FIC: No Place Like (1/1) R RPF
TITLE: No Place Like
AUTHOR: Laura Smith
PAIRING: Jamie Bamber/Katee Sackhoff
RATING: R
SUMMARY: They have to let you in.
DISCLAIMER: Jamie Bamber and Katee Sackhoff belong only to themselves. I don't claim them, I don't claim to know them and no harm is intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For wisteria_ in the "Special Hell" challenge. She wanted Jamie POV. Hopefully this will serve.
He shouldn’t be doing this.
He knows that. He can give all the reasons in detail and has, a thousand times over in his head. But reason has nothing to do with standing here and watching scenes that aren’t his, scenes he has no business seeing under the guise of wanting to shadow a different director, learn the craft. It’s not the craft he’s interested in, and he knows it, admits it to himself, though he’s more than certain that doesn’t make him a better man.
In fact, he’s pretty sure it makes him worse.
**
He calls Kerry, as he does, the miles between them easily heard over the phone. The girls are in the distance, and he misses home for a moment - not just England, but them - but then she walks by and the feeling is gone, vanished into ephemeral smoke in the wake of the smell of sweat and the cheap perfume Tahmoh bought her as a gag gift that she’s worn every day since. It’s cloying and heavy and nothing like her, and she loves it, saying it clears her sinuses.
He says goodbye and rings off, closing off a part of his life with the snap of the phone, and follows her, catching up in a few quick strides and falling in step, discussing anything and everything about the shoot, his eyes tracking the things she does, the way she reacts. If he’s lucky, she’ll laugh. If he’s really lucky, she’ll smile. Instead, she turns her head and looks at him, eyes serious but bright and he’s not lucky, he’s lost.
**
“What do you think of that, Bamber?” She calls him by his last name on the set if James is around, and sometimes even when he’s not. There’s something strangely intimate about it, the way her mouth puffs out the second B, putting emphasis on it. Sometimes she shivers at the last syllable and then laughs, amused with herself and the exasperated look on his face.
He’s fairly certain he doesn’t look exasperated now, with her body covered in glycerin sweat and the real thing, the lights creating the shadowed bunk hot enough to drench them all. He shrugs as if he hasn’t spent the past hour memorizing the curve of her hip or the swell of her breast or the hollow of her throat, and tosses off a smart arse remark, the kind she expects from him. Her eyes darken for a minute, and something flares in his chest, but then it’s gone and she shakes her head.
”Well, you just don’t know how to appreciate a nice piece of man flesh.” She slaps Trucco on the arse as he walks off, turning just enough to flip her the bird. She laughs and blows Michael a kiss.
“I wasn’t aware it was his flesh I was supposed to be appreciating.” He doesn’t recognize his own voice, the low timbre that sounds dangerously like a challenge, a gauntlet he can’t throw down.
“I already know you appreciate mine, Bamber.” She winks and he wonders how it’s possible for him to be in this deep, to be treading water in danger of drowning, when she’s less than two feet away and not even wet. “You’ve got eyes, don’t you?”
**
He steels himself in his trailer, staring at himself in the mirror. It’s just another show, another episode. It’s just another body, another actor. He’s been trained in the stage and he knows how it works. Disassociate. She’s your sister. Your mother. Your great-aunt Millicent. Lie back and think of England.
The problem is that she’s not any of those things. She’s Katee. She’s bright light and buoyancy, she’s flashing smile and braying laugh. She’s curves and swells and hollows and arcs, and she’s skin he wants to touch and breath he wants to taste and she’s utterly, completely off limits.
She’s dangerous with a light teasing tone that echoes along his spine like a lover’s caress. She’s nonchalant and indifferent and he’s dying inside, desperate and wanting. Her eyes move over him like he’s a piece of the set, another body, another actor. He’s all those things she’s not to him and his brain can’t forget it, while his heart and his body can’t seem to remember.
There’s a knock on his trailer. He swallows hard and closes his eyes, his breath caught somewhere in his throat strangling him worse than the putrid scent of her perfume that lingers in her wake.
**
It’s late by the time they finish. Too late to call Kerry and the girls, and he’s missed another good night. He thinks maybe that tells him something, but he knows better than to look for signs. It’s easy to see them when you want to see them, easy to miss them when you don’t. His problem is that he doesn’t know what he wants or, worse, he knows what he wants, and that’s to have it both ways.
They walk side by side, both tired. He can see it in the way she drops her shoulders, in the slow roll of her neck. He reaches out without thinking, his hand settling against her nape. She jerks away from his touch and turns her head to look at him. “Just going to rub your neck.”
She nods, but what little ease had been in her posture is gone, replaced by tension that tightens every muscle in her body. There’s a strange frisson in the air, and she nearly vibrates with it, a live wire far too dangerous to touch. His fingers itch with the need, with the desire to scorch himself, to ground himself in her kiss and let whatever electricity she has to burn course through him.
“I’m fine, thanks.” She quickens her step to catch up with a few of the others still on the set. They’ve just broken for the night as well apparently, and the laughter on the air is almost infectious. He can see her get caught up in it, can see her body easing, relaxing more the farther she gets from him.
“Hey, Jamie!” Tahmoh waves a hand in his direction. “We’re going out. You wanna come?”
He shakes his head and waves them off, trying not to notice the way Katee seems to sag in relief. Whatever he’s been lately, it’s not gone unnoticed. He nods to himself and heads for his trailer, wondering if he can scrub the scent of her off his skin.
**
The shower and the wank do nothing for him other than leave his skin red and raw in ways that he thought he was long past, though they’ve come back to haunt him lately. He rubs the towel through his short hair and sighs, glancing at the clock. He doesn’t want to go home to a cold house and a cold bed. He doesn’t want to wander the hallways and see toys tumbling out of bins and princess curtains and more pink than he ever thought he’d have in his life.
He wants Katee.
“Fuck.”
He laughs at the sentiment, because even that’s not the truth of it. If the truth were just fucking, it’d be easy. But the truth is everything else as well, and none of that can be reconciled with a wife he loves and daughters who are his life. Fucking can be written off as an actor’s folly or a man’s mistake, but this…this is more than that, this is everything, and everything costs more than he’s willing to pay, requires more than he’s willing to sacrifice.
Not that it matters, he knows. Because sacrifice requires an altar and it’s very clear that Katee wants nothing laid at her feet.
He closes his eyes and exhales and it hurts, tight in his chest, and it should. It should hurt like hell. Should hurt to have these thoughts, to consider all the things he’s considered so many times. Should hurt to think about his own pleasures, his own needs, his own wants over those of his wife, of his daughters.
It should hurt, and it does.
He just wishes it hurt more than the sight of Katee walking away from him.
**
He straddles the bike, inhaling the night air that smells like nothing but darkness; unlike London where the night smells like noisy pubs and fish and chips and greasepaint. He adjusts his helmet and kicks the bike into gear, not listening to Kerry’s admonishing voice in his head.
He takes back streets and byways, not ready for house or home. He wonders if it would be different if his girls were waiting, but only long enough to realize the answer’s more than he’s ready to admit.
He stops at a light and looks around. He’s close to home, and should go there, go to bed and try to wake up the man he’s always thought he was. Instead, he runs the light and pulls into a bar. He’s been here before on other nights like this, trying to drown what he feels, what he wants, in pint after pint of ale, knowing it always rises to the surface.
He sits at the bar and orders a beer and a bourbon. It’s the weekend and he’s drinking alone and sleeping alone and living alone, and he can’t think of any reason to do any of it sober.
**
He’s halfway through his third bourbon when he smells it. She says it’s lilies. He says it’s the Thursday rubbish bin. Either way, it’s here and it’s now, and it slides along his senses and sends a jolt through him.
He turns his head as she sinks onto the stool next to him. The bartender’s there before she gestures, and she tilts her head in Jamie’s direction. “I want what he’s got.”
The words and their myriad of meanings aren’t lost on Jamie. He waits for the bartender to serve her then lifts his glass. Katee watches him, her eyes on his hand, on the simple gold band he wears.
“Thought you went out with the gang.”
“I did.” She raises her glass, raises her eyes to his. “Nothing about this is a good idea, Jamie.”
“Having a drink together?”
She tosses back the bourbon like it’s nothing then looks at him and laughs, sad and knowing and more. “You really think that’s what we’re doing?”
**
They get on the bike and her arms are warm around him, underneath his jacket. He’s too drunk to be on the bike and he knows it, can see the headlines - Drunken co-stars die on way to romantic tryst! - but it’s faster and more discreet than her car and he doesn’t want this to be something that ends up a quick fumble in the back seat somewhere.
Of course, that makes it all so much worse.
The wind has kicked up and it’s bitterly cold as he slings the bike in the opposite direction of his house. He needs distance now that she’s with him, needs to be separate. It worries him that he can do this, leave that Jamie behind, leave behind the father and the husband and the co-worker, and just be this Jamie, the man with Katee’s arms around him, her breath warm on his neck.
She has a friend out of town and guides him there, a dark house on a quiet street that looks like every other street around. Anonymity and peace and he kills the bike. She fishes a key out of her pocket and disappears inside and opens the garage. He wheels the bike in and stays on it, looking at her in the dim yellow glow of the bulb.
Katee shakes her head and approaches him, her eyes looking him over as they had on the set, and he wonders how the same look can be so different. He licks his lips and watches her mouth, watches her lips curve into a slow, seductive smile.
“I thought you didn’t want this.”
She reaches him and slides two fingers up from his knee to the top of his thigh. “I don’t.”
He nods. “Then why are we here?”
Her other hand comes up and curves along the side of his neck and he can feel his pulse kick up in response, knows she can feel it too. “Because right now, we don’t have anywhere else to be.”
**
Kissing her is nothing like kissing Kara. He knows this - he’s kissed her before, drunken, laughing kisses at parties or in convention hallways, kisses that went on a little too long and ended with both of them flushed and waving goodnight. He pretends they never happened, pretends he’s never fallen asleep with her on his mind.
But this is different. This is kissing her on purpose, with purpose. This is pulling her close and tasting her, exploring her mouth with his tongue, feeling the pressure of her tongue, her teeth, her lips. She makes a noise low in her throat and he pulls away, sucking in the damp, dank air of the garage.
“Jamie.” She whispers his name and he slides off the bike, backing her up against the door to the house, needing to touch her. She laughs as his fingers slip under her shirt, gasping at the cold pressure of his skin on hers and then groans as he finds her mouth again.
She gasps as his hands slide up, grazing over her stomach and sides, curving over the swell of her breasts, his thumbs stroking across her nipples. He pulls back, watching her mouth, her eyes as she opens them.
They stare at one another for a long moment, waiting for the offhand comment that ends this, makes it all a joke. Jamie doesn’t move, doesn’t let her look away. He can think of a million ways to break the moment and wishes fervently that he had the willpower to do so until she licks her lips, swollen from his kisses and dark pink from the scrape of his stubble.
She exhales, breaking the silence, the stalemate. “We could go inside.”
He nods and steps back, releasing her, the feel of her still burning across his palms, overloading his senses. She turns around and opens the door, barely through it when she turns again and grabs him, fingers firm against his scalp as she pulls him in.
They kiss and he guides her backwards, tugging her shirt over her head as she pants rough directions - third door, right - against his lips. He leaves a trail of her clothes: her shirt in the doorway, unfastening her jeans in the kitchen and shedding them by the dining room. She tugs his shirt over his head and drops it in the main foyer, moving in to kiss him again.
Her eyes are dark in the dim glow from the kitchen and she tastes like bourbon and the night air and he closes his eyes, losing himself in her. His hands wrap around her back, sliding up to unfasten her bra. She makes a small sound, gasping against his mouth as he unhooks it.
He shakes his head as he pulls away from her, taking the lacy fabric with him, tugging it free of her arms. She shivers and he moves in again, fingers sliding along the waistband of her knickers, curving around her hips as he bends his head and takes one nipple in his mouth, sucking on the tight, warm flesh.
“J-Jamie…” There’s desperation and laughter in her voice, and he pulls away long enough to move his mouth to her other breast. His hands slide back further, beneath the fabric to the curve of her arse, sliding over her skin as he teases her with the quick scrape of his teeth. “Jesus.”
Her hands tangle in his hair and she lifts his head, her kiss hard and hungry and bruising. She holds him tight, fingers pressing against his skull as she walks backwards, tugging them down the dark hallway. He stumbles and sends them both into a wall, nearly crashing to the floor. She laughs against his mouth and he shuts her up with a kiss, fumbling with the doorknob and guiding her into the room, moving forward until the bed’s beneath her and she’s beneath him.
Jamie kneels between her legs and unfastens his jeans, sliding to his feet only long enough to shove them to the floor. He manages to untangle himself from jeans and boxer-briefs and shoes as Katee wriggles free of her knickers, her eyes watching his cock in the moonlight.
“Jesus, Jamie.” She reaches for him as he stretches over her, refusing to let himself think as her hand wraps around the length of him, sliding to the base in one smooth stroke. “So hard.” She looks at him, and he sees things he thinks are signs, things he knows he can’t trust. “You want me.”
“Yes.” He kisses her, hungry and desperate and falling. “God, Katee, so much.”
She makes a soft sound and he smothers it, steals it for his own from her lips. Her hands rake down his back, blunt nails leaving trails on his skin, running from shoulders to arse. Her hips arch upward and they collide, his cock sliding in her grip.
“Jamie.”
“Katee.” He buries his face against her neck, teeth grazing her flesh. He can feel the weight of her perfume on his tongue, but he can’t care, relishes it as he shifts, his hand slipping between them, between her thighs.
She’s wet and hot and his as he slides two fingers over her clit and then inside her, groaning against her skin as her body closes around him, drawing him deeper. This is ancient and age-old, and he fucks her slowly, mouth swallowing her sounds of pleasure, the faint pleas for more until her hand closes tighter around his cock.
He moves without thinking, fingers free and then guiding himself inside her, knees against her thighs and thrusting deep. His body registers everything, the way she moves - Different. The same. - and hides it from him. Memories to taunt him, haunt him.
Katee whispers his name, begging for more, her heels against his arse and then his thighs and then she’s gasping, groaning as he catches her knees and guides them up, thrusts deeper. His name falls into shattered syllables and then she comes, the pulse of heat tightening around him.
He groans, biting his lip to trap the sound between them. Katee tugs him down and laughs as he closes in on her, tangled limbs and sweat and kisses as he comes.
**
She closes her eyes and he eases out of her, eases away. The distance between them is far greater than the space on the bed, and Jamie knows better than to say anything, break the fragile silence. She turns finally, the long stretch of her back offered to him. He’s learned the difference between invitation and obstacle, but tonight he can’t remember which is which, which he wants.
Getting to his feet, he leans down and kisses her shoulder then tugs on his boxer-briefs. There’s always a bathroom somewhere, so he slips out into the hall. The second door is what he’s looking for, so he hits the light, nearly stumbling again. He looks down at his feet and sees what’s nearly tripped him up both times.
He doesn’t know the name, but he knows the doll. He’s got three of them at home, currently tucked in his daughters’ beds - They’ll be us for you, Daddy, so you won’t be lonely - and he stands in the hard light of the bathroom, stroking the silky hair.
**
The night air smells like lilies the entire way to his house, but he parks the bike in the garage and stows his helmet and lets himself in the door. It smells like powder and burned toast and babies and the faintest ghost of Kerry’s perfume. It smells like home.
And he swears, from now on, home is all he needs. And he means it this time.
Until next time.
AUTHOR: Laura Smith
PAIRING: Jamie Bamber/Katee Sackhoff
RATING: R
SUMMARY: They have to let you in.
DISCLAIMER: Jamie Bamber and Katee Sackhoff belong only to themselves. I don't claim them, I don't claim to know them and no harm is intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: For wisteria_ in the "Special Hell" challenge. She wanted Jamie POV. Hopefully this will serve.
He shouldn’t be doing this.
He knows that. He can give all the reasons in detail and has, a thousand times over in his head. But reason has nothing to do with standing here and watching scenes that aren’t his, scenes he has no business seeing under the guise of wanting to shadow a different director, learn the craft. It’s not the craft he’s interested in, and he knows it, admits it to himself, though he’s more than certain that doesn’t make him a better man.
In fact, he’s pretty sure it makes him worse.
**
He calls Kerry, as he does, the miles between them easily heard over the phone. The girls are in the distance, and he misses home for a moment - not just England, but them - but then she walks by and the feeling is gone, vanished into ephemeral smoke in the wake of the smell of sweat and the cheap perfume Tahmoh bought her as a gag gift that she’s worn every day since. It’s cloying and heavy and nothing like her, and she loves it, saying it clears her sinuses.
He says goodbye and rings off, closing off a part of his life with the snap of the phone, and follows her, catching up in a few quick strides and falling in step, discussing anything and everything about the shoot, his eyes tracking the things she does, the way she reacts. If he’s lucky, she’ll laugh. If he’s really lucky, she’ll smile. Instead, she turns her head and looks at him, eyes serious but bright and he’s not lucky, he’s lost.
**
“What do you think of that, Bamber?” She calls him by his last name on the set if James is around, and sometimes even when he’s not. There’s something strangely intimate about it, the way her mouth puffs out the second B, putting emphasis on it. Sometimes she shivers at the last syllable and then laughs, amused with herself and the exasperated look on his face.
He’s fairly certain he doesn’t look exasperated now, with her body covered in glycerin sweat and the real thing, the lights creating the shadowed bunk hot enough to drench them all. He shrugs as if he hasn’t spent the past hour memorizing the curve of her hip or the swell of her breast or the hollow of her throat, and tosses off a smart arse remark, the kind she expects from him. Her eyes darken for a minute, and something flares in his chest, but then it’s gone and she shakes her head.
”Well, you just don’t know how to appreciate a nice piece of man flesh.” She slaps Trucco on the arse as he walks off, turning just enough to flip her the bird. She laughs and blows Michael a kiss.
“I wasn’t aware it was his flesh I was supposed to be appreciating.” He doesn’t recognize his own voice, the low timbre that sounds dangerously like a challenge, a gauntlet he can’t throw down.
“I already know you appreciate mine, Bamber.” She winks and he wonders how it’s possible for him to be in this deep, to be treading water in danger of drowning, when she’s less than two feet away and not even wet. “You’ve got eyes, don’t you?”
**
He steels himself in his trailer, staring at himself in the mirror. It’s just another show, another episode. It’s just another body, another actor. He’s been trained in the stage and he knows how it works. Disassociate. She’s your sister. Your mother. Your great-aunt Millicent. Lie back and think of England.
The problem is that she’s not any of those things. She’s Katee. She’s bright light and buoyancy, she’s flashing smile and braying laugh. She’s curves and swells and hollows and arcs, and she’s skin he wants to touch and breath he wants to taste and she’s utterly, completely off limits.
She’s dangerous with a light teasing tone that echoes along his spine like a lover’s caress. She’s nonchalant and indifferent and he’s dying inside, desperate and wanting. Her eyes move over him like he’s a piece of the set, another body, another actor. He’s all those things she’s not to him and his brain can’t forget it, while his heart and his body can’t seem to remember.
There’s a knock on his trailer. He swallows hard and closes his eyes, his breath caught somewhere in his throat strangling him worse than the putrid scent of her perfume that lingers in her wake.
**
It’s late by the time they finish. Too late to call Kerry and the girls, and he’s missed another good night. He thinks maybe that tells him something, but he knows better than to look for signs. It’s easy to see them when you want to see them, easy to miss them when you don’t. His problem is that he doesn’t know what he wants or, worse, he knows what he wants, and that’s to have it both ways.
They walk side by side, both tired. He can see it in the way she drops her shoulders, in the slow roll of her neck. He reaches out without thinking, his hand settling against her nape. She jerks away from his touch and turns her head to look at him. “Just going to rub your neck.”
She nods, but what little ease had been in her posture is gone, replaced by tension that tightens every muscle in her body. There’s a strange frisson in the air, and she nearly vibrates with it, a live wire far too dangerous to touch. His fingers itch with the need, with the desire to scorch himself, to ground himself in her kiss and let whatever electricity she has to burn course through him.
“I’m fine, thanks.” She quickens her step to catch up with a few of the others still on the set. They’ve just broken for the night as well apparently, and the laughter on the air is almost infectious. He can see her get caught up in it, can see her body easing, relaxing more the farther she gets from him.
“Hey, Jamie!” Tahmoh waves a hand in his direction. “We’re going out. You wanna come?”
He shakes his head and waves them off, trying not to notice the way Katee seems to sag in relief. Whatever he’s been lately, it’s not gone unnoticed. He nods to himself and heads for his trailer, wondering if he can scrub the scent of her off his skin.
**
The shower and the wank do nothing for him other than leave his skin red and raw in ways that he thought he was long past, though they’ve come back to haunt him lately. He rubs the towel through his short hair and sighs, glancing at the clock. He doesn’t want to go home to a cold house and a cold bed. He doesn’t want to wander the hallways and see toys tumbling out of bins and princess curtains and more pink than he ever thought he’d have in his life.
He wants Katee.
“Fuck.”
He laughs at the sentiment, because even that’s not the truth of it. If the truth were just fucking, it’d be easy. But the truth is everything else as well, and none of that can be reconciled with a wife he loves and daughters who are his life. Fucking can be written off as an actor’s folly or a man’s mistake, but this…this is more than that, this is everything, and everything costs more than he’s willing to pay, requires more than he’s willing to sacrifice.
Not that it matters, he knows. Because sacrifice requires an altar and it’s very clear that Katee wants nothing laid at her feet.
He closes his eyes and exhales and it hurts, tight in his chest, and it should. It should hurt like hell. Should hurt to have these thoughts, to consider all the things he’s considered so many times. Should hurt to think about his own pleasures, his own needs, his own wants over those of his wife, of his daughters.
It should hurt, and it does.
He just wishes it hurt more than the sight of Katee walking away from him.
**
He straddles the bike, inhaling the night air that smells like nothing but darkness; unlike London where the night smells like noisy pubs and fish and chips and greasepaint. He adjusts his helmet and kicks the bike into gear, not listening to Kerry’s admonishing voice in his head.
He takes back streets and byways, not ready for house or home. He wonders if it would be different if his girls were waiting, but only long enough to realize the answer’s more than he’s ready to admit.
He stops at a light and looks around. He’s close to home, and should go there, go to bed and try to wake up the man he’s always thought he was. Instead, he runs the light and pulls into a bar. He’s been here before on other nights like this, trying to drown what he feels, what he wants, in pint after pint of ale, knowing it always rises to the surface.
He sits at the bar and orders a beer and a bourbon. It’s the weekend and he’s drinking alone and sleeping alone and living alone, and he can’t think of any reason to do any of it sober.
**
He’s halfway through his third bourbon when he smells it. She says it’s lilies. He says it’s the Thursday rubbish bin. Either way, it’s here and it’s now, and it slides along his senses and sends a jolt through him.
He turns his head as she sinks onto the stool next to him. The bartender’s there before she gestures, and she tilts her head in Jamie’s direction. “I want what he’s got.”
The words and their myriad of meanings aren’t lost on Jamie. He waits for the bartender to serve her then lifts his glass. Katee watches him, her eyes on his hand, on the simple gold band he wears.
“Thought you went out with the gang.”
“I did.” She raises her glass, raises her eyes to his. “Nothing about this is a good idea, Jamie.”
“Having a drink together?”
She tosses back the bourbon like it’s nothing then looks at him and laughs, sad and knowing and more. “You really think that’s what we’re doing?”
**
They get on the bike and her arms are warm around him, underneath his jacket. He’s too drunk to be on the bike and he knows it, can see the headlines - Drunken co-stars die on way to romantic tryst! - but it’s faster and more discreet than her car and he doesn’t want this to be something that ends up a quick fumble in the back seat somewhere.
Of course, that makes it all so much worse.
The wind has kicked up and it’s bitterly cold as he slings the bike in the opposite direction of his house. He needs distance now that she’s with him, needs to be separate. It worries him that he can do this, leave that Jamie behind, leave behind the father and the husband and the co-worker, and just be this Jamie, the man with Katee’s arms around him, her breath warm on his neck.
She has a friend out of town and guides him there, a dark house on a quiet street that looks like every other street around. Anonymity and peace and he kills the bike. She fishes a key out of her pocket and disappears inside and opens the garage. He wheels the bike in and stays on it, looking at her in the dim yellow glow of the bulb.
Katee shakes her head and approaches him, her eyes looking him over as they had on the set, and he wonders how the same look can be so different. He licks his lips and watches her mouth, watches her lips curve into a slow, seductive smile.
“I thought you didn’t want this.”
She reaches him and slides two fingers up from his knee to the top of his thigh. “I don’t.”
He nods. “Then why are we here?”
Her other hand comes up and curves along the side of his neck and he can feel his pulse kick up in response, knows she can feel it too. “Because right now, we don’t have anywhere else to be.”
**
Kissing her is nothing like kissing Kara. He knows this - he’s kissed her before, drunken, laughing kisses at parties or in convention hallways, kisses that went on a little too long and ended with both of them flushed and waving goodnight. He pretends they never happened, pretends he’s never fallen asleep with her on his mind.
But this is different. This is kissing her on purpose, with purpose. This is pulling her close and tasting her, exploring her mouth with his tongue, feeling the pressure of her tongue, her teeth, her lips. She makes a noise low in her throat and he pulls away, sucking in the damp, dank air of the garage.
“Jamie.” She whispers his name and he slides off the bike, backing her up against the door to the house, needing to touch her. She laughs as his fingers slip under her shirt, gasping at the cold pressure of his skin on hers and then groans as he finds her mouth again.
She gasps as his hands slide up, grazing over her stomach and sides, curving over the swell of her breasts, his thumbs stroking across her nipples. He pulls back, watching her mouth, her eyes as she opens them.
They stare at one another for a long moment, waiting for the offhand comment that ends this, makes it all a joke. Jamie doesn’t move, doesn’t let her look away. He can think of a million ways to break the moment and wishes fervently that he had the willpower to do so until she licks her lips, swollen from his kisses and dark pink from the scrape of his stubble.
She exhales, breaking the silence, the stalemate. “We could go inside.”
He nods and steps back, releasing her, the feel of her still burning across his palms, overloading his senses. She turns around and opens the door, barely through it when she turns again and grabs him, fingers firm against his scalp as she pulls him in.
They kiss and he guides her backwards, tugging her shirt over her head as she pants rough directions - third door, right - against his lips. He leaves a trail of her clothes: her shirt in the doorway, unfastening her jeans in the kitchen and shedding them by the dining room. She tugs his shirt over his head and drops it in the main foyer, moving in to kiss him again.
Her eyes are dark in the dim glow from the kitchen and she tastes like bourbon and the night air and he closes his eyes, losing himself in her. His hands wrap around her back, sliding up to unfasten her bra. She makes a small sound, gasping against his mouth as he unhooks it.
He shakes his head as he pulls away from her, taking the lacy fabric with him, tugging it free of her arms. She shivers and he moves in again, fingers sliding along the waistband of her knickers, curving around her hips as he bends his head and takes one nipple in his mouth, sucking on the tight, warm flesh.
“J-Jamie…” There’s desperation and laughter in her voice, and he pulls away long enough to move his mouth to her other breast. His hands slide back further, beneath the fabric to the curve of her arse, sliding over her skin as he teases her with the quick scrape of his teeth. “Jesus.”
Her hands tangle in his hair and she lifts his head, her kiss hard and hungry and bruising. She holds him tight, fingers pressing against his skull as she walks backwards, tugging them down the dark hallway. He stumbles and sends them both into a wall, nearly crashing to the floor. She laughs against his mouth and he shuts her up with a kiss, fumbling with the doorknob and guiding her into the room, moving forward until the bed’s beneath her and she’s beneath him.
Jamie kneels between her legs and unfastens his jeans, sliding to his feet only long enough to shove them to the floor. He manages to untangle himself from jeans and boxer-briefs and shoes as Katee wriggles free of her knickers, her eyes watching his cock in the moonlight.
“Jesus, Jamie.” She reaches for him as he stretches over her, refusing to let himself think as her hand wraps around the length of him, sliding to the base in one smooth stroke. “So hard.” She looks at him, and he sees things he thinks are signs, things he knows he can’t trust. “You want me.”
“Yes.” He kisses her, hungry and desperate and falling. “God, Katee, so much.”
She makes a soft sound and he smothers it, steals it for his own from her lips. Her hands rake down his back, blunt nails leaving trails on his skin, running from shoulders to arse. Her hips arch upward and they collide, his cock sliding in her grip.
“Jamie.”
“Katee.” He buries his face against her neck, teeth grazing her flesh. He can feel the weight of her perfume on his tongue, but he can’t care, relishes it as he shifts, his hand slipping between them, between her thighs.
She’s wet and hot and his as he slides two fingers over her clit and then inside her, groaning against her skin as her body closes around him, drawing him deeper. This is ancient and age-old, and he fucks her slowly, mouth swallowing her sounds of pleasure, the faint pleas for more until her hand closes tighter around his cock.
He moves without thinking, fingers free and then guiding himself inside her, knees against her thighs and thrusting deep. His body registers everything, the way she moves - Different. The same. - and hides it from him. Memories to taunt him, haunt him.
Katee whispers his name, begging for more, her heels against his arse and then his thighs and then she’s gasping, groaning as he catches her knees and guides them up, thrusts deeper. His name falls into shattered syllables and then she comes, the pulse of heat tightening around him.
He groans, biting his lip to trap the sound between them. Katee tugs him down and laughs as he closes in on her, tangled limbs and sweat and kisses as he comes.
**
She closes her eyes and he eases out of her, eases away. The distance between them is far greater than the space on the bed, and Jamie knows better than to say anything, break the fragile silence. She turns finally, the long stretch of her back offered to him. He’s learned the difference between invitation and obstacle, but tonight he can’t remember which is which, which he wants.
Getting to his feet, he leans down and kisses her shoulder then tugs on his boxer-briefs. There’s always a bathroom somewhere, so he slips out into the hall. The second door is what he’s looking for, so he hits the light, nearly stumbling again. He looks down at his feet and sees what’s nearly tripped him up both times.
He doesn’t know the name, but he knows the doll. He’s got three of them at home, currently tucked in his daughters’ beds - They’ll be us for you, Daddy, so you won’t be lonely - and he stands in the hard light of the bathroom, stroking the silky hair.
**
The night air smells like lilies the entire way to his house, but he parks the bike in the garage and stows his helmet and lets himself in the door. It smells like powder and burned toast and babies and the faintest ghost of Kerry’s perfume. It smells like home.
And he swears, from now on, home is all he needs. And he means it this time.
Until next time.