Fic: Just Desserts
Author: Jo March
Spoilers: Vague references to What Kind of Day Has It Been and In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen.
Disclaimer: I try not to be bitter; but every time I look at Josh, I think, "Damn, he's not mine!" Tell me how a woman can avoid being bitter about a thing like that.
Summary: Banter, banter. Smut, smut. Banter. Adult content -- If you're under 18, go away now.
Thanks: to Ryo, who laughs at all the right places and thinks up titles when I draw a blank, and to Morgan, who stalks innocent writers and forces them to put Josh and Donna in a bubblebath. It's torture, I tell you!
"You stole my car."
Donna had barely made it inside the door -- balancing one purse, two bags of groceries, three days' worth of mail and the car keys precariously in her arms -- when Josh attempted to loom over her menacingly while accusing her of grand theft auto. The looming didn't so much bother her since she had on three-inch heels and was able to stare him down.
"I didn't steal. I borrowed. I liberated. I was doing you a favor."
"By stealing my Audi?"
"Again, not stealing. Running your errands. Buying you food. Making sure the battery on your precious car doesn't die from, you know, disuse."
"You left me without transportation. You did this deliberately. You are attempting to keep me a prisoner in my own home."
"Overstating. You went out yesterday."
"To a doctor's office. Not to the real world. Is it still out there, Donna? Have I missed, like, an entire season? Because I remember spring; but according to CNN, it's summer now. Rapidly progressing toward fall. And on the very day I announce that I'm thinking of going for a little drive, my jailer--"
"Assistant."
"My jailer disappears with my car."
"You shouldn't be out driving around. You don't have the strength yet."
"I have plenty of strength. I am oozing strength. I am the strongest--"
"Yeah, if you're so strong, you want to take these groceries out of my hands and put them away?"
Josh peered down into one of the grocery bags, pointedly not taking it from Donna. "What the hell is all that stuff anyway?"
"It's called food, Josh. People eat it."
"It's raw. There is raw food in that bag."
Donna rolled her eyes and turned toward the kitchen. She sat the bags on the counter and began placing the groceries in the appropriate refrigerator and pantry shelves. "It's healthy food," she explained. "Not take-out. Not fast food. I am going to cook you an actual healthy meal tonight."
"You can't cook," Josh protested. Then it occurred to him that the question of whether his assistant knew how to cook had never entered his mind. He had entertained the occasional thought regarding Donna's presence in his kitchen, but food had never played a substantial role in those musings. Well, except as a sort of accessory. There was this one scenario regarding Donna and whipped cream that he was particularly fond of. "Wait. You know how to cook?"
"Please," Donna replied. "With my family? My mother considered cooking the single most important skill her daughters could learn."
Josh followed Donna into the kitchen, perching himself on the countertop while he watched her put the rest of the groceries away. "And you're going to cook for me? Tonight? Really?"
"Yes, but don't get used to it. I'm making a point here."
"And that point would be...?"
"If you'd been listening to your doctor--"
"That's pretty much why I brought you along."
"If you'd been listening, you'd understand that you have to start watching your diet. You have to take very good care of your heart from now on, Josh."
"There's nothing wrong with my heart. The doctor said I was doing just fine."
"Yes, and let's keep it that way."
"So you're going to come over and cook for me all the time?"
"In your dreams."
"Rarely."
She decided it was best not to pursue that line of thinking. "You know, we could make this dinner a pleasant experience. You could change out of those ratty old sweatpants and into something presentable."
"I like these sweatpants. God knows they beat the hell out of those damn hospital gowns."
"I don't know, Josh. I got kind of fond of the hospital gowns. Especially every time you tried to sit up, and I got a glimpse of your, shall we say, assets."
"You're an evil woman. I wouldn't put up with you if I had a car."
"You're not going outside, so forget it. You're much too weak."
"Not what the doctor said."
"I thought you weren't listening to the doctor."
"I heard the parts I was interested in. He said I could rejoin the world of the living."
"In small doses. He said you shouldn't overdo it."
"I'm not overdoing it. If anything, I'm underdoing it."
"Yes, but I know you. If I let you out, you'll head straight to the White House. You'll try to put in a sixteen-hour day. You'll--"
"I won't. I promise. Come on, Donna. Tomorrow's Saturday. We can play."
She raised one eyebrow. "And what is your definition of play?"
"We'll take a walk. Go for a drive." He raised a hand to silence her protest. "Okay, you can do the driving. We'll go to the nearest Starbucks."
"You should avoid caffeine."
"It's not the coffee I crave. It's the people."
"You want to converse with the total strangers at Starbucks?"
"I want to mock the total strangers at Starbucks." He hopped off the counter and moved closer to Donna. Practically whispering in her ear, he said, "Come on, Donnatella. You know you want to do it."
"Josh."
"Starbucks, Donna. Latt�s. Mocking. There are bound to be some Republicans there. I ask you: What can be more fun on a beautiful summer morning than drinking lattes and mocking Republicans?"
"Well..."
He was grinning. She tried to remember the last time he had grinned at her like that. It had been the day before Rosslyn. "If we go," she said, "we can only stay an hour. You shouldn't overdo."
"Deal."
"And you have to eat the very healthy dinner I am about to prepare, a task which I should point out is in no way included in my job description."
"Can I have dessert?"
"No dessert."
"Donna," he whined.
"Do you want to go to Starbucks?" she asked.
"Fine," he said, although his tone indicated that he was not in the least bit happy about it.
"And you have to change out of those sweatpants."
More whining.
"I mean it, Joshua."
"Can I wear jeans? Because I don't see the point in putting on a suit if it's just the two of us."
"Jeans will be acceptable." Tight and faded will be more than acceptable, she added to herself.
He walked off toward the bedroom to look for a relatively clean pair of jeans.
"And Josh?" she called after him.
"What?"
"Take a bath, would you?"
***
Sometime during the last three months, Josh reflected, Donna had taken over his home. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the bathroom. In May, he'd had a perfectly serviceable bathroom -- clean, functional, uncluttered. Oh, she'd been subtle; he'd give her that. First it had just been the toothbrush. The toothbrush had even been his fault. The first couple of days after he'd gotten out of the hospital, he'd decided that he slept better if Donna stayed over. Staying over meant letting her deposit her girly pink toothbrush next to his sensible green one. But then there'd been that day when she went back to work, and he'd struggled out of bed -- an act that took entirely too much energy and depressed the hell out of him -- and into the bathroom. For the first time since That Night, he'd been alone. Frankly, for a moment or two, it had scared the hell out of him. Then he'd looked at Donna's toothbrush sitting there like it belonged in his bathroom, and he'd been amazingly reassured. After that, he reflected, he hadn't stood a chance.
She needed her own toothpaste. His wasn't good enough for Donnatella Moss, oh no. She had to have her special Rembrandt whitening toothpaste; she couldn't buy whatever was on sale like a regular person. And then there was her weird oatmeal soap. And the shampoo. Her shampoo was special, she told him, and expensive and available only at your finer salons. How she afforded it on the salary she was always complaining about, he was sure he didn't know. However, he was under strict orders never, ever to touch the shampoo. And then there were those little pink and yellow and green bags filled with things he didn't even want to speculate about. Eye shadows and lipsticks and lotions and other girly stuff. Taking up all his counter space. Then it got worse. Then she started decorating.
His practical plastic shower curtain had served him well and faithfully for many years, but Donnatella Moss said it was ugly. Donnatella Moss said he needed a new shower curtain. So she'd marched off to Bed, Bath and Beyond with a gleam in her eye and his credit card in her pocket and returned with a new shower curtain. Also a new bathmat, towels, washcloths and a makeup mirror. He'd never owned a makeup mirror in his life. He did not now, nor would he ever, need a makeup mirror. Yet there it was, courtesy of Donnatella Moss and the nice people at Visa.
The thing that most worried him about the Donnafication of his home was that he liked it. God help him, he liked the new shower curtain, which was all browns and golds and not at all girly because Donna really did have excellent taste. And the towels were something she referred to as Egyptian cotton and a hell of a lot more comfortable than his old towels. Oh sure, it worried him that he now knew that the little pink and yellow and green bags were her spoils of war -- or something called "Clinique Bonus Days," which was apparently the CJ-and-Donna equivalent of the Super Bowl as the highlight of the year. But, god help him, he still got all teary-eyed looking at her toothbrush.
This, however, was the last straw. This was the moment when a man had to take a stand.
She had now had the audacity to bring bubblebath into his home. And not just any bubblebath either.
He marched back toward the kitchen, bubblebath in hand.
"Donna?"
"Yeah?" She didn't look up from the cookbook she was studying with the same intensity she usually gave to her index cards.
"What the hell is this?"
She looked up . Her eyes grew wide. "Uh...my naked boss?"
Josh pulled the Egyptian cotton towel more tightly around his waist. "I am not naked."
"No," Donna admitted. "But you're certainly not dressed, are you?"
"You're ignoring my question." He waved the bubblebath around with the hand that was not clutching his towel. "Why is this in my bathroom?"
"Because I wanted to take a bubblebath. Feel free to help yourself to it."
"I have no intention of helping myself to -- will you quit staring? Geez, Donna!"
"I was just thinking that I was right about the towels. See? You said you didn't need them, but those old ones of yours were practically threadbare, Josh. Those old towels would have left nothing to my imagination."
"Donna!"
"And you have to admit that shade of brown is perfect for you. You know, when you're up to shopping, we should find you a suit in that shade."
"The bubblebath, Donna?"
She shrugged. "I said. I like bubblebath."
"This is for babies! It's Johnson & Johnson. It says right here, 'Helps soothe fussy babies.' What the hell were you thinking?"
"It's lavender and chamomile, Josh. Perfect for those of us with sensitive skin. Most bubblebaths irritate my skin. And in my opinion, you could do with a little soothing. You should try it."
"If Sam or Toby ever saw this--"
"Do Sam and Toby make a habit of examining the contents of your medicine cabinet?"
"No, but--"
"Then stop complaining. And try the bubblebath. You'll enjoy it." Clearly dismissing him, Donna turned back to her cookbook.
Clutching his towel around him tightly, Josh wandered back to the bathroom in defeat.
***
What, Josh wondered, did this development say about his life? He was a smart, powerful, charismatic guy. Republicans quaked when they saw him approach. Senators of both parties bowed before him. He had his own fan club.
And because Donnatella Moss suggested it, he was soaking in a lavender and chamomile-scented tub.
When, he asked himself, had the balance of power shifted in this relationship? At what point had he started doing things because Donna told him to? Wasn't he, literally, the boss? Wasn't she supposed to do his bidding?
"The coffee," he muttered to himself. "That's where I went wrong. The first day, I should have specified that she had to bring me coffee if she wanted the job. I should have made that the deal breaker."
Clearly, things had to change. The longer he allowed this situation to go unaddressed, the more difficult it would become to restore the balance of power in his favor. There was only one thing to do. "Donnatella Moss!" he bellowed.
He heard something that sounded suspiciously like a pot hitting the floor. Instead of the reply he expected, the usual "Oh, hold your horses, Josh! I'm busy," he heard Donna's heels clattering across his floor and the bathroom door being flung open.
"What's wrong?" Donna asked. He looked up at her; he was amazed to see that her face could turn paler than usual.
"I just -- I want you to bring me coffee," he said.
"That's why you were screaming my name?"
"I wouldn't call it screaming," he answered defensively. "And, you know, I didn't expect you to just fly in here without knocking." Thank God for the bubbles, he thought.
"It was screaming," she told him. "For all I knew, you could have fallen. You could have slipped on something. You could have been having a heart attack. I'm supposed to wait and knock if your health is in jeopardy?"
"A heart attack? And you think that I would somehow find time in the middle of that to yell your full name?"
"You wouldn't?"
The sad thing, he told himself, was that he probably would. Deciding to leave that thought alone for the time being, he repeated his original request. "Coffee would be nice." In his head, he thought, that had been an order, a demand. Why had it come out in that pathetic sounding little voice, like he was begging or asking her forgiveness or something?
"I told you before, Josh, you have to start watching your caffeine intake."
"For how long?"
She rolled her eyes. "Forever."
He leaned back against the shower wall and stared up at her. This too was typical of their relationship these days, he thought: his having to look up to see her. He was a man of some fame and quite a bit of power, and he was reduced to having to stare up to get a good look at his assistant.
"Josh!"
"What?" He followed her fascinated gaze down to where a certain portion of his body had been uncovered when he'd moved. A certain intimate portion of his body. A certain intimate portion of his body which was beginning to respond to all her staring. Well, he thought, at least his life had now gotten as humiliating as it could get.
And that was when she started laughing.
"Yeah," he said, "that's it. That's the sound you dream of hearing in this situation."
"I'm sorry," Donna said between giggles. "I was just thinking that now at least you know it still works."
"There was never any doubt of that, believe me."
"I'm sure there wasn't." He thought he heard a note of condescension in her voice.
"It's been working just fine all along."
"I'm sure it has."
"There was absolutely no damage done to this part of my body."
"Did I say there was?"
"You implied."
"I wasn't implying anything. I was just saying that I know this is an area that men tend to be sensitive about."
"Not this man."
"And considering that you underwent surgery, it would only be natural that you might be concerned about whether you would lose any, you know, functionality."
"Is that even a word?"
"And if you had any doubts, which I'm not saying you did, this would alleviate them."
"I had no doubts."
"I'm sure you didn't."
"If I'd had any doubts, they were alleviated weeks ago what with you prancing around here at night in your skimpy little nightshirt."
"My nightshirt is not skimpy. And what do you mean prance? I do not prance."
"Oh," he said, drawing out the syllable as much as possible, "you prance, Donnatella Moss. You prance every damn night."
"I don't -- Wait a minute. Are you saying that I've -- that you've been -- that this has happened before?"
"Yes. So don't go implying that there's something wrong with the equipment, okay? We're talking full functionality here; let's just be clear about that."
"Well," she said, "that's -- well."
Now that he'd cleared up the matter, Josh reflected, that probably was not the best piece of information to relay to one's assistant. Especially not when the assistant already was controlling your life. Time to backtrack.
"What I'm saying is," he started. He never did get the sentence finished, however, since that was the moment Donna walked over to the edge of the tub, grabbed him by the shoulders and started kissing.
The equipment, it turned out, was capable of even more functionality than he'd previously supposed.
***
This was a mistake, Donna thought.
This was a mistake for a number of reasons. This was a mistake because Josh was her boss. This was a mistake because she'd just made the first move and that meant Josh would know exactly how much he meant to her and that would give him far too much power over her.
Mainly, however, this was a mistake because she'd knelt down to kiss him and her knees were beginning to ache.
"Josh," she whispered.
Josh was leaning back against the wall, eyes closed, with quite the satisfied expression on his face. He opened one eye and looked at her suspiciously.
"You stopped kissing me," he said.
"Yes."
"Do you plan on resuming the kissing?"
"Well, that's the question, isn't it? I mean, on the one hand, you're my boss."
"Are you sure? Because I seem to have lost control of this relationship somewhere along the line, and I don't feel very bosslike."
"Technically. It's in the job description."
"I've never seen this job description you keep talking about. I'm not sure it even exists."
"It exists."
"You're deliberately hiding it from me. You'll give it to me the day before we leave office, and I'll find out that it says you have to bring me coffee. It's all a cruel joke, isn't it?"
"Josh, focus. What are we doing here?"
"You were kissing. I was being kissed. It was quite enjoyable. Can we do it again?"
"I mean, looking at the larger picture. Is this just a momentary aberration, or are we starting something here?"
"It doesn't feel like we're starting something," Josh said. "Actually, it feels more like we're in the middle of something. Like, you know, we've been doing this for a while."
This struck Donna as a profound statement. She sat back to contemplate it for a moment. "You're right," she decided. "That's it. That's exactly what this feels like."
"Great. Now that we've settled that, will you get your clothes off and get in this tub?"
"I don't know, Josh. I have a number of concerns."
"Such as?"
"Well, for one thing, how is this going to affect our working relationship?"
"You're going to be so impressed you will insist on bringing me coffee every morning."
"Not going to happen."
"So then I guess it's pretty much not going to have any effect on our working relationship."
"And what if people found out? What do we do then?"
"Well, considering that you've been prancing around my home for the last three months--"
"Again, for the record, I must state that I have never pranced."
"Liar. But, yeah, we could have a problem there."
"Too much of a problem to make this worth it?" she asked.
"I'm thinking the benefits outweigh the risk."
"I'm thinking you could be right."
"So that's it for the concerns?" he asked.
"Yes. Wait. No. I've got one more," she said, suddenly standing up.
"And that would be?"
"I left the oven on. I have to go turn it off. I'm thinking we'll be skipping dinner tonight, so just pour some more bubblebath in there, would you?"
***
He was, Josh decided, an idiot. A complete and total idiot. He would have banged his head against the wall, but he decided that it wouldn't hurt nearly enough to make the effort worthwhile.
Donnatella Moss wanted him. This woman who was intelligent, adorable, gorgeous, bossy, way too sarcastic for her own good, and not nearly impressed enough by his highly important position, wanted him.
And he was totally unprepared.
It wasn't entirely his fault, he reflected. He wasn't like Sam, happily tripping over prostitutes who were willing to do him free of charge. (And now that he thought about it, why wasn't he like that? What did Sam have that he didn't have? Of course, now that he thought about the matter, the answer was that he had something Sam was lacking -- namely, an assistant who controlled every aspect of his life.) While the likes of Sam would no doubt be prepared for a spur-of-the-moment encounter with the woman of his dreams, Josh was not.
He didn't consider this his fault. He had, after all, had a great deal on his mind lately. In the greater scheme of things, recovering from a major gunshot wound tended to make you forget the little details like whether you had any condoms. And, sadly, he hadn't really needed them for quite a while. Mandy had taken care of all the birth control things (mostly because, she said, she didn't trust him to pay attention to the details of their relationship) and the thing with Joey Lucas had never progressed to the point where he felt the need to make any purchases.
And, after all, while Donna was out buying all her girly stuff for the bathroom, couldn't she have anticipated this? Did this not, in the most fundamental sense, constitute providing assistance? Was this the sort of thing that should be covered in her precious job description?
After a moment's consideration, he realized that this was not a line of reasoning he should pursue out loud. Not if he ever wanted to sleep with Donnatella Moss.
Then, of course, he thought, looking at the bright side, there was always the possibility that this was a crisis of such great proportions that Donna would actually let him out of the house to make a quick trip to the drugstore. He found this possibility almost as enticing as the idea of having sex with Donna.
He realized that this was another thought he should not share with her.
"You didn't pour more bubblebath."
He looked up, startled to see that Donna had returned. And that she'd shed most of her clothing along the way. She seemed to be down to a t-shirt and a pair of panties.
Looking at her, he was afraid that he really wouldn't have time to make that trip to the drugstore even if she did let him out.
"We seem to have another complication," he said.
Donna sighed. "And this one would be?"
"Protection. I am sadly lacking."
"No condoms?"
"Nary a one."
She gave him what he had long ago termed the Donnatella Glare of Doom. "Use them all up with Joey Lucas?" she asked in a voice that could freeze boiling water.
"Things never progressed to that point with Joey Lucas," he admitted. He tried to figure out whether this was a bad thing to admit ("Yes, the nice lady I was attracted to wouldn't give me the time of day") or a good thing to tell her ("Look, Donna, I was saving myself for you.") Bad thing, he decided. She wasn't naive enough to buy the "I was saving myself for you" line. Which was a shame because, now that he thought about it, that's probably what he had been doing all along.
"So what you're saying is--?"
"One of those things you should never, ever ask a man to admit."
"Not since Mandy?"
"Well, in my own defense, if a year with Mandy doesn't turn you off the idea of sex, what will?"
She was giving him a rather smug smile. Knowledge was power, after all, and once again he'd given her something to use against him. "I suppose," she said after a minute, "in the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I haven't done this in over a year."
"Is that so?" he asked. Perked him right up, that little tidbit did. "None of the local gomers could match up to what you saw in the office, huh?"
"You really don't want to get laid tonight, do you?"
"I was just pointing out--" He took a good look at her expression and decided to change the subject. "We are still faced with the protection issue."
"Not a problem," she announced, pulling her t-shirt over her head. "I'm on the pill."
It took several moments for her words to sink in, especially since she was undoing her bra. He'd spent many fun-filled hours speculating about what Donna's naked breasts would look like. The reality was much, much more satisfying.
He forced himself to focus, which was proving difficult since she was slipping her panties off. "You didn't have sex for a year, but you kept taking the pill anyway?"
She shrugged. "What can I tell you?" she said, kicking the panties out of the way and placing one delicate foot into the water. "I'm an eternal optimist."
***
"Are you just going to stand there all night and taunt me with your naked body, or were you planning on getting in the tub?" Josh asked.
"The water's lukewarm," Donna complained. "And the bubbles are disappearing."
"Yeah, well, I think that we'll be finding ourselves in enough hot water over this eventually."
"You're a ray of sunshine there, aren't you, Joshua?" Donna, standing by the edge of the tub, suddenly stood on her toes, raised her arms over her head and arched her back. This move had three results: Donna's breasts jutted forward, her lower abdomen came even more prominently to Josh's attention, and Josh lost the ability to think. In fact, his expression -- eyes bulging, mouth forming a sort of O -- resembled nothing so much as CJ's goldfish. He finally recovered the power of speech enough to ask what she was doing with, as he so tactfully put it, "the nude calisthenics."
"My back aches," she replied. "Also my knees. From the leaning over and the kissing."
"Oh, sure, blame me."
She stretched again. Josh found it all strangely mesmerizing. "I'm just saying," she replied.
"So," Josh said, "what you need is someone to rub your back for you."
She smiled. What the hell did it say about him, he wondered, that he found the sight of her smiling at him more erotic than all the nudity and the arching? It was so dorky, so uncool, so not macho.
And she was just so adorable when she smiled like that.
"More hot water, Josh. Also bubbles."
He turned the water back on; he even, god help him, dumped half a container of her silly infant bubblebath in the tub.
She raised an eyebrow. "You may be going overboard there, Josh."
"Hey," he said. "A woman asks me for bubbles, she gets bubbles."
"But not skis or a DVD player or a trip to Hawaii. Or an end to your unreasonable coffee demands."
"Donna, if you just do that arching thing in the office every day, I'll never ask you to bring me coffee again. Swear to god."
"You know," she said, climbing into the tub, "I have no idea why I put up with you."
***
It really was a good question, Donna told herself as she settled against Josh's chest. Why the hell did she put up with him? More to the point, why did she find herself doing the most outrageous things for him? Cooking? Cooking was the sort of thing women like her mother did. Cooking was exactly the sort of thing she had vowed never, ever to do for a man. Yet there she'd been, pouring over cookbooks because she lived in fear of what would happen to Josh's poor abused heart if he were left to his own devices.
The man, she thought, had entirely too much power over her. And now look at her: jumping into bed -- well, bath -- with him the first time he demonstrated any interest.
This was a bad thing. She should put a stop to this, make it clear she could manage without him just fine.
Except that, as she was learning, he could give one hell of a massage.
His hands moved over her back and shoulders with the same sort of assurance that characterized most aspects of his life. She closed her eyes and sighed with satisfaction. Then Josh pressed a kiss on the sensitive spot just underneath her ear, his warm breath tickling her neck. "So how ya doin'?" he asked in that voice he liked to use when teasing her.
"Not completely bad," she replied. Just as well the big dork couldn't see the smile that was plastered all over her face.
The hands that had been moving slowly down her back, releasing all those weeks of tension, came to a sudden stop at her waist. One arm went around her waist; his other hand continued to slide down her body, finally stroking the inside of her thigh. That was pretty much the point at which she stopped worrying about whether he had too much power over her and simply decided to enjoy what he was doing. For the time being anyway, she amended.
She twisted her upper body around just enough so she could see his face. He was, of course, looking entirely too pleased with himself. Someone, she decided, needed to wipe that smirk off his face. Kissing seemed like a particularly effective method of accomplishing that goal.
Sadly, the kissing also had the goal of temporarily distracting him from the touching. She was missing the touching.
"Josh?" she murmured against his mouth.
"Hmmmm?"
"I'm going to stand up."
"Why?" he asked suspiciously.
"So I can turn around."
"Again, why?"
"Because this would be more comfortable if I weren't all twisted around like this."
"Okay." And he kept kissing her.
"Josh?"
"Yeah?"
"You have to stop kissing me."
"I really don't think that's going to happen." And he went back to the kissing.
"Thirty seconds tops. Then we're back to kissing."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"While you're making promises--"
"No, you don't get coffee."
He shrugged. "Thought as much, but I figured I'd give it my best shot anyway."
She managed to stand, which she thought was something of an accomplishment for someone who felt as weak in the knees as she did at the moment, and turn around. She stared down at him for a second, as another thought occurred to her.
"My legs," she said.
"Yes," he answered. "I've noticed. From this angle, they're really quite something."
"No, you idiot. Where do I put my legs when I sit back down? There's hardly any room and--"
"They're extremely impressive, your legs. And they just don't end. They keep going on and on and on. And there are two of them. That's so, so symmetrical, you know?"
"Josh. Focus."
"You were saying?"
"You need a larger tub."
"Do you ever stop with the redecorating? The shower curtain, the bathmat, now a tub."
"Do you have any useful suggestions?"
"Um, we get out of the tub?"
"But there are still bubbles. I don't want to waste perfectly good bubbles."
Josh rolled his eyes. "See, we wouldn't have this problem if we'd taken a shower."
"Not helpful."
"I'm just pointing out. For future consideration. Showers can be fun too. Also beds. I've got a big old bed with plenty of room for you and your endless legs."
"Weren't you the one who was complaining about having spent too much time in bed lately?"
"Only because I was there alone." He readjusted himself so that there was more room in the tub, and Donna finally sat back down. Josh managed to maneuver so that Donna's legs, with which he was still obsessed, were wrapped tightly around his hips. "So," he asked, "you more comfortable now?"
"Comfortable is not perhaps the word I would choose," Donna muttered. She was far too aware of Josh's erection pressing against her body and of the way his hands were now gliding along her legs. It was, she thought, ridiculous the things the man could do to her, merely by touching her skin. She decided that it was time to take matters into her own hands.
The way he jumped when she wrapped her hand around his shaft was quite, quite gratifying.
"You know," he said, "you really should give a guy advance warning before you do a thing like that."
She ran one finger up and down the length of him. "Is that a complaint?" she asked.
"No, ma'am. No complaints. Things are just peachy here."
She was so focused on what she was doing to him that she barely noticed when his hand slid up her leg to her thigh. Consequently, the sudden pressure of his hand on her sex caused her to gasp and lift her hips in surprise.
"That was cute," Josh remarked. "You did a little bouncing thing there, Donnatella."
"I did not bounce," she protested.
"Looked like bouncing to me. Let's see if I can make you do it again." He started to lift his hand, but Donna quickly put her hand on top of his and held him in place.
"Really," she said, "I think I like you just fine where you are."
"You sure? 'Cause I can think of some other things to do."
"This will do just fine," she said. "For now."
It was actually well beyond fine, Donna noted to herself. Apparently, they had entered into some sort of weird competition to see which one could make the other come first.
Josh, she had to admit, was winning.
He had begun to move one finger inside her rather skillfully. It was, in fact, a trifle disconcerting to discover how unerringly he went to exactly the right spot without direction and that he seemed to know precisely how much pressure she needed to feel there. She was vaguely aware of the fact that she was compulsively repeating his name like those three syllables were some sort of erotic litany. And then he kissed her and he added just the tiniest bit of pressure and he definitely won the competition.
When she stopped shaking, she discovered that she had grabbed his shoulders tight enough to leave the imprint of her fingers on his skin.
"Oops."
"'Oops'?" he repeated. "All you can say is 'oops'?"
"I dug my fingernails into--"
"Because from where I'm sitting that looked like a hell of a lot more than 'oops' to me. It looked like 'Thank you, Joshua, for taking me places I've only dreamed of. I'm so grateful that--'"
"No coffee."
"Dear lord, what does a man have to do to get a cup of coffee from you?"
"Get out of this tub and maybe you'll find out."
***
"Okay, Donna -- subtle hint. When a man is standing in front of a woman and they're both naked, he generally doesn't enjoy hearing her laugh at him."
"Sorry. It's -- you are covered in bubbles." She took a long, appreciative look over his body. "Every inch is just covered in bubbles."
"You've got a few too. And I admit they're clinging to some of my favorite spots."
"We must do something about this."
"Suggestions?"
She reached for another one of those oversized Egyptian cotton towels she'd bought him. "Let's dry you off."
Now this, Donna reflected, was interesting. As competitive as Josh could be, he was also capable of standing quite still -- passive might not be too strong a word -- and letting her take control. She was having entirely too much fun moving the fabric slowly over his skin, watching him gasp when she moved over a particularly sensitive spot, getting him to turn around so she could dry off his back.
Then it was his turn to dry her off. It was, she thought, intriguing -- especially watching the look in Josh's eyes as he moved the towel over her body. However, she decided, there were disadvantages -- namely the fact that the cotton came between Josh's hands and her flesh.
"So I'm thinking we could lose the towel now," she said.
"And possibly move things into the bedroom?" he asked.
"And here I thought you were tired of spending so much time in bed. Isn't that what you've been complaining about for weeks?"
"Complaining? I wouldn't call it complaining? More like--"
"Josh, shut up and get into bed."
"I thought you'd never ask."
***
She was in bed with Josh. She was in an actual bed with Josh Lyman.
Damn, but life was good.
Josh wasn't bad either. He was back in overachiever mode. He had run his hands and mouth over every inch of her body. She watched, fascinated, as he began to move his tongue inside her and the tension she was feeling grew. She thought she really should ask him if he wanted her to do anything to reciprocate at the moment, but she seemed to be losing the ability to think clearly. She rapidly reached the point where her world consisted only of the sight of Josh's brown hair against her sex and the way the sensations he was creating radiated from her clit to the rest of her body.
She took a minute to catch her breath while he moved back up to her side, looking entirely too smug. She would, she decided, have to do something about that. So she kissed him. She gave him a long, passionate kiss on the lips and, just when he was about to break it off, she started moving down his body. She traced a path down the line of hair from his chest, stopping for a few minutes to dip her tongue in and out of his belly button. He seemed to be unusually sensitive there, she noted. He seemed to be moaning quite a bit, which she felt was payback for his "bouncing" remark in the bathtub.
She thought the way he moaned was awfully sexy. She wondered if this meant she should seek professional help.
She was just about to take him in her mouth when he spoke. "Um, Donna," he said, "do you think you could maybe wait and do that after?"
She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "Dessert, as it were?" she asked.
"Yeah. I'm definitely ready for the main course here. I am, in fact, ravenous. I am a man in need of a full-course meal." His face was lit up with this look of utter pleasure that she hadn't seen since before Rosslyn. If, really, she'd ever seen him look quite this happy. It caught her completely off guard.
"You're a ridiculous man, but I love you anyway."
Oh shit, she thought. She hadn't meant for that to slip out. That, she thought, was entirely the wrong thing to say. Maybe if they started right in on that full-course meal, he'd forget that she'd said it. After all, this was the first time he'd had sex since the shooting, right? So he'd be too focused on the physical stuff to notice any incriminating words she might let fall in the heat of the moment. She hoped. She stroked him a few times, momentarily distracted by the way his hands clutched her hips. Yes, she thought, he was definitely focused on the details of his first post-shooting sex, not on--
Post-shooting sex. The phrase sort of stuck in her head. It sounded vaguely ominous, and it raised some doubts. Doubts that she thought should be addressed immediately.
"Wait. Stop," she said -- and not, judging from his position, a moment too soon. "I have a possible objection."
"Now? You're bringing me a possible objection at this point?"
"I have concerns, Joshua, yes."
Josh threw a pillow over his head in order to muffle the string of profanities he was muttering to himself.
"What was that?" Donna asked, plucking the pillow away from Josh's head.
"You're killing me here, Donnatella."
"And that was my concern."
"What?" Josh looked slightly bewildered.
"What I mean is," Donna said, lightly running her fingers over his scar, "considering what you've been through, should you be doing something so strenuous?"
"Did we not discuss this earlier?"
"We discussed whether everything was working. Which clearly it is. That doesn't necessarily mean that you should take it out for a test drive, as it were."
"The sheer number of mixed metaphors there would cause Toby to--"
"Josh, be serious."
"I am serious. It's a little late to be raising objections here, Donna. I'm pretty much at the point where this is going to happen with or without you."
"I'm concerned."
"Reciting baseball statistics until things return to normal size? Not going to work in this situation."
"Josh, I am worried about your heart."
"Yeah, I'm thinking I pretty much lost control of that when you answered my phone the first day."
"You're avoiding my question."
"See? That right there, that was one of those compliment things women are supposed to be so fond of. Just sailed right over your head."
"Josh."
"All right. Fine. Seriously. My doctor said we could resume our normal sexual relationship whenever we were ready."
"Resume our normal sexual relationship?"
"He said. He also hinted that we should avoid the kinky stuff for awhile. Are we going to be into the kinky stuff? 'Cause that's one hell of an incentive to get me through my physical therapy is all I'm saying."
"We have no normal sexual relationship."
"And, I'm guessing, we never will have. The normal part, that is. I live in hope that the sexual relationship will commence momentarily."
"Why would your doctor think of us that way?"
"And once again my hopes are dashed."
"I mean--"
"Apparently," Josh said, pulling her to him for a quick kiss on the forehead, "when a beautiful woman sits by your bedside for hours on end and accompanies you to all your doctor's appointments, people make assumptions."
"Really? That's -- I had no idea."
"I'm told we give off a vibe."
"Well, imagine that."
"I know. Shocked the hell out of me, I'm saying."
"We have our own vibe?"
"So it would seem."
Donna put on her thoughtful face. "We need to work on controlling the vibe."
"Can we have sex first? Please?"
"Well, I suppose. If we must."
"I'm going to have to insist on it."
"You can't insist, Josh. This isn't the office, and this is most assuredly not in my job--"
"For the love of god, woman, will you just do it?"
"Well," she said, smiling down at him, "if you're going to insist."
"Oh yeah," he answered, grinning up at her, "I'm feeling quite insistent here."
"Well, then, okay." She moved over him, placing one hand on his erection and guiding him inside her. It took a moment for her to adjust to the feel of him, but then suddenly this wondrous feeling -- this realization that she and Josh fit together so perfectly -- took over. He began to slide out, and she whimpered in protest, and then he was back again, thrusting and filling her while she wrapped herself as tightly around him as she could manage. One hand was clutching his while with the other she guided his free hand to her clit. His fingers worked in tandem with the rhythm his thrusting had created. She came just a few seconds before he did, vaguely noticing that she now seemed to have established some pattern whereby she always called out his name when he made her climax.
Judging from the look on his face, he liked this new pattern just fine.
"So," she said, as he slid out of her and wrapped her in a very satisfying embrace, "I'm thinking that was pretty much your 'I'm-happy-to-be-alive' sex." This, she thought, was a smart move on her part -- define what had just happened on her own terms, keep it light, ignore what she'd blurted out earlier about being in love. This would work just fine.
"No," Josh answered. "I don't think that's what it was at all. Especially not in light of that thing you said before."
Bastard, she thought. She should have known he wouldn't let her get away with that. "Then how would you define it?" she asked, carefully not looking at him.
"I would call it the 'Okay, I finally admit I'm in love with Donna' sex."
"Oh," she said. "That's what you'd call it, then?"
"That's what it was," he replied.
"Well, so you're in love with me. Isn't that interesting?"
"You said something along those same lines, as I recall."
"Yes, I'm quite fond of myself. I've loved Donna for years."
"You said--"
"I love you. Yes, I seem to have blurted that out. Make of it what you will."
"Oh," he said, and he had that infuriatingly smug grin on his face, "I intend to make quite a lot out of it."
"Really? You no doubt think this puts you in a position of power, my admitting that."
"Well, considering that it was a mutual admission, I'd say we're about even."
"For the time being," she acknowledged. "However, I intend to change that. I intend to fix things in my favor."
"And exactly how do you intend to do that?" he asked.
She looked at him, propped up against the pillows all happy and healthy and gloriously alive, and she beamed. "Simple, really," she told him. She started to slide slowly down the length of his body. "Get ready for dessert."
THE END
06.26.01
Spoilers: Vague references to What Kind of Day Has It Been and In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen.
Disclaimer: I try not to be bitter; but every time I look at Josh, I think, "Damn, he's not mine!" Tell me how a woman can avoid being bitter about a thing like that.
Summary: Banter, banter. Smut, smut. Banter. Adult content -- If you're under 18, go away now.
Thanks: to Ryo, who laughs at all the right places and thinks up titles when I draw a blank, and to Morgan, who stalks innocent writers and forces them to put Josh and Donna in a bubblebath. It's torture, I tell you!
"You stole my car."
Donna had barely made it inside the door -- balancing one purse, two bags of groceries, three days' worth of mail and the car keys precariously in her arms -- when Josh attempted to loom over her menacingly while accusing her of grand theft auto. The looming didn't so much bother her since she had on three-inch heels and was able to stare him down.
"I didn't steal. I borrowed. I liberated. I was doing you a favor."
"By stealing my Audi?"
"Again, not stealing. Running your errands. Buying you food. Making sure the battery on your precious car doesn't die from, you know, disuse."
"You left me without transportation. You did this deliberately. You are attempting to keep me a prisoner in my own home."
"Overstating. You went out yesterday."
"To a doctor's office. Not to the real world. Is it still out there, Donna? Have I missed, like, an entire season? Because I remember spring; but according to CNN, it's summer now. Rapidly progressing toward fall. And on the very day I announce that I'm thinking of going for a little drive, my jailer--"
"Assistant."
"My jailer disappears with my car."
"You shouldn't be out driving around. You don't have the strength yet."
"I have plenty of strength. I am oozing strength. I am the strongest--"
"Yeah, if you're so strong, you want to take these groceries out of my hands and put them away?"
Josh peered down into one of the grocery bags, pointedly not taking it from Donna. "What the hell is all that stuff anyway?"
"It's called food, Josh. People eat it."
"It's raw. There is raw food in that bag."
Donna rolled her eyes and turned toward the kitchen. She sat the bags on the counter and began placing the groceries in the appropriate refrigerator and pantry shelves. "It's healthy food," she explained. "Not take-out. Not fast food. I am going to cook you an actual healthy meal tonight."
"You can't cook," Josh protested. Then it occurred to him that the question of whether his assistant knew how to cook had never entered his mind. He had entertained the occasional thought regarding Donna's presence in his kitchen, but food had never played a substantial role in those musings. Well, except as a sort of accessory. There was this one scenario regarding Donna and whipped cream that he was particularly fond of. "Wait. You know how to cook?"
"Please," Donna replied. "With my family? My mother considered cooking the single most important skill her daughters could learn."
Josh followed Donna into the kitchen, perching himself on the countertop while he watched her put the rest of the groceries away. "And you're going to cook for me? Tonight? Really?"
"Yes, but don't get used to it. I'm making a point here."
"And that point would be...?"
"If you'd been listening to your doctor--"
"That's pretty much why I brought you along."
"If you'd been listening, you'd understand that you have to start watching your diet. You have to take very good care of your heart from now on, Josh."
"There's nothing wrong with my heart. The doctor said I was doing just fine."
"Yes, and let's keep it that way."
"So you're going to come over and cook for me all the time?"
"In your dreams."
"Rarely."
She decided it was best not to pursue that line of thinking. "You know, we could make this dinner a pleasant experience. You could change out of those ratty old sweatpants and into something presentable."
"I like these sweatpants. God knows they beat the hell out of those damn hospital gowns."
"I don't know, Josh. I got kind of fond of the hospital gowns. Especially every time you tried to sit up, and I got a glimpse of your, shall we say, assets."
"You're an evil woman. I wouldn't put up with you if I had a car."
"You're not going outside, so forget it. You're much too weak."
"Not what the doctor said."
"I thought you weren't listening to the doctor."
"I heard the parts I was interested in. He said I could rejoin the world of the living."
"In small doses. He said you shouldn't overdo it."
"I'm not overdoing it. If anything, I'm underdoing it."
"Yes, but I know you. If I let you out, you'll head straight to the White House. You'll try to put in a sixteen-hour day. You'll--"
"I won't. I promise. Come on, Donna. Tomorrow's Saturday. We can play."
She raised one eyebrow. "And what is your definition of play?"
"We'll take a walk. Go for a drive." He raised a hand to silence her protest. "Okay, you can do the driving. We'll go to the nearest Starbucks."
"You should avoid caffeine."
"It's not the coffee I crave. It's the people."
"You want to converse with the total strangers at Starbucks?"
"I want to mock the total strangers at Starbucks." He hopped off the counter and moved closer to Donna. Practically whispering in her ear, he said, "Come on, Donnatella. You know you want to do it."
"Josh."
"Starbucks, Donna. Latt�s. Mocking. There are bound to be some Republicans there. I ask you: What can be more fun on a beautiful summer morning than drinking lattes and mocking Republicans?"
"Well..."
He was grinning. She tried to remember the last time he had grinned at her like that. It had been the day before Rosslyn. "If we go," she said, "we can only stay an hour. You shouldn't overdo."
"Deal."
"And you have to eat the very healthy dinner I am about to prepare, a task which I should point out is in no way included in my job description."
"Can I have dessert?"
"No dessert."
"Donna," he whined.
"Do you want to go to Starbucks?" she asked.
"Fine," he said, although his tone indicated that he was not in the least bit happy about it.
"And you have to change out of those sweatpants."
More whining.
"I mean it, Joshua."
"Can I wear jeans? Because I don't see the point in putting on a suit if it's just the two of us."
"Jeans will be acceptable." Tight and faded will be more than acceptable, she added to herself.
He walked off toward the bedroom to look for a relatively clean pair of jeans.
"And Josh?" she called after him.
"What?"
"Take a bath, would you?"
***
Sometime during the last three months, Josh reflected, Donna had taken over his home. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the bathroom. In May, he'd had a perfectly serviceable bathroom -- clean, functional, uncluttered. Oh, she'd been subtle; he'd give her that. First it had just been the toothbrush. The toothbrush had even been his fault. The first couple of days after he'd gotten out of the hospital, he'd decided that he slept better if Donna stayed over. Staying over meant letting her deposit her girly pink toothbrush next to his sensible green one. But then there'd been that day when she went back to work, and he'd struggled out of bed -- an act that took entirely too much energy and depressed the hell out of him -- and into the bathroom. For the first time since That Night, he'd been alone. Frankly, for a moment or two, it had scared the hell out of him. Then he'd looked at Donna's toothbrush sitting there like it belonged in his bathroom, and he'd been amazingly reassured. After that, he reflected, he hadn't stood a chance.
She needed her own toothpaste. His wasn't good enough for Donnatella Moss, oh no. She had to have her special Rembrandt whitening toothpaste; she couldn't buy whatever was on sale like a regular person. And then there was her weird oatmeal soap. And the shampoo. Her shampoo was special, she told him, and expensive and available only at your finer salons. How she afforded it on the salary she was always complaining about, he was sure he didn't know. However, he was under strict orders never, ever to touch the shampoo. And then there were those little pink and yellow and green bags filled with things he didn't even want to speculate about. Eye shadows and lipsticks and lotions and other girly stuff. Taking up all his counter space. Then it got worse. Then she started decorating.
His practical plastic shower curtain had served him well and faithfully for many years, but Donnatella Moss said it was ugly. Donnatella Moss said he needed a new shower curtain. So she'd marched off to Bed, Bath and Beyond with a gleam in her eye and his credit card in her pocket and returned with a new shower curtain. Also a new bathmat, towels, washcloths and a makeup mirror. He'd never owned a makeup mirror in his life. He did not now, nor would he ever, need a makeup mirror. Yet there it was, courtesy of Donnatella Moss and the nice people at Visa.
The thing that most worried him about the Donnafication of his home was that he liked it. God help him, he liked the new shower curtain, which was all browns and golds and not at all girly because Donna really did have excellent taste. And the towels were something she referred to as Egyptian cotton and a hell of a lot more comfortable than his old towels. Oh sure, it worried him that he now knew that the little pink and yellow and green bags were her spoils of war -- or something called "Clinique Bonus Days," which was apparently the CJ-and-Donna equivalent of the Super Bowl as the highlight of the year. But, god help him, he still got all teary-eyed looking at her toothbrush.
This, however, was the last straw. This was the moment when a man had to take a stand.
She had now had the audacity to bring bubblebath into his home. And not just any bubblebath either.
He marched back toward the kitchen, bubblebath in hand.
"Donna?"
"Yeah?" She didn't look up from the cookbook she was studying with the same intensity she usually gave to her index cards.
"What the hell is this?"
She looked up . Her eyes grew wide. "Uh...my naked boss?"
Josh pulled the Egyptian cotton towel more tightly around his waist. "I am not naked."
"No," Donna admitted. "But you're certainly not dressed, are you?"
"You're ignoring my question." He waved the bubblebath around with the hand that was not clutching his towel. "Why is this in my bathroom?"
"Because I wanted to take a bubblebath. Feel free to help yourself to it."
"I have no intention of helping myself to -- will you quit staring? Geez, Donna!"
"I was just thinking that I was right about the towels. See? You said you didn't need them, but those old ones of yours were practically threadbare, Josh. Those old towels would have left nothing to my imagination."
"Donna!"
"And you have to admit that shade of brown is perfect for you. You know, when you're up to shopping, we should find you a suit in that shade."
"The bubblebath, Donna?"
She shrugged. "I said. I like bubblebath."
"This is for babies! It's Johnson & Johnson. It says right here, 'Helps soothe fussy babies.' What the hell were you thinking?"
"It's lavender and chamomile, Josh. Perfect for those of us with sensitive skin. Most bubblebaths irritate my skin. And in my opinion, you could do with a little soothing. You should try it."
"If Sam or Toby ever saw this--"
"Do Sam and Toby make a habit of examining the contents of your medicine cabinet?"
"No, but--"
"Then stop complaining. And try the bubblebath. You'll enjoy it." Clearly dismissing him, Donna turned back to her cookbook.
Clutching his towel around him tightly, Josh wandered back to the bathroom in defeat.
***
What, Josh wondered, did this development say about his life? He was a smart, powerful, charismatic guy. Republicans quaked when they saw him approach. Senators of both parties bowed before him. He had his own fan club.
And because Donnatella Moss suggested it, he was soaking in a lavender and chamomile-scented tub.
When, he asked himself, had the balance of power shifted in this relationship? At what point had he started doing things because Donna told him to? Wasn't he, literally, the boss? Wasn't she supposed to do his bidding?
"The coffee," he muttered to himself. "That's where I went wrong. The first day, I should have specified that she had to bring me coffee if she wanted the job. I should have made that the deal breaker."
Clearly, things had to change. The longer he allowed this situation to go unaddressed, the more difficult it would become to restore the balance of power in his favor. There was only one thing to do. "Donnatella Moss!" he bellowed.
He heard something that sounded suspiciously like a pot hitting the floor. Instead of the reply he expected, the usual "Oh, hold your horses, Josh! I'm busy," he heard Donna's heels clattering across his floor and the bathroom door being flung open.
"What's wrong?" Donna asked. He looked up at her; he was amazed to see that her face could turn paler than usual.
"I just -- I want you to bring me coffee," he said.
"That's why you were screaming my name?"
"I wouldn't call it screaming," he answered defensively. "And, you know, I didn't expect you to just fly in here without knocking." Thank God for the bubbles, he thought.
"It was screaming," she told him. "For all I knew, you could have fallen. You could have slipped on something. You could have been having a heart attack. I'm supposed to wait and knock if your health is in jeopardy?"
"A heart attack? And you think that I would somehow find time in the middle of that to yell your full name?"
"You wouldn't?"
The sad thing, he told himself, was that he probably would. Deciding to leave that thought alone for the time being, he repeated his original request. "Coffee would be nice." In his head, he thought, that had been an order, a demand. Why had it come out in that pathetic sounding little voice, like he was begging or asking her forgiveness or something?
"I told you before, Josh, you have to start watching your caffeine intake."
"For how long?"
She rolled her eyes. "Forever."
He leaned back against the shower wall and stared up at her. This too was typical of their relationship these days, he thought: his having to look up to see her. He was a man of some fame and quite a bit of power, and he was reduced to having to stare up to get a good look at his assistant.
"Josh!"
"What?" He followed her fascinated gaze down to where a certain portion of his body had been uncovered when he'd moved. A certain intimate portion of his body. A certain intimate portion of his body which was beginning to respond to all her staring. Well, he thought, at least his life had now gotten as humiliating as it could get.
And that was when she started laughing.
"Yeah," he said, "that's it. That's the sound you dream of hearing in this situation."
"I'm sorry," Donna said between giggles. "I was just thinking that now at least you know it still works."
"There was never any doubt of that, believe me."
"I'm sure there wasn't." He thought he heard a note of condescension in her voice.
"It's been working just fine all along."
"I'm sure it has."
"There was absolutely no damage done to this part of my body."
"Did I say there was?"
"You implied."
"I wasn't implying anything. I was just saying that I know this is an area that men tend to be sensitive about."
"Not this man."
"And considering that you underwent surgery, it would only be natural that you might be concerned about whether you would lose any, you know, functionality."
"Is that even a word?"
"And if you had any doubts, which I'm not saying you did, this would alleviate them."
"I had no doubts."
"I'm sure you didn't."
"If I'd had any doubts, they were alleviated weeks ago what with you prancing around here at night in your skimpy little nightshirt."
"My nightshirt is not skimpy. And what do you mean prance? I do not prance."
"Oh," he said, drawing out the syllable as much as possible, "you prance, Donnatella Moss. You prance every damn night."
"I don't -- Wait a minute. Are you saying that I've -- that you've been -- that this has happened before?"
"Yes. So don't go implying that there's something wrong with the equipment, okay? We're talking full functionality here; let's just be clear about that."
"Well," she said, "that's -- well."
Now that he'd cleared up the matter, Josh reflected, that probably was not the best piece of information to relay to one's assistant. Especially not when the assistant already was controlling your life. Time to backtrack.
"What I'm saying is," he started. He never did get the sentence finished, however, since that was the moment Donna walked over to the edge of the tub, grabbed him by the shoulders and started kissing.
The equipment, it turned out, was capable of even more functionality than he'd previously supposed.
***
This was a mistake, Donna thought.
This was a mistake for a number of reasons. This was a mistake because Josh was her boss. This was a mistake because she'd just made the first move and that meant Josh would know exactly how much he meant to her and that would give him far too much power over her.
Mainly, however, this was a mistake because she'd knelt down to kiss him and her knees were beginning to ache.
"Josh," she whispered.
Josh was leaning back against the wall, eyes closed, with quite the satisfied expression on his face. He opened one eye and looked at her suspiciously.
"You stopped kissing me," he said.
"Yes."
"Do you plan on resuming the kissing?"
"Well, that's the question, isn't it? I mean, on the one hand, you're my boss."
"Are you sure? Because I seem to have lost control of this relationship somewhere along the line, and I don't feel very bosslike."
"Technically. It's in the job description."
"I've never seen this job description you keep talking about. I'm not sure it even exists."
"It exists."
"You're deliberately hiding it from me. You'll give it to me the day before we leave office, and I'll find out that it says you have to bring me coffee. It's all a cruel joke, isn't it?"
"Josh, focus. What are we doing here?"
"You were kissing. I was being kissed. It was quite enjoyable. Can we do it again?"
"I mean, looking at the larger picture. Is this just a momentary aberration, or are we starting something here?"
"It doesn't feel like we're starting something," Josh said. "Actually, it feels more like we're in the middle of something. Like, you know, we've been doing this for a while."
This struck Donna as a profound statement. She sat back to contemplate it for a moment. "You're right," she decided. "That's it. That's exactly what this feels like."
"Great. Now that we've settled that, will you get your clothes off and get in this tub?"
"I don't know, Josh. I have a number of concerns."
"Such as?"
"Well, for one thing, how is this going to affect our working relationship?"
"You're going to be so impressed you will insist on bringing me coffee every morning."
"Not going to happen."
"So then I guess it's pretty much not going to have any effect on our working relationship."
"And what if people found out? What do we do then?"
"Well, considering that you've been prancing around my home for the last three months--"
"Again, for the record, I must state that I have never pranced."
"Liar. But, yeah, we could have a problem there."
"Too much of a problem to make this worth it?" she asked.
"I'm thinking the benefits outweigh the risk."
"I'm thinking you could be right."
"So that's it for the concerns?" he asked.
"Yes. Wait. No. I've got one more," she said, suddenly standing up.
"And that would be?"
"I left the oven on. I have to go turn it off. I'm thinking we'll be skipping dinner tonight, so just pour some more bubblebath in there, would you?"
***
He was, Josh decided, an idiot. A complete and total idiot. He would have banged his head against the wall, but he decided that it wouldn't hurt nearly enough to make the effort worthwhile.
Donnatella Moss wanted him. This woman who was intelligent, adorable, gorgeous, bossy, way too sarcastic for her own good, and not nearly impressed enough by his highly important position, wanted him.
And he was totally unprepared.
It wasn't entirely his fault, he reflected. He wasn't like Sam, happily tripping over prostitutes who were willing to do him free of charge. (And now that he thought about it, why wasn't he like that? What did Sam have that he didn't have? Of course, now that he thought about the matter, the answer was that he had something Sam was lacking -- namely, an assistant who controlled every aspect of his life.) While the likes of Sam would no doubt be prepared for a spur-of-the-moment encounter with the woman of his dreams, Josh was not.
He didn't consider this his fault. He had, after all, had a great deal on his mind lately. In the greater scheme of things, recovering from a major gunshot wound tended to make you forget the little details like whether you had any condoms. And, sadly, he hadn't really needed them for quite a while. Mandy had taken care of all the birth control things (mostly because, she said, she didn't trust him to pay attention to the details of their relationship) and the thing with Joey Lucas had never progressed to the point where he felt the need to make any purchases.
And, after all, while Donna was out buying all her girly stuff for the bathroom, couldn't she have anticipated this? Did this not, in the most fundamental sense, constitute providing assistance? Was this the sort of thing that should be covered in her precious job description?
After a moment's consideration, he realized that this was not a line of reasoning he should pursue out loud. Not if he ever wanted to sleep with Donnatella Moss.
Then, of course, he thought, looking at the bright side, there was always the possibility that this was a crisis of such great proportions that Donna would actually let him out of the house to make a quick trip to the drugstore. He found this possibility almost as enticing as the idea of having sex with Donna.
He realized that this was another thought he should not share with her.
"You didn't pour more bubblebath."
He looked up, startled to see that Donna had returned. And that she'd shed most of her clothing along the way. She seemed to be down to a t-shirt and a pair of panties.
Looking at her, he was afraid that he really wouldn't have time to make that trip to the drugstore even if she did let him out.
"We seem to have another complication," he said.
Donna sighed. "And this one would be?"
"Protection. I am sadly lacking."
"No condoms?"
"Nary a one."
She gave him what he had long ago termed the Donnatella Glare of Doom. "Use them all up with Joey Lucas?" she asked in a voice that could freeze boiling water.
"Things never progressed to that point with Joey Lucas," he admitted. He tried to figure out whether this was a bad thing to admit ("Yes, the nice lady I was attracted to wouldn't give me the time of day") or a good thing to tell her ("Look, Donna, I was saving myself for you.") Bad thing, he decided. She wasn't naive enough to buy the "I was saving myself for you" line. Which was a shame because, now that he thought about it, that's probably what he had been doing all along.
"So what you're saying is--?"
"One of those things you should never, ever ask a man to admit."
"Not since Mandy?"
"Well, in my own defense, if a year with Mandy doesn't turn you off the idea of sex, what will?"
She was giving him a rather smug smile. Knowledge was power, after all, and once again he'd given her something to use against him. "I suppose," she said after a minute, "in the interest of full disclosure, I should point out that I haven't done this in over a year."
"Is that so?" he asked. Perked him right up, that little tidbit did. "None of the local gomers could match up to what you saw in the office, huh?"
"You really don't want to get laid tonight, do you?"
"I was just pointing out--" He took a good look at her expression and decided to change the subject. "We are still faced with the protection issue."
"Not a problem," she announced, pulling her t-shirt over her head. "I'm on the pill."
It took several moments for her words to sink in, especially since she was undoing her bra. He'd spent many fun-filled hours speculating about what Donna's naked breasts would look like. The reality was much, much more satisfying.
He forced himself to focus, which was proving difficult since she was slipping her panties off. "You didn't have sex for a year, but you kept taking the pill anyway?"
She shrugged. "What can I tell you?" she said, kicking the panties out of the way and placing one delicate foot into the water. "I'm an eternal optimist."
***
"Are you just going to stand there all night and taunt me with your naked body, or were you planning on getting in the tub?" Josh asked.
"The water's lukewarm," Donna complained. "And the bubbles are disappearing."
"Yeah, well, I think that we'll be finding ourselves in enough hot water over this eventually."
"You're a ray of sunshine there, aren't you, Joshua?" Donna, standing by the edge of the tub, suddenly stood on her toes, raised her arms over her head and arched her back. This move had three results: Donna's breasts jutted forward, her lower abdomen came even more prominently to Josh's attention, and Josh lost the ability to think. In fact, his expression -- eyes bulging, mouth forming a sort of O -- resembled nothing so much as CJ's goldfish. He finally recovered the power of speech enough to ask what she was doing with, as he so tactfully put it, "the nude calisthenics."
"My back aches," she replied. "Also my knees. From the leaning over and the kissing."
"Oh, sure, blame me."
She stretched again. Josh found it all strangely mesmerizing. "I'm just saying," she replied.
"So," Josh said, "what you need is someone to rub your back for you."
She smiled. What the hell did it say about him, he wondered, that he found the sight of her smiling at him more erotic than all the nudity and the arching? It was so dorky, so uncool, so not macho.
And she was just so adorable when she smiled like that.
"More hot water, Josh. Also bubbles."
He turned the water back on; he even, god help him, dumped half a container of her silly infant bubblebath in the tub.
She raised an eyebrow. "You may be going overboard there, Josh."
"Hey," he said. "A woman asks me for bubbles, she gets bubbles."
"But not skis or a DVD player or a trip to Hawaii. Or an end to your unreasonable coffee demands."
"Donna, if you just do that arching thing in the office every day, I'll never ask you to bring me coffee again. Swear to god."
"You know," she said, climbing into the tub, "I have no idea why I put up with you."
***
It really was a good question, Donna told herself as she settled against Josh's chest. Why the hell did she put up with him? More to the point, why did she find herself doing the most outrageous things for him? Cooking? Cooking was the sort of thing women like her mother did. Cooking was exactly the sort of thing she had vowed never, ever to do for a man. Yet there she'd been, pouring over cookbooks because she lived in fear of what would happen to Josh's poor abused heart if he were left to his own devices.
The man, she thought, had entirely too much power over her. And now look at her: jumping into bed -- well, bath -- with him the first time he demonstrated any interest.
This was a bad thing. She should put a stop to this, make it clear she could manage without him just fine.
Except that, as she was learning, he could give one hell of a massage.
His hands moved over her back and shoulders with the same sort of assurance that characterized most aspects of his life. She closed her eyes and sighed with satisfaction. Then Josh pressed a kiss on the sensitive spot just underneath her ear, his warm breath tickling her neck. "So how ya doin'?" he asked in that voice he liked to use when teasing her.
"Not completely bad," she replied. Just as well the big dork couldn't see the smile that was plastered all over her face.
The hands that had been moving slowly down her back, releasing all those weeks of tension, came to a sudden stop at her waist. One arm went around her waist; his other hand continued to slide down her body, finally stroking the inside of her thigh. That was pretty much the point at which she stopped worrying about whether he had too much power over her and simply decided to enjoy what he was doing. For the time being anyway, she amended.
She twisted her upper body around just enough so she could see his face. He was, of course, looking entirely too pleased with himself. Someone, she decided, needed to wipe that smirk off his face. Kissing seemed like a particularly effective method of accomplishing that goal.
Sadly, the kissing also had the goal of temporarily distracting him from the touching. She was missing the touching.
"Josh?" she murmured against his mouth.
"Hmmmm?"
"I'm going to stand up."
"Why?" he asked suspiciously.
"So I can turn around."
"Again, why?"
"Because this would be more comfortable if I weren't all twisted around like this."
"Okay." And he kept kissing her.
"Josh?"
"Yeah?"
"You have to stop kissing me."
"I really don't think that's going to happen." And he went back to the kissing.
"Thirty seconds tops. Then we're back to kissing."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"While you're making promises--"
"No, you don't get coffee."
He shrugged. "Thought as much, but I figured I'd give it my best shot anyway."
She managed to stand, which she thought was something of an accomplishment for someone who felt as weak in the knees as she did at the moment, and turn around. She stared down at him for a second, as another thought occurred to her.
"My legs," she said.
"Yes," he answered. "I've noticed. From this angle, they're really quite something."
"No, you idiot. Where do I put my legs when I sit back down? There's hardly any room and--"
"They're extremely impressive, your legs. And they just don't end. They keep going on and on and on. And there are two of them. That's so, so symmetrical, you know?"
"Josh. Focus."
"You were saying?"
"You need a larger tub."
"Do you ever stop with the redecorating? The shower curtain, the bathmat, now a tub."
"Do you have any useful suggestions?"
"Um, we get out of the tub?"
"But there are still bubbles. I don't want to waste perfectly good bubbles."
Josh rolled his eyes. "See, we wouldn't have this problem if we'd taken a shower."
"Not helpful."
"I'm just pointing out. For future consideration. Showers can be fun too. Also beds. I've got a big old bed with plenty of room for you and your endless legs."
"Weren't you the one who was complaining about having spent too much time in bed lately?"
"Only because I was there alone." He readjusted himself so that there was more room in the tub, and Donna finally sat back down. Josh managed to maneuver so that Donna's legs, with which he was still obsessed, were wrapped tightly around his hips. "So," he asked, "you more comfortable now?"
"Comfortable is not perhaps the word I would choose," Donna muttered. She was far too aware of Josh's erection pressing against her body and of the way his hands were now gliding along her legs. It was, she thought, ridiculous the things the man could do to her, merely by touching her skin. She decided that it was time to take matters into her own hands.
The way he jumped when she wrapped her hand around his shaft was quite, quite gratifying.
"You know," he said, "you really should give a guy advance warning before you do a thing like that."
She ran one finger up and down the length of him. "Is that a complaint?" she asked.
"No, ma'am. No complaints. Things are just peachy here."
She was so focused on what she was doing to him that she barely noticed when his hand slid up her leg to her thigh. Consequently, the sudden pressure of his hand on her sex caused her to gasp and lift her hips in surprise.
"That was cute," Josh remarked. "You did a little bouncing thing there, Donnatella."
"I did not bounce," she protested.
"Looked like bouncing to me. Let's see if I can make you do it again." He started to lift his hand, but Donna quickly put her hand on top of his and held him in place.
"Really," she said, "I think I like you just fine where you are."
"You sure? 'Cause I can think of some other things to do."
"This will do just fine," she said. "For now."
It was actually well beyond fine, Donna noted to herself. Apparently, they had entered into some sort of weird competition to see which one could make the other come first.
Josh, she had to admit, was winning.
He had begun to move one finger inside her rather skillfully. It was, in fact, a trifle disconcerting to discover how unerringly he went to exactly the right spot without direction and that he seemed to know precisely how much pressure she needed to feel there. She was vaguely aware of the fact that she was compulsively repeating his name like those three syllables were some sort of erotic litany. And then he kissed her and he added just the tiniest bit of pressure and he definitely won the competition.
When she stopped shaking, she discovered that she had grabbed his shoulders tight enough to leave the imprint of her fingers on his skin.
"Oops."
"'Oops'?" he repeated. "All you can say is 'oops'?"
"I dug my fingernails into--"
"Because from where I'm sitting that looked like a hell of a lot more than 'oops' to me. It looked like 'Thank you, Joshua, for taking me places I've only dreamed of. I'm so grateful that--'"
"No coffee."
"Dear lord, what does a man have to do to get a cup of coffee from you?"
"Get out of this tub and maybe you'll find out."
***
"Okay, Donna -- subtle hint. When a man is standing in front of a woman and they're both naked, he generally doesn't enjoy hearing her laugh at him."
"Sorry. It's -- you are covered in bubbles." She took a long, appreciative look over his body. "Every inch is just covered in bubbles."
"You've got a few too. And I admit they're clinging to some of my favorite spots."
"We must do something about this."
"Suggestions?"
She reached for another one of those oversized Egyptian cotton towels she'd bought him. "Let's dry you off."
Now this, Donna reflected, was interesting. As competitive as Josh could be, he was also capable of standing quite still -- passive might not be too strong a word -- and letting her take control. She was having entirely too much fun moving the fabric slowly over his skin, watching him gasp when she moved over a particularly sensitive spot, getting him to turn around so she could dry off his back.
Then it was his turn to dry her off. It was, she thought, intriguing -- especially watching the look in Josh's eyes as he moved the towel over her body. However, she decided, there were disadvantages -- namely the fact that the cotton came between Josh's hands and her flesh.
"So I'm thinking we could lose the towel now," she said.
"And possibly move things into the bedroom?" he asked.
"And here I thought you were tired of spending so much time in bed. Isn't that what you've been complaining about for weeks?"
"Complaining? I wouldn't call it complaining? More like--"
"Josh, shut up and get into bed."
"I thought you'd never ask."
***
She was in bed with Josh. She was in an actual bed with Josh Lyman.
Damn, but life was good.
Josh wasn't bad either. He was back in overachiever mode. He had run his hands and mouth over every inch of her body. She watched, fascinated, as he began to move his tongue inside her and the tension she was feeling grew. She thought she really should ask him if he wanted her to do anything to reciprocate at the moment, but she seemed to be losing the ability to think clearly. She rapidly reached the point where her world consisted only of the sight of Josh's brown hair against her sex and the way the sensations he was creating radiated from her clit to the rest of her body.
She took a minute to catch her breath while he moved back up to her side, looking entirely too smug. She would, she decided, have to do something about that. So she kissed him. She gave him a long, passionate kiss on the lips and, just when he was about to break it off, she started moving down his body. She traced a path down the line of hair from his chest, stopping for a few minutes to dip her tongue in and out of his belly button. He seemed to be unusually sensitive there, she noted. He seemed to be moaning quite a bit, which she felt was payback for his "bouncing" remark in the bathtub.
She thought the way he moaned was awfully sexy. She wondered if this meant she should seek professional help.
She was just about to take him in her mouth when he spoke. "Um, Donna," he said, "do you think you could maybe wait and do that after?"
She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "Dessert, as it were?" she asked.
"Yeah. I'm definitely ready for the main course here. I am, in fact, ravenous. I am a man in need of a full-course meal." His face was lit up with this look of utter pleasure that she hadn't seen since before Rosslyn. If, really, she'd ever seen him look quite this happy. It caught her completely off guard.
"You're a ridiculous man, but I love you anyway."
Oh shit, she thought. She hadn't meant for that to slip out. That, she thought, was entirely the wrong thing to say. Maybe if they started right in on that full-course meal, he'd forget that she'd said it. After all, this was the first time he'd had sex since the shooting, right? So he'd be too focused on the physical stuff to notice any incriminating words she might let fall in the heat of the moment. She hoped. She stroked him a few times, momentarily distracted by the way his hands clutched her hips. Yes, she thought, he was definitely focused on the details of his first post-shooting sex, not on--
Post-shooting sex. The phrase sort of stuck in her head. It sounded vaguely ominous, and it raised some doubts. Doubts that she thought should be addressed immediately.
"Wait. Stop," she said -- and not, judging from his position, a moment too soon. "I have a possible objection."
"Now? You're bringing me a possible objection at this point?"
"I have concerns, Joshua, yes."
Josh threw a pillow over his head in order to muffle the string of profanities he was muttering to himself.
"What was that?" Donna asked, plucking the pillow away from Josh's head.
"You're killing me here, Donnatella."
"And that was my concern."
"What?" Josh looked slightly bewildered.
"What I mean is," Donna said, lightly running her fingers over his scar, "considering what you've been through, should you be doing something so strenuous?"
"Did we not discuss this earlier?"
"We discussed whether everything was working. Which clearly it is. That doesn't necessarily mean that you should take it out for a test drive, as it were."
"The sheer number of mixed metaphors there would cause Toby to--"
"Josh, be serious."
"I am serious. It's a little late to be raising objections here, Donna. I'm pretty much at the point where this is going to happen with or without you."
"I'm concerned."
"Reciting baseball statistics until things return to normal size? Not going to work in this situation."
"Josh, I am worried about your heart."
"Yeah, I'm thinking I pretty much lost control of that when you answered my phone the first day."
"You're avoiding my question."
"See? That right there, that was one of those compliment things women are supposed to be so fond of. Just sailed right over your head."
"Josh."
"All right. Fine. Seriously. My doctor said we could resume our normal sexual relationship whenever we were ready."
"Resume our normal sexual relationship?"
"He said. He also hinted that we should avoid the kinky stuff for awhile. Are we going to be into the kinky stuff? 'Cause that's one hell of an incentive to get me through my physical therapy is all I'm saying."
"We have no normal sexual relationship."
"And, I'm guessing, we never will have. The normal part, that is. I live in hope that the sexual relationship will commence momentarily."
"Why would your doctor think of us that way?"
"And once again my hopes are dashed."
"I mean--"
"Apparently," Josh said, pulling her to him for a quick kiss on the forehead, "when a beautiful woman sits by your bedside for hours on end and accompanies you to all your doctor's appointments, people make assumptions."
"Really? That's -- I had no idea."
"I'm told we give off a vibe."
"Well, imagine that."
"I know. Shocked the hell out of me, I'm saying."
"We have our own vibe?"
"So it would seem."
Donna put on her thoughtful face. "We need to work on controlling the vibe."
"Can we have sex first? Please?"
"Well, I suppose. If we must."
"I'm going to have to insist on it."
"You can't insist, Josh. This isn't the office, and this is most assuredly not in my job--"
"For the love of god, woman, will you just do it?"
"Well," she said, smiling down at him, "if you're going to insist."
"Oh yeah," he answered, grinning up at her, "I'm feeling quite insistent here."
"Well, then, okay." She moved over him, placing one hand on his erection and guiding him inside her. It took a moment for her to adjust to the feel of him, but then suddenly this wondrous feeling -- this realization that she and Josh fit together so perfectly -- took over. He began to slide out, and she whimpered in protest, and then he was back again, thrusting and filling her while she wrapped herself as tightly around him as she could manage. One hand was clutching his while with the other she guided his free hand to her clit. His fingers worked in tandem with the rhythm his thrusting had created. She came just a few seconds before he did, vaguely noticing that she now seemed to have established some pattern whereby she always called out his name when he made her climax.
Judging from the look on his face, he liked this new pattern just fine.
"So," she said, as he slid out of her and wrapped her in a very satisfying embrace, "I'm thinking that was pretty much your 'I'm-happy-to-be-alive' sex." This, she thought, was a smart move on her part -- define what had just happened on her own terms, keep it light, ignore what she'd blurted out earlier about being in love. This would work just fine.
"No," Josh answered. "I don't think that's what it was at all. Especially not in light of that thing you said before."
Bastard, she thought. She should have known he wouldn't let her get away with that. "Then how would you define it?" she asked, carefully not looking at him.
"I would call it the 'Okay, I finally admit I'm in love with Donna' sex."
"Oh," she said. "That's what you'd call it, then?"
"That's what it was," he replied.
"Well, so you're in love with me. Isn't that interesting?"
"You said something along those same lines, as I recall."
"Yes, I'm quite fond of myself. I've loved Donna for years."
"You said--"
"I love you. Yes, I seem to have blurted that out. Make of it what you will."
"Oh," he said, and he had that infuriatingly smug grin on his face, "I intend to make quite a lot out of it."
"Really? You no doubt think this puts you in a position of power, my admitting that."
"Well, considering that it was a mutual admission, I'd say we're about even."
"For the time being," she acknowledged. "However, I intend to change that. I intend to fix things in my favor."
"And exactly how do you intend to do that?" he asked.
She looked at him, propped up against the pillows all happy and healthy and gloriously alive, and she beamed. "Simple, really," she told him. She started to slide slowly down the length of his body. "Get ready for dessert."
THE END
06.26.01