Rp for l_cuddy_md
House ended up going back to his room, after meeting that blonde woman down in the lobby. He'd had a crap enough day as it was; the way the morning had turned out with Cuddy, meeting Wilson in the bar, getting punched in the face by John. Yeah, he wasn't interested in his day getting any more crap than it already was, and hanging around downstairs
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Cuddy could almost feel the tension building. House's movements, his posture, were stiff, hesitant. She knew she needed to back off a little, but she wasn't sure if it was a purely physical thing or if he was reacting emotionally. Emotionally, she guessed, but he was surprisingly shy about his body at times. Not during sex: he seemed at ease then. And he was definitely comfortable touching her, but the rest of the time....
"It's just me," she added softly. She washed his back, making the touch of her fingers lighter, less sensual. In her opinion it was a shame. Under those layers of wrinkled clothes he usually wore he had a nice body, muscular but lean. She enjoyed running her hands over his skin, feeling the solidity of bones and muscles under the surface. The scar on his thigh was ugly, there was no denying that, but it was old news for her. Old enough that she didn't think about it unless he drew her attention to it.
"Just as well you're not into handcuffs," she said, trying to relax him with something more like their normal sexual banter. "I can't say that I've ever had any great desire to be tied up. As to leather...it's probably a great visual, but wouldn't it be hot?"
Her forehead creased in a frown because she really didn't know. The only leather she owned was a little black leather jacket, and her shoes, of course. She'd never tried more intimate items of apparel. She shook off her musings and gave House a light slap on the ass. "All done. Rinse off and let's get out before we turn into prunes."
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He tried to ignore her reassurance that it was just her, though tried to relax a little more at the same time. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, lagging his head forward. He snorted at her comment about leather.
"That's the whole point," he replied. "You put it on, only for it to come off. Except because it's leather, you're supposed to make a show of the strip teasing. Unless you're a dominatrix, in which case it doesn't come off at all, and the guy being dominated doesn't even get to touch unless he's given permission. That's no fun."
He opened his eyes and peered over his shoulder at Cuddy, and pictured her briefly in leather. His eyes dropped to her breasts and he found himself thinking about Cuddy in a black leather bra and pants. Maybe a short skirt and whoa, that was a hot mental image. He faced back to the wall. Yeah, hot mental image. Something he'd perhaps entertain later on. Not that Cuddy naked wasn't hot enough, but adding something alluring like tight-fitting clothes, things that accenturated her curves, just made it even hotter.
At the slap to his ass, House pushed back from the wall and moved back under the spray, rinsing his whole body off a little self-consciously. He pulled his head away from the spray and gave it a quick shake to rid the excess water, then opened his eyes again to look at Cuddy as he rubbed his hand over his face. He used his other hand to shut the water off.
"I got to soap your breasts; do I get to dry them, too?"
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It occurred to her that his comment about stripping might be in reference to the stripper he'd met here, but realistically he'd probably seen plenty of strippers in his time. More than she had, certainly. She wasn't going to let herself obsess over that any more. He'd had his chance to go back to the stripper, to that kind of sex, and he'd chosen not to. She might not fully understand why he'd chosen to be with her, but she was going to accept that it was his choice.
As House rinsed off, she stepped out of the shower and grabbed one of the thick cotton towels the Hotel provided. A touch of luxury apparently intended to distract them from the fact they were trapped. She did appreciate the luxuries: the towels, the food, all the amenities. But it definitely wasn't enough to distract her from the reality of her situation. So far, House had been the only one who'd managed to distract her. Several times in fact.
"Wait your turn," she said, holding the towel up as House stepped out of the shower. She began to rub it across his chest before he could take it from her. She dried both arms all the way to his fingertips before moving back to his torso. She tried to find a balance between making her touch too detached and methodical and making it so intimate that she made House uneasy again. It was a difficult line for her to tread. It was that whole tactile thing again. She liked to touch. The fact that she'd already become intimately acquainted with his body only made that desire stronger, not weaker.
She ran the towel down his legs, but had to squat down to dry his feet. Then she draped the towel around the back of his legs, holding it by either corner as she stood, pulling up along the backs of his legs and across his ass to his waist. She tugged on it then, pulling him into a brief kiss.
"Oops." She pulled a face in pretend concern as she looked at where the press of her still damp body had gotten him wet. "Guess maybe you do need to dry me off."
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As she dried down his chest and stomach, House slowly and a little warily drew his eyes back to Cuddy and watched her face, watched how she was focusing on what she was doing. He watched her rub the towel down his arms and hands, a little uneasy by how much focus she was putting into this because it was again making him acutely aware of himself and his appearance. He tensed up as Cuddy descended to his legs, though relaxed when she drew no attention to his scar whatsoever, and by the time Cuddy was standing back up and tugged him in towards her with the towel, the look on his had face softened. As awkward as he was about this, it was... nice, in a way, to be touched like that.
"Yeah, that's a real chore," House agreed in a mock put-out tone. He reached for the other towel, shook it out and appreciatively looked at her chest while he started to wipe the corner of the towel across her sternum. He might've been awkward about having this kind of attention on him, but he certainly didn't mind paying this kind of attention to Cuddy's body. And why not? She had an incredible body, as far as House was concerned. He dried over her breasts and took the opportunity to grope them again by palming her left breast and lifting it up to dry underneath it, doing the same to the right breast.
"You really should ask for assistance in drying these in the future," he advised, though the corner of his mouth had lifted in a smirk. "Be too much of a handful, otherwise."
He dried down to her belly, her waist and to her hips, and when he rubbed the towel over her crotch, he glanced up at her face. "Oops. Hand slipped." He grinned. "Turn around."
Once her back was facing him, he ran the towel over her back, made a point of groping and caressing her ass while drying it and dried down her legs before he stood back up and started to dry her hair. He gathered it in the towel and rubbed it carefully, then draped the towel over her head and started to rub her scalp.
"You eaten?" he asked. He tugged the towel from her head and dropped a kiss to her shoulder, then to the side of her neck, letting the towel fall to the floor. He reached his arms around her and stroked her belly before scooping her breasts up in his hands. Hey, he liked them. "I'm hungry," he said against her neck.
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She stood still, allowing House to have his fun as he dried her. She enjoyed it too, after all. She didn't just like touching, she liked being touched. She especially enjoyed being touched the way House did, with obvious enjoyment. Maybe it wasn't the correct feminist attitude to take, but the truth was she liked to look good both for herself and for the (all too rare) men in her life. Correct attitude or not, she was a physical, sexual being just like everyone else. If a man appreciated that, then all the better for her.
"I'm not all that hungry. I had a late lunch." She laid her hands over his where they caressed her breasts. She twisted her head to the side to kiss him, a soft lingering kiss. She had had a late lunch, but the truth was, if the second dose of hormones affected her the way the first had, the side effects would probably show up within the hour. The nausea would be easier to tolerate on an empty stomach.
Besides, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed. Not the way she had after her trip home, in an apathetic depression. She wanted to slide between the sheets naked, warm, and relaxed. She wanted to be lazy. She wanted to be lazy with House... but she did't know what House wanted. If this was a relationship she'd know what to expect, what to...want. But it wasn't a relationship so she didn't know. And it wasn't just sex either. The usual rules didn't apply.
"You could order something from room service if you're hungry. Or if you want to go...not that you have to...." Cuddy turned in the circle of House's arms, wanting to slap herself upside the head for once again being unable to speak plainly. Of course, it would help if she actually knew exactly what she was thinking first.
"What I'm trying to say is, you're welcome to stay, but I won't be offended if you want to go. The evening's still young after all."
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"Shut up," he said impatiently to her. "I know I don't have to do anything I don't want to do, I don't need you to tell me that. I don't do anything I don't want to do, so why should this be any different?"
He gave her challenging look, as if to dare her to tell him he didn't have to stay, again. He ran his hands down her back, and by the time his hands came to a stop on her ass the look on his face relaxed again. Maybe it was stupid to not want Cuddy to talk about this in any way, but it just made things easier to deal with if he didn't feel bound to any rules. Cuddy giving him options were like rules to House, no matter how loose they were. If they started depending on a need to verbally express what they each wanted, that was just setting up a trap for making rules to this non-relationship thing.
Before she could argue with him, because his disputing her really wasn't an invitation for her to protest, House pressed his mouth against hers and distracted her with a kiss instead, teasing her tongue with his. Really, if he didn't want to stay, he wouldn't have got in the shower with her, and he wouldn't have allowed her wash him and dry him. That was where the balance between this being a relationship and not being a relationship was confusing because he didn't want to leave Cuddy after having sex with her, because he liked being with Cuddy while they got along, but he didn't want this to manifest into something more... Or did he? Or...
He made a quiet frustrated noise at the back of his throat when he pulled back from Cuddy, frustrated at himself and his inability to not make this simpler than he wanted it to be. He stubbornly shook it from his mind and took his frustration out on Cuddy's ass instead, groping and squeezing it while peering down at Cuddy.
"Order me up a Reuben," he said as a way of saying he was staying.
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Of course before she could argue the point, he employed the simple yet effective distraction of kissing her. It silenced her, but it couldn't keep her from thinking. She was pretty sure that ignorance was not going to be bliss in this case. If she believed it really was just sex, then there wouldn't be any need for discussion. But she didn't believe that. They'd jumped into something without even knowing what it was and if they didn't figure it out then someone was going to get hurt.
"You can't distract me with sex," she warned when House finally pulled back from the kiss. His hands on her ass had them pressed together, but she thrust her pelvis against his, just to emphasize her point. Except that her point wasn't entirely valid because she wanted House to distract her with sex, only she wanted distraction from the hotel and their captivity, not from whatever it was the sex meant.
Hell, maybe it came down to the fact that they just might be screwed up enough to deserve each other.
Cuddy rolled her eyes when House demanded a sandwich. Jerk couldn't just say he wanted to stay. He had to come at every thing obliquely, speak in code. Then again, that's the way he handled everything and she was an idiot if she'd thought this would be any different.
She managed to extract her ass from House's hands with a little wiggling and walked into the bedroom. She stretched out on the bed, lying on her stomach, and pulled the phone from the bedside table. It only took a couple of seconds to place the room service order, given that she had no desire to engage any of the hotel's staff in pointless conversation. She hung up just as House entered the bedroom. She glanced up as he approached the bed, and fixed an expression of complete innocence on her face. "You did want extra pickle with that Rueben, right?"
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"No," he replied with a look of disgust at the idea of pickle being on his sandwich. He scowled down at her innocent look, sitting down with a slump on the bed. He put his cane aside, then rolled onto his stomach and crawled up towards Cuddy, and he lightly bit her ass in (playful) retaliation before continuing up towards her. Before she could roll over to face him, House crawled on top of her so that she was trapped on her belly beneath his body, though he put some of his weight on his hands so as not to squash her.
"You order pickle with my Reuben, there'll be no pickle surprise for you tomorrow morning," he declared.
One thing House did to be annoying was be playful, especially when the woman he was with was annoyed. He'd done that a lot to Stacy when they were together, and it drove her insane, though she usually ended up laughing, no matter how much she resented him for it. And Cuddy had seemed pretty annoyed at him for telling her to shut up, and he really didn't want to talk about relationship/not-relationship thing with her, in spite that he'd wanted to earlier. So, he was going to seize the vantage point and opportunity to playfully annoy her.
Keeping Cuddy trapped beneath him, he lowered his face to the side of her neck to deliberately tickle it with his bristles. As she squirmed, he trapped her more beneath him and nuzzled his face in closer just to annoy her more. "Don't try to fight it, there's no escape," he said in a low, playful voice, knowing full well she hadn't ordered pickle on his Reuben at all. "No ordering of pickle on my Reuben goes unpunished."
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"I don't need your pickle," she claimed. The way House was laying against her, her ass was fitted against his groin. She pushed up, rubbing her ass against said 'pickle' to tease him. "As long as your mouth's in working order, I don't need your pickle at all."
She knew what he was doing. He didn't want to deal with this thing, but he also didn't want her mad at him for refusing to deal with it so he was trying to divert her attention by being silly and annoying. She didn't need much diverting. She'd said what she felt she needed to say. She was confident House knew what she'd been thinking and she wasn't going to bang her head against a wall if he didn't want to pursue it.
"Never expected you to be such a 'pickle' tease," she added under her breath.
She wasn't really mad anyway. All the loose ends bothered her little administrator's mind. She liked things neat and tidy. So of course it made perfect sense she'd get more deeply involved with a man who practically defined untidy. He wouldn't even iron his shirts, for pity's sake.
"Jerk," she gasped, squirming more vigorously when he started rubbing his stubbled face against her neck. He had her pinned too well, though. Her lower legs were the only part she move much, and that wasn't very helpful. Her hands were trapped under her chest, and she tried to work one free so she could get a little more leverage. Or pinch him, if she had to. She knew if she really needed him to stop, he would. House might be an obnoxious, even hurtful jerk at times, but he would never hurt a woman. Not when he was in control of himself, anyway. The way he'd grabbed her when he wanted his pills was an aberration. He hadn't been thinking clearly. She believed that absolutely.
"I swear, House, if you don't stop I'll shave you in your sleep." She turned her head from side to side, trying to escape the sandpaper rasp of his beard, but he simply switched sides every time she did. Then she let out a snort of amusement. "That might not be all I shave either."
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"You shave me, I'll find another way to torture you," he said. "Don't think I'm easily thwarted."
He jerked back when she tried to squirm away again, and let out an amused laugh at her wrestling against him, before he managed to get his face in against the side of her neck again, torturing it with his lips and tongue in an attempt to find a ticklish spot on her. And when located it, he was merciless, licking and flicking his tongue over the spot until Cuddy was wrestling too much for him to be able to keep her pinned down and tickle her at the same time. Of course, he'd stop if she really wanted him to. He might have lost control of himself when he was desperate for his pills, but House didn't hurt women. He had no respect for people who did purposely hurt women.
House let out another chortle as the struggle became a little more competitive, and he somehow managed to tangle his fingers within hers when she finally got her hands free. He attacked her neck one more time, before he pressed a kiss to her neck and it took him a few attempts to kiss her neck softly for her to work out he was trying to be nice for a change. He kissed up her neck to her jaw, then up to her cheek, gripping her hands tight in his. And just as she relaxed... House stole the opportunity to dive his face back into the side of her neck and attacked her again with his tongue.
He rolled off her with a triumphant, obnoxious laugh, though didn't back off with torturing her. He was on a roll now: spooned up behind her, he reached his hand down to the back of her thigh to grope around for a ticklish spot, and when he located it he mercilessly tickled her before his hand shot up to her belly and groped her there in another merciless attack of tickling. He kept dashing his hand around spots on her body before she could snatch a proper hold on his hand, tickling her thigh, her waist, at one point managed to get his hand between her thighs to attack her groin. He eventually let her win and was grinning broadly and cheekily by the time she got a hold of him.
"Uh-oh," he said, not at all seriously as he wrestled easily with her, letting her have most the power over him. "Cuddy's cranky."
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She let out a muffled yelp when he switched to using his tongue. The beard was annoying, but the tickling hit a nerve that sent a shudder through her body. She cringed against the onslaught, but at the same time pushed back harder, hard enough to finally free her hands...which House promptly captured. She relaxed only slowly when he began to kiss her neck, breathing hard from the mock struggle. She didn't trust him as far as she could throw him, which turned out to be not very far. He rolled off her, but only because he wanted to, and only far enough to gain access to more vulnerable areas of her body.
"What are you? Twelve?" Her brothers had loved to gang up on her in tickle fights when they were growing up. Obviously, none of them had been nude at the time and they certainly hadn't touched her some of the places House did, but the sense of helpless, reflexive reaction to the tickling felt the same.
"Oh, please--you've seen me cranky. This isn't even close," she said as she pushed him to his back. She straddled him and grabbed his wrists, pinning his hands up by his shoulders. She was fully aware that he'd let her take control, and fully aware that she simply didn't have the strength or weight to hold him down if he didn't want to be held. She highly expected he wouldn't want to be held down if she started to tickle him. Or tried to do anything else to him.
She glared down at him, still breathing hard and trying to buy a little time to think of the appropriate response, one she had half a chance of enacting. She leaned forward, fixing him with her gaze. "Suddenly, I'm regretting the lack of handcuffs."
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And he wasn't, either. Having his wrists held like this was one thing; having himself bound with handcuffs would be something else entirely, something he'd not be comfortable with at all. Besides, he knew her remark was just in fun. "Hot as it would be to see you exert your power over me for sexual gratification," he continued, "withholding my right to touch would just be incredibly unfair and non-beneficial. Beneficial to you, maybe. But not to me."
He started to wrestle with her, stretching his arms up above his head so that Cuddy was unbalanced and had no choice but to flop forward. He stretched his arms as much as he could so that Cuddy was face to face with him, and smirked at her. "You're not used to having fun with someone, are you?" he asked teasingly.
Though, the moment he said it, he realised the question rang true to him, too. He hadn't had fun with anyone like he'd been having with Cuddy, in a long time. And as childish as he could be and as much as Cuddy mightn't have appreciated being tickled mercilessly... it was actually a lot of fun, being with her, when they weren't fighting. He stretched his arms a little more until her mouth was within reach of his, and he kissed her teasingly, then kissed her again, slowly drawing her into a deep kiss. He twisted one hand free from her grasp and reached down to her back, lightly stroking his hand over her skin.
"Mmm," he murmured when the kiss ended. "See? Handcuffs aren't beneficial."
Just then, a knock sounded at the door, room service with his Rueben.
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House was looking so pleased with himself that she was giving serious consideration to biting him. Not hard enough to do damage, just enough to make him rethink his position on the whole fairness issue. But instead she stared at him, momentarily dumbstruck by his question. She'd told him she was a fun person, and she was, but no, she wasn't used to having fun. With anyone. There were a handful of people, mostly old friends, with whom she was comfortable enough to relax and have fun, but those were also people she didn't see all that often. And none of them was someone she could let go with on a physical or sexual level. The fact that she could have fun with House was part of what made this thing between them so attractive even while it was so confusing.
She resisted his attempt to kiss her at first, pulling away as much as she could while he still had her stretched against him, but when he deepened the kiss she relaxed. Her grip on his wrists slackened a bit as she concentrated on exploring his mouth almost delicately, sliding her tongue lightly along his. Maybe she could lure him into a false sense of security and then...and then....
She sighed when the knock came at the door. "Lucky you--saved by the bell...boy." She gave his nipple a quick twist as she slid off him, just a reminder that she owed him for the tickling. She grabbed her robe from the side of the bed and slipped it on as she walked to the door. She didn't bother to belt it, just held it closed with one hand as she took the plate with the other.
Door closed and locked against any further interruptions, she handed the plate with the sandwich and chips to House. She let her robe drop to the floor and slid under the sheet on the other side of the bed. She propped her pillow against the headboard and settled back.
"Some five-star hotel," she said in mock indignation, gesturing at his plate. "They forgot the pickle."
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"Just as well," he replied, pulling a face, though because his mouth was full of food his words were distorted. He gestured to his plate impatiently while trying to swallow his mouthful. "Pickle would contaminate this," he added once he'd swallowed, picking up another chip. "If you had ordered this with pickle, I'd have demanded a prompt replacement Reuben and some kind of compensation on your part. Or maybe just make you eat the pickle."
He busied himself with taking another bite of the sandwich, followed by a few chips. "This tastes better than the Reuben they offer back in Princeton," he said as he angled the sandwich up to his mouth for another bite. He paused for a moment, his comment causing a sudden flashback of memories of Princeton, of the hospital, of his job. It was tough to think he'd been succeeded by Foreman of all people, even if it was only temporary, though House doubted the whole Diagnostics department would survive. Because, well, Cuddy had helped him set that department up and... He frowned, shaking the thoughts from his mind and took a bite of his food.
"Wonder what we're supposed to do with ourselves in here?" he remarked as he chewed, leaning back against the headboard. "Job prospects? What could people possibly offer a place that has everything it needs?" He looked across at Cuddy. "Chip?" he asked, holding the plate towards Cuddy.
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She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees as House dug into his food. Her expression grew pensive as he mentioned Princeton. She couldn't help but wonder what was happening there, how the hospital was doing, even though it apparently wasn't her concern anymore. They'd have a new Dean by now. The Diagnostics department would've been absorbed back into the Department of Internal Medicine now that House was gone and his fellows would've scattered to other places. Oncology, too, would have a new director. A lot of changes for the hospital to make in a short time, but she knew how it worked. The changes would be made and life would go on and only a few people would even think about the days that she, House, and Wilson had been there.
"This place is the perfect set up for a hedonist, but for the rest of us...." Cuddy shook off House's offer of a chip and considered his question. She supposed that a few people would be just as happy to while away their time, but she certainly couldn't imagine passing the rest of her days in idle pursuits. It was the same problem she'd had adjusting all along, her need to have some kind of purpose.
"There is a clinic. I suppose the three of us could take shifts, assuming anyone needed medical attention." She tilted her head, looking sideways at House. "You could go back to avoiding your shifts. It'd be just like home."
Even if manning the clinic could provide enough work to keep them busy, she wasn't sure she wanted to do that yet. It was tempting, but like Wilson had said--she didn't want to get too comfortable here. Not unless or until she knew there was no other option.
"Wilson and I are going to try to organize a meeting of all the guests," she said hesitantly. She knew House hated being here as much as she did, but he'd been extremely resistant to considering the possibility of escape. She suspected he was simply trying to avoid more disappointment, but the bottom line was that she wasn't sure how much support he'd give to the idea of a meeting.
"We want to pool everyone's knowledge and information, see if there's anything useful."
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The sour look on House's face soured even more when Cuddy then went on to say about her and Wilson organising a meeting. He looked down to his meal and concentrated on feeding himself a few more chips followed by a bite of his sandwich before looking back to Cuddy as he chewed. "And you really think," he began after he swallowed the majority of his mouthful, "that a bunch of freaks and everyday morons are going to have the answer to getting out of here?"
It was true: House was dead against the idea of attempting to escape because he truly didn't want to avoid disappointment if his attempts failed. He hated failure, he hated being defeated, and the last thing he wanted was something as big as this Hotel proving him defeated. So, it was easier to pretend there was no escape whatsoever and therefore no point in trying to escape so that he couldn't be proven right and proved a failure in the process.
Not only that, but after going home for those twenty-four hours... House didn't like the idea of returning to a place where he was completely forgotten and treated as dead.
"And what if you do find a way out of here?" he pressed on, now looking at Cuddy challengingly. "What're you going to do then? Go back home, where your house is probably sold up and where your job belongs to someone else, and where everybody will just look at you and go, 'Who the hell are you?'? You do get home, you'll probably find all your assets seized, all your bank accounts shut and an epitaph in the cemetary with 'Lisa Cuddy: Dead (we think)'."
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