Title: Power Play
Fandom: La Femme Nikita
Word Count: 1,551
Rating: R
Characters: Paul/Madeline
Summary: Madeline returns from a Valentine operation to find Paul eager to see her. As close to PWP as I've written for these two yet.
Prompt: #34. I'm in love with my lust, burning angel wings to dust
All eyes turned to Madeline as she walked across the room and she knew it had very little to do with the success of her mission. She discovered that the perch was blacked out with a quick glance and was surprised to find she was oddly disappointed by the fact. She smothered the feeling though, smiled sweetly at passing, disbelieving, faces and amused herself by defying their opinions. She was not the staid and icy woman they knew. Instead she was a beautiful, successful woman who was infinitely comfortable in her own skin. In the snug black, low cut dress and killer heels she'd chosen. Her confidence soared another notch as Michael caught her eye and she watched with a heightened pulse as his eyes roved over her body. It had been a long time since any man had looked at her like that. Michael had never looked at her like that. She smiled and stopped as she reached him, arching an eyebrow expectantly as though she were waiting for something.
“Everything went to plan.”
It was a statement of fact, business as usual from the tightly wound subordinate. Madeline nodded and spared another glance for the blacked out perch.
“Perfectly,” she replied. “I'm just on my way for the debriefing before I attend to other business.”
Michael made some other platitudes but she had already distanced herself from him. Bathed in the endorphin afterglow of his attentions, she climbed the stairs slowly, wondering all the while what might have happened while she was away to cause Paul to shut himself off. The curious speculation had dampened her mood enough to make her hesitate at the door. But he expected her and if she did not report in now she could miss some important news.
He answered her knock almost immediately and she entered to find him standing at his desk pouring champagne. He offered the first glass to her with a smile,
“Congratulations on your success.”
“Thank you,” Madeline replied and tasted the glass. “I have to say this is more than I was expecting.”
“I can't show my appreciation of a job well done?” Paul asked over the rim of his own glass. He watched her prowl the room, unable to stand still. His eyes followed her and she forced him to turn as well as she moved over to the darkened window. He followed after a moment's pause, resting his flute on the ledge so he could stand behind her.
“It was an easy operation,” Madeline said casually. The first treacherous hints of suspicion creeping through her thoughts.
“But no one else could have done it so well,” Paul answered and his hands came to rest on her shoulders. She thought she might pull away, but the weight was oddly comforting. It had been a long time since he'd touched her. He brushed away her hair and leant to kiss her neck behind her ear. “He would have done anything you asked him to.”
“Perhaps I should have asked for more?” Madeline asked aloud. She tilted her head and allowed her eyes to drift closed as Paul left a trail of kisses down the length of her neck and across her shoulder. His hands trailed across her back and across the tops of her arms. A lazy exploration, but there was a heat in his touch. A sense of desperate need and desire. He was greedy for her. It was a heady sensation and as she opened her eyes to look down at the people below she felt a new thrill. She watched as they went about their work and all the while Paul's touch was growing increasingly fervent. “At least now I know why the window was dark.”
“You'd prefer to be an exhibitionist?” he countered, one hand reaching out for the control teasingly while the other pulled down a dress strap. His lips never left her skin. She slapped the offending hand away, turning slightly in his arms to meet his kiss. They stood like that for a long time, but things had never been that straightforward between them.
Madeline pulled away and caught his eye, asking wickedly, “I thought I already had been?”
She knew she'd hit her mark when Paul's jaw tightened and his arm caught around her waist. Her suspicions confirmed, she laughed and turned away from him again, draining her glass and sitting it on the ledge beside his own. “You were watching the operation.”
Paul was tense for a moment, one hand resting on her now exposed shoulder while the other sat on her opposite hip. “What if I was?” he asked and the hostile jealousy in his tone was barely kept in check. His hand strayed lower, dipping beneath the fabric of her dress until the palm of his hand overlaid her breast. His fingers skittered over her nipple, teasing out the nub to stony hardness. He pulled her closer to him forcefully, his other hand straying down over her hip and smoothing the soft fabric of her dress against her skin as he trailed lower still. “It's my job to watch over the operations.”
The air was thick between them with words left unsaid. His jealousy was a palpable thing, his desire for her becoming a physical need so strong she felt weak in his arms. He hadn't needed to watch the operation in the same way that she hadn't really needed to be the one to do it. They were both long past having to take care of every single detail of things. But that hadn't stopped either of them doing it anyway.
He bit her neck as he pulled her dress up, his fingers lingering for just a second over the lace of her suspenders before seeking out the heat that had been denied them both for too long. She gasped as his fingers entered her, curling as he pulled back before repeating the whole movement again. He was stroking her, teasing her, and the sheer lewdness of the whole ridiculous situation went straight to her head.
"Paul..." she said, a pleading demand.
"Lean forward," he answered. She did as he bid her, raising up her dress with one hand as she used the other to steady herself on the ledge. Madeline smothered her impatience as he fumbled with his own trousers, but instead gasped as he finally entered her with a sharp thrust that drove her up onto her toes.
She was surprised when he paused, kissing her neck again as he leant into her. Paul's sudden shifts between tenderness and authority were new. When he began to move again it was with slow, deep thrusts that drove them both inexorably forward. She was crushed between him and the panorama of Section below, the heady combination sending a sudden thrill through her that quickly built to a crest of pleasure. She shuddered, gasping for air and leant forward to rest her head against the deliciously cool glass.
Paul slowed his movements, allowing her a moment to recover, but the thrumming tension of his body pressed against hers spoke of a deeper urgent need. She reached behind her, wrapping an arm around his neck as he bent to smother hers with a flurry of kisses. He needed no further encouragement, but began to thrust forward again, chasing his own elusive release in her body. She murmured encouragement, speaking aloud what endearments she was able to find it in herself to give.
Paul cried out as he came, and as she clung to his raking body she felt herself tip once more over the edge with him. Hearts hammering, they both rested against the cool concealment of the perch and waited for the afterglow to fade. Paul was the first to move, pulling away and fumbling to find something to clean himself off with in the Spartan office. She followed suit, helping herself to the rest of his drink while she waited.
“You shouldn't have watched,” Madeline said, unable to let things lie.
“The reality is rarely worse than the imagined,” he replied dully. He stood defensively turned slightly away from her. He could have been talking about torture as easily as he was about her valentine operation. She wondered if it wasn't the same thing to him. She couldn't even remember the last time they'd slept together, let alone done something so outrageously dangerous as having sex in the perch.
“How long have you been waiting to do that?” she asked suddenly and felt a pressure release when he laughed.
“Too long,” Paul said and stepped forward to kiss her again. They embraced and if she used her imagination there could have even been tenderness in it. “You should go change, the world won't wait for us forever.”
She nodded, resting her head against his shoulder for just a second longer. As she left there was nothing more to say. The strange, desperate encounter already slipping away beneath the weight of what they were and what they had to do. But as she strode through the halls to her office she held her head a little higher. Walked with a little more confidence. She knew things none of them would ever know. And she'd done things, just minutes before, that none of them would ever dare.