, beyond anything but the fact that he was near, and far, and stuck, stuck, stuck. The twitching, shivering jerks of her second orgasm as it racked her insides along his length finally pushed him over.
For a moment, his breaths seized up in his chest. He leaned back against his hands, shaking, unable to draw air, and the world around them seemed to shimmer and blur and disappear, until all he could see was her, her milky, freckled skin, slick with water, puckered in places from oversaturation, her soft, gray, sparkling eyes. He barked with a half-groan, half-shout as the tension sprang him into blissful release. She clenched around him, her arms sliding under his and wrapping around his back, holding him, supporting him as he fell into hard-earned oblivion. He jerked inside of her, robbed of the ability to stop the flexing of his muscles from the ends of his fingers to the tips of his toes, robbed of the ability to hold himself upright.
"Fuck," he grunted as the spasms subsided, and her grip eased.
She knelt on top of him, panting, and they listened to the pelting thunder of the water, not speaking, just breathing. Steam curled around them, thick in the air from the constant replenishment. He wrapped his arms around her, leaning his forehead down onto her shoulder as he tried to recover anything resembling thought.
"I love you," she murmured into his ear as he rested against her. "I love you so much. Thank you. I missed you. I missed you so much. I needed. I needed you so much. Thank you." Her voice warbled, almost crying, but not. Her body quivered, and he realized that, though she'd meant it when she'd said she hadn't wanted to pressure him, hadn't wanted to force him into something he wasn't ready for, she really had needed this, needed it badly.
"Mmm," he groaned. It was supposed to be an I love you. It was supposed to be a thank you. It was supposed to be a lot of things. But his brain wasn't connecting with his mouth, and he just sat there, spent, utterly spent. A warm, dull hum spread through his body as the remnants of his orgasm settled into every muscle, every pore, every space held between the edges of his skin. He was still inside her, still connected, and he felt complete, sated, perfect.
Exhausted.
But, for once that week, it was an exhausted that he could live with.
He definitely felt okay today.