Lightning Strikes Twice - Part 18

[ariaadagio]

Title: Lightning Strikes Twice
Fandom: Grey's Anatomy
Pairing: Duh.  (Mer/Der)
Rating: M
Timeline: Post Time After Time.

~~~~~

"Turn left here," Derek said as Meredith glanced around at all the street signs.

She grinned at him.  "I'm actually starting to get to know this place," she said.

Lunch sat in his stomach, slowly digesting.  He felt sated.  He hadn't really eaten much in the last few days.  He'd just felt so awful... He rubbed his face with his hands.

It was after two.  The sun, not quite so high in the sky as earlier, actually felt worse against his eyes now that it peeked in the side windows of Kathy's Mercedes.  The sunglasses helped at least, though, even with them, a dull ache had slowly been developing over the course of the last several hours.  It wasn't anything like before, not like with the anxiety.  No, this was just a slow-building, pinching annoyance that seemed more in tune with PCS than the stabbing, hot poker jabs he had been getting before.

He sighed.  The concussion he'd gotten in the motorcycle crash hadn't been nearly so bothersome.  He'd shaken it off after about a week of feeling sort of bad.  Nothing close to what he'd been feeling like the last few days.  Though, perhaps the discomfort of the broken ribs had clouded his perceptions of the concussion itself.  That and the fact that he'd been young enough then that he'd pretty much bounced right back.

The older one got, the worse even a mild brain injury became, recovery-wise.  He'd seen it countless times in patients pushing forty, pushing fifty, pushing more than that.  He'd just never thought about the possibility of ending up in that position himself.  And he'd never really thought of himself as old before.  He wasn't.  Old.  Not really.  But somewhere along the line, he'd hit midlife, and after everything that'd happened that year, he felt humbled enough to realize it.

He wondered how he was ever going to operate at this rate.  The lights in an operating room were far, far worse than the lights that had been giving him trouble all day.  He leaned his head against the glass and sighed.  He couldn't wear sunglasses in surgery...  His muscles started to ache, but he forced himself to loosen up.

"You okay?" Meredith asked.

"Just wondering if they make surgical sunglasses," he said, his voice tight.

"It's only been four days, Derek," she replied as she turned onto another street without even needing him to prompt her.

"I know," he said.  "I was just sort of hoping that the anxiety meds would be the end of it."

She frowned.  "I'm sorry you're still not feeling so great.  I suck at the sick--"

"Stop saying that, Meredith," he interrupted.  "You're the only thing that's making this bearable for me."

"I...  Really?"

He smiled at her dumbfounded look, marveling at how just looking at her, just looking at her sitting there made the headache fade from his awareness like the receding of a tide.  "I thought I was going to die last night.  And you held me.  I thought I was going to fall this morning.  And you held me.  You keep holding me up...  You don't suck at the sick thing, Meredith.  You don't."

"I want to make it better for you, and I can't, Derek.  I can't-"

"You did."

"But I..."

"Sometimes holding someone is enough, Meredith."

She pulled the car into the long driveway and stopped it behind the last minivan.  She turned to him.  A reddish blush swathed her features.  He smiled as she turned, but frowned when he saw her expression.  "You're saying all these nice things," she whispered, but the look on her face was worried and hopeless.

"But?" he prodded, trying to ignore the worry that had started biting at him.

"When you remember...  Everything.  When you remember everything.  Again..."

The headache pulsed, slowly building, building.  He barely noticed it at first.  He opened his mouth to speak, only to get distracted by a sudden movement across the lawn.

"Rob!" Nancy shrieked as Rob stalked across the grass.  He had a bag slung over his shoulders.  A harsh, cherry red blush toned his cheeks, his throat, everywhere, almost making him look a little sunburned.  "No, Rob.  Rob, Rob, please.  Don't go," she said, sobbing as she pawed at his arm.

He turned and glared at her, shaking her hand away violently as he tossed his things into his little red Miata.  "I can't do this if you're going to be a shrew," he roared.

He climbed into the car and pulled it into the unoccupied lane of the driveway.  He backed the car out past the minivans, past the luxury sedans, past their Mercedes, and sped away.  The tires pealed against the pavement, shrieking, scarring it with blackened, angry tear tracks.  The roar of the motor faded into the breeze.

Derek didn't think.  He just reacted.  He unclipped his seatbelt and shot out of the car.  He closed the space between them as Nancy stood there, staring, horrified, at the empty space where Rob's little sports car had been.  Her lip quivered as Derek jogged to her.  She turned, noticing him approaching.  She took one small step.  Then another.  She started darting away from him just as he got within swiping distance.

"Nance," Derek called.  "Nance, Nance, Nancy..."  He said her name over and over in a rapid-fire of vocalization, trying to get her to slow down.  He reached forward and got a grip on her arm.  She spun around like a yo-yo hitting the end of its string, and he curled her up in his arms as she started to sob.

He tried to make quiet, shushing noises at her, all while he wondered what exactly was going on.  What was Rob so upset about that he would bail with his luggage in tow?  Over Nancy's shoulder, he saw Meredith get out of the car.  She had a concerned look on her face.  She mouthed something at him, something that might have been, "Good luck," before she disappeared up the walk and into the house, leaving him alone with a sobbing Nancy on the front lawn.

Nancy clutched at his shirt, pulled tents of it into a tight death grip.  "I can't do this anymore," she whispered.

He rubbed her back.  "Do what?"

"I can't, I can't, I can't..."

"Shhh," he soothed, but it was the wrong thing to do, apparently.  Her fists were suddenly pelting him, buffeting his chest weakly as she attempted to push away.  He tried to catch her wrists, and she tried to jerk away, all in what probably looked like some sort of strange tango.

"You're so fucking perfect," she hissed.  "Stop it.  Stop it!"

"What?"

"Your wife cheats on you, but you still end up smelling like a fucking rose..."

"Nancy..."

"No, no," Nancy said, shaking her head.  "You don't get it.  You don't get to talk down to me.  You have the love of your life.  Another one.  And you... brought her here.  And..."  She blinked.  Anger bubbled on her skin in a hot, fierce blush.  She panted.  And then it all got sucked away in another racking sob.

"Shhh..." he soothed, pulling her back against him.

"I don't get to try with someone new, Der," she said as he rubbed her back.  "I have kids.  I have kids, and there is no love of my life waiting in the wings.  Rob is it, Derek.  And it's ruined."

He swallowed.  "What happened?"

"I found him.  With..." her voice trailed away, small and lost, as if she simply couldn't admit it fully.  He didn't blame her.

"Oh, Nancy..." he said, groaning as dread poured down behind his heart and gripped it in a tight, clenching fist.  He clutched her as she started to sob with low, throaty, painful sobs.  He never would wish what he'd experienced with Mark on anyone.  He rubbed her back, up and down, up and down.

"I tried to forget about it," she cried.

Mark, Mark, Mark, Addison had moaned...

He held Nancy, trying to think of something to say, anything, but there was nothing.  Nothing that would make it all right.  Meredith was the only thing that had made it even remotely bearable.  He couldn't very well say don't worry, you'll meet someone in a bar.

"But I can't do it," Nancy sobbed.  "I can't, I can't, I can't..."

She let him hug her, let him be comforting, even as the scenery started to revolve around him.  He blinked, trying to make it go away.

"Get off," she whispered.  "Get off, get off, get off!" she hissed as the fury came back.  She pushed off of him, making him stumble, blink, blink slowly.  He tried to regain his bearings as she snarled at him.  Things were slowing down.  "You're so perfect.  You're so, so perfect, and I hate you.  I hate you, Derek."

He pushed his fingers up under the sunglasses and rubbed his eyes.  "Nancy, I'm about as far from perfect as..."  His voice broke.  He swallowed.  "You think anything about this last year has been easy for me?" he asked tiredly.  Weight pressed on his shoulders.

"Your slutty intern certainly has been," Nancy hissed.  "Everyone heard you yesterday morning.  You have a fucking head trauma, Derek.  And you're still getting laid."

The world froze and a white-hot spear of rage slammed into the back of his throat.  He could deal with being insulted.  He could deal with it.  Nancy was distraught, she was distraught and she was his sister, and he could deal with taking her abuse.  He'd done it countless times before.  She was prone to lashing out after she bottled things up for too long, and not necessarily at a deserving target.  Just like him.  But...

"Take it back," he said.

Nancy laughed, but it was a bitter, tearing sound.  "Take what back?"

"She's not slutty."

"Oh," Nancy huffed.  "So, you're not denying the sex this time."

He bit back on the rush of bile as it came up from his stomach.  "Nancy, I don't even know where to start with you right now.  I don't even...  I--"  His voice fell away from him as something in the back of his head started to throb, something cold and dark and close to snapping.  Why did Nancy have to do this?

"Where's the perfect words, Derek?" Nancy taunted.  "Say them to me.  Say something.  Be your perfect self."

"Why are you taking this all out on me?" he whispered as he clutched at the bridge of his nose.  As if taking that small concession for a victory, the roaring ache in his head began to throb, throb, throb with a vengeance, and the bright, bright sun started to tease him with its bitter, unrelenting smile.  He couldn't stop the quiet, breathy groan before it slipped away from him.

"Oh, are you going to play the anxiety card now?" Nancy said.  "Get off it, Derek."

Just leave me alone...

"Nancy, I'm not..." he said.  He gasped as he started to feel queasy.  Meredith.  Black dress.  Just leave me alone...  What had been next?  "I'm not trying to play any cards at all..."  He bit back on a moan.  His body shivered with the force of his denial.

She didn't notice.

You are looking at me.  And you watch me.  Not just a dress.  A black evening gown.  Plunging neck.  Showed her cleavage as she yelled at him...

"Addison practically groveled for you.  Everyone wants you."  Nancy's lip quivered.  Behind the blur of it all, he saw her starting to break down again.  "Why doesn't anyone want me?" she asked.

He reached out with a trembling hand and pulled her back against him, hugging her, even as he felt his insides roil.  Too bright, too bright, too bright, they said.  He closed his eyes and sighed against her.  The sun felt hot, hot, hot against his skin.  "It's okay," he said.  His hands started to shake.  His legs started to shake.  He shuffled, trying to keep his footing.

I can't breathe with you looking at me like that, so just stop!

"Get off me," Nancy whispered, but she didn't push away.

She doesn't drive me crazy...  She doesn't make it impossible for me to feel normal...

He'd kissed her after that.  Kissed her, pushed her up against the exam table, slipped his pants down and run her through...

"It's okay," he whispered again, but it ended in a weak, sick groan, and suddenly he was leaning on her more than she was leaning on him.  He was leaning on her, and then the ground was rushing up, rushing up, rushing up, and he couldn't stop it.

"Der?" his sister asked as he began to fall.  "Der!" she snapped when the fall continued.  "Derek!" Nancy shrieked, clawing at him, but it was too late.  He found himself staring at the sky, blinking, stunned, wondering if the salad he'd eaten was going to come up.  It didn't, but he wished it would because it might stop the awful churning.

Nancy's index fingers rested against his neck as she felt for his pulse.  He lifted a hand to push her away but it flopped useless at his side when he breathed again and the world spun.  He felt like a livewire, twitching.  "It's too bright," he said, barely able to force the words out.

The front door opened and the slams of many footsteps rushing down the walk hit his eardrums behind the distant roar.  Meredith, Chris, and John floated in a blur against the cerulean sky and the white fluffy clouds.  "I'm sorry," Nancy stuttered.  "I thought he was..."  Nancy looked up.  She clutched a tent of his shirt in her trembling fingers.  "Faking.  I thought..."

"Faking it?" Meredith snapped.  "Look, I don't care what your trauma is, Nancy.  He has a concussion.  He hit his head against a steering wheel, his brain slammed into his skull going at least fifty miles an hour, and you think he's faking it?  I don't know what the hell kind of sibling rivalry thing you have going on, but get the fuck off your high horse and leave him alone.  He was only trying to help you.  God only knows why with the abuse you've been heaping on him."

Derek blinked again, stunned enough that following Meredith's words was a challenge.  He swallowed as Chris and John leaned over him.  Strong hands yanked up under his armpits, and suddenly he was upright, fighting to catch up with the situation.  They started dragging him forward, and his feet made him follow more out of habit than any conscious control.  "Fainted..." he whispered.

Meredith's gaze softened as she turned to Derek, walking backwards as Chris and John helped him along.  "I think so, Derek.  How do you feel, now?"

They pulled him through the door, fumbled with him over to the couch, and let him collapse against it in a vague repeat of his first homecoming.  Someone brought him a cool glass of water.  Someone else drew the blinds shut, plunging him in comforting darkness.  Meredith pulled his sunglasses off and set them on the table.  He sighed.  Why couldn't he calm down?  Why not, why not, why not...  He had a thought.  A thought.  A thought.

There it was.  "I missed a dose," he said.  He had planned on taking it as soon as he walked in the door...

"It's three.  You were supposed to take one at two, weren't you?" Meredith said.

"Yeah," Derek said, inhaling.  "Yeah."

Meredith looked up behind the couch at someone.  He couldn't see who.  "I remembered," he said.  He raised his hands to run through his hair, only to tense up even more when he found that they had started to tremble again.  He breathed, making a small sound.  "Remembered prom.  You...  We..."

"Yeah, Derek.  We definitely did.  Breathe for a minute.  Nancy went upstairs to get your pills.  You're only an hour late.  You can take one instead of waiting."  She brushed her hands through his hair.

"Okay," he replied, closing his eyes, trying to stop himself from the shivery, nauseating feeling of his muscles twitching out of control with tension.  He forced himself to calm down, only to drift off into space for a moment and realize when he came back from it that everything was tightening up again.  He rolled into the couch and sighed against the soft pillow, relishing the dark, cool feeling as he burrowed deeper.  Meredith ran her hand in calming, soothing, circular motions along his back.  He swallowed, swallowed, swallowed against the queasy, churning feeling.

"Leave Uncle Derek alone, guys.  He's not feeling well," he heard Kathy say in the distance.  Disappointed mumbles bounced around in his head.  His mother asked something.  Meredith replied.  He lost track of the conversation.  He had the vague sense of adults hovering over him.  Adults that weren't Meredith.

Why wouldn't this go away?  He knew about the problem now.  He knew he was working himself up over things he just couldn't help, like wondering when the next piece of his life would slam into him, wondering what the next horrible thing he'd done was.  He knew it, and he still couldn't make himself relax.

Meredith... she'd scared him.  At lunch.  She'd scared him a lot.  He felt a certain level of detachment now.  Having a horrific event described versus actually seeing it happen were two vastly different things.  He'd wrapped his mind around the fact that she'd died.  The serious look on her face had forced him to get a grip on it.  She'd looked so distraught, like she expected him to break with the news.  But he'd barely wrapped his mind around the fact.  The fact.  Not the bitter, Technicolor reality that he was sure would bowl him over.  She was so worried what he'd think when he remembered.  She was so worried, and that made him worried, and it was all just too much.

She'd given up.  And she'd drowned.  And he'd been the one to rescue her from the water.

He knew what drowning victims looked like, what hypothermia victims looked like.  Cold, waxy, wet, and dead.  Blue and waterlogged.  He couldn't even picture Meredith that way.  It was like this nebulous concept.  Meredith dead.  Meredith drowned.  Meredith in his arms, dead and drowned.

He couldn't picture it.

But he knew the picture would be bad.

He knew he was getting closer, too.  Knew his ability to recount the events of the last year was slowly advancing, the fact that he was lying on this couch in a sick mess quite firm evidence of the fact.  Prom.  He'd had sex with Meredith at prom.  He'd cheated on Addison at prom.  Prom, prom, prom.  Adulterer, adulterer, adulterer.  He wished the rest of the year would just hit him already.  Hit him and be done with it so he could start digging through the shambles of the person he thought he was and try to find something he'd done that was good.

Nancy returned.  He heard her sigh somewhere overtop him, muffled by the cottony weight of the pillows he hid under.

"I'm so sorry, Derek," she whispered as he rolled back out of his cocoon and blinked at them.  Nancy's gaze darted to Meredith.  She blinked.  Small tears spilled as she handed him his pill bottle.  "I'm sorry," she repeated.  "I didn't mean to make it worse.  I didn't...  I am a shrew.  I am.  I deserved..."

"Nobody deserves to be cheated on," Derek muttered as he crunched up into a sitting position and took the proffered glass of water from Meredith.

Nancy didn't reply.  She sniffled, a little shivery nod telling him at least she'd heard him if not digested his words.  And then she disappeared, leaving him alone in the quiet dark with Meredith.  He wanted to chase after Nancy, to tell her it was okay, that it wasn't her fault that Rob had cheated.  But he felt.  So.  Awful.  He swallowed the pill.

He leaned back against the sofa with a heaving sigh.  He covered his face with his hands, sighed again, and slowly drew his palms back over his forehead, over the bumps of his stitches, back against his scalp, tearing his fingers through his hair.  He dropped his arms to his sides and sat, his head bent back as he stared vaguely at the ceiling.  Meredith sat with him, rubbing his chest until the drug started to sink in and the shivery, weird, unsettling feelings faded.

"I think it's working," he said after long, silent minutes.  His muscles had loosened gradually in a slow journey from rigid to lax, slow enough that he hadn't noticed the progression, only the result.  Suddenly, thinking about all the awful things that might be coming down memory lane in a speeding, out-of-control bus warranted more of an informed, prepared what comes will come mentality than shaky, quivery worry.  That was a relief, but...  It still felt immensely odd to him that a little pill was figuring out how he was supposed to deal with things.

He shook his head against the thoughts rattling around in his skull.

"Feel better?" Meredith said.

"Yeah," he replied, frowning, unsettled.  "Well, I think this definitively confirms weaning me off this stuff right now is a bad idea.  An hour late on a dose and I've already almost degenerated into a panic attack."

"I think you're exaggerating a little," she said with a wry smile.  "And you had every reason to be a little stressed right then.  I watched from the house, Derek.  And you dealt with a memory at the same time?"

He sighed.  He had been exaggerating a little.  That had been nowhere near a panic attack, however uncomfortable it had been.  "Rob cheated on her, Meredith.  I've known Rob for years.  I never thought..."

He stood up as his voice fell away.  Blinking, he reached forward to grab his sunglasses.  He felt steady again.  Fine, really.  Except for the thoughts that ate at him.  His face curled into a scowl before he could stop it.  "I should put these away," he said, gesturing to the sunglasses.

Meredith looked at him, an odd frown creasing her face, but she stood and followed him as he trudged up the steps.  He had a vague awareness of her, thumping along behind him, giving him space, but not letting him run off, which on one hand, made him smile, and on the other hand...  He wasn't sure.  He wandered into their bedroom and stood there, idle, staring in the middle of the floor at nothing in particular, the sunglasses clutched forgotten in his hands.  The door closed behind them, and Meredith's hands slipped around his waist.

"You're starting to do the internalizing thing again, Derek," she whispered into his back as she ran her palms along his stomach.  "Stop it.  You can't do this right now."

A wry, whuffing, ironic laugh fell from his lips before he could stop himself.  He turned around to face her.

"I cheated on Addison," he said.

Meredith blinked.  "Yes," she said, calm and collected.  If she was surprised by the subject, surprised or jealous, she did a bang up job of hiding it, and once again he found himself wondering what the hell he'd done to deserve her, especially after everything he'd done to her.

"She found your panties in my coat pocket," he said.

"Yes."

"I didn't mean to cheapen it like that."

"It wasn't cheap, Derek.  It was just..."

"I cheated on her.  I cheated, Meredith.  After everything."  He sighed.  "How did I become that person?" he asked.

"It's okay."

"It's not okay, Meredith," he growled as he pulled out of her embrace and started to pace, pace, pace like some sort of caged animal.  "Every time I think I have a handle on things again, I do something even worse.  What's next?  Do I start skinning puppies?"

She sat down on the edge of the bed and watched him as he prowled along the edges of the room.  "You divorced her, Derek.  Quickly.  It's not the same."

"It is the same, Meredith.  I cheated.  It doesn't matter why or who with.  I hate this year.  I hate it.  I hate it."  By the end, he was snapping, yelling, shaking with the anger of the words.  He felt dirty.  Dirty and wrong and...  How had things gotten to be this way?  How had he let himself become such an awful person?

"It's okay," Meredith said.

"It's not.  It's not okay."

"It's okay," she said, her voice forceful, definitive, sure...  How could she be so sure about something that was so utterly wrong, something that had demeaned her so, so much?

"It's not," he barked back at her.  "I made you into a cheap affair.  I should have left Addison before I let it get so bad that I couldn't fucking keep myself off of you.  I should have..."  He stopped in his tracks, panting, as if he'd suddenly forgotten why he was walking and where.  Should have, should have, should have.  Was there anything he would remember that he'd done right?  Anything?

"But you didn't, Derek.  And it's done.  At least we stopped kidding ourselves..."

"But I knew," he whispered.  "I knew I was kidding myself for months.  And I didn't lift a finger."

"Derek?"

"I told Addison before I told you," he said as he walked over to the bed and sat beside her, curling over his knees, killed with the lancing, ugly spear of guilt.  "At Christmas, I told her I loved you.  I admitted it at Christmas, but it took me months, still, to admit it to you."

"I..." Meredith whispered, but her voice cut away into silence.  She leaned down with him until she was eyelevel, and they were both curled over against their knees.

He turned to her.  "I'm sorry."

"You've been saying that a lot," she whispered.

"Yeah, well," he said, fingering the sunglasses that still loitered in his hands.  "I seem to be a jerk under all this sexy rock star..."

"You're not a jerk, Derek," she said.  Her hand slipped up and down his back.  "Well, sometimes you're a jerk.  But..."

He raised an eyebrow.  "But what?"

She grinned.  "But you're my jerk."

He chuckled.  "Hopelessly, completely.  Thank you."

"For what?"

"Saving me."

She smiled.  Her gray eyes softened, squinting at the corners as she took the sight of him into her mind.  She blinked, slow.  Her long brown lashes swept down against her cheeks.  When she looked at him again, the world behind her faded into a blur.  Her slightly freckled skin focused in a sharp, sharp crush of clarity.  She leaned in close, until his nose was millimeters from her own.  Closer still, and they touched and slid.  She stared, unblinking, unwavering.  Lavender.  She always smelled like lavender.  It made him dizzy with a haze of want, and the clarity fell away into something much more confusing, much more consuming.  Something... perfect.

"I love you," he said, speaking against her lips, which hovered just a hair's width from his own.

"I love you, too," she replied.

She kissed him, long and deep, and what little remained of his worries melted away from him like ice cubes on a sweltering day.  She licked the line of his upper lip as she pressed her body into his, her curves, her warmth, up against him in a grind.  The sunglasses fell to the floor with a thump as her hand ran over his hip and slipped under the waist of his jeans.   He bent his knee up against her hip and pulled them down onto the bed.

They writhed against each other as they scooted up, up, until they could lay themselves out completely without hanging off the edge.  He kicked his shoes off.  Shoes were just stupid obstacles.  She followed suit with a laugh.  He splayed his fingers and ran his palms up under her shirt.  She panted, and her skin swelled up against his hands with each breath.  She was hot.  She lifted her arms above her head and his roaming trip from her navel to her shoulders took her shirt with it.  He slipped it up over her head.

"We have to be quiet," she whispered as he unclasped her bra.

He ran his thumbs over her nipples and she leaned back with a whine.  Her thin fingers dug into the small of his back.  Her nails bit in, but he didn't care.

"I can be quiet," he murmured against the skin of her neck.  He worked his lips down along the line of her clavicle.  He loved her clavicle.  It was a lovely piece of anatomy.  Fit for... biting.  She moaned.  And licking.  She groaned.  And teasing...  She twitched, and a little throaty growl came loose from her throat.  "Can you?" he said.

She hissed and yanked his shirt up over his head as he laughed.  "Your sisters all heard us on Tuesday.  Your mother.  Aren't you at least a little embarrassed?" she asked.

"Meredith, we're adults.  They're adults.  They have kids, so they obviously know about sex.  It's not like-"  His voice fell away as the dull pop of a button flying open hit his eardrums, and she reached under the waistline of his jeans again, except this time, it wasn't over his hip. Her fingers slipped down and wrapped around him.  He groaned before he could stop it.

"I can be quiet," she whispered as she stroked the underside of his length.  "Can you?"

"Mere," he moaned, unable to help himself from rolling up against her.  She released him and gripped his hips, peeling his pants and boxers down in one smooth, quick motion.

He splayed his palms against her navel and slipped down under her pants, reaching down into the slick warmth between her thighs.  He rubbed his thumb in a slow, counterclockwise circle, round, round, and around until she purred, mewled, whined at him with desirous, lusty sounds that made him wish he could push her back against the bed, give up with the slow and sensual, and take her, take her, take her.  He clenched his jaw and forced it down into the pit of himself, forced it away.  She was so beautiful that looking at her made him hurt inside, hurt with twisting, unrelenting want.

"You don't want to play this game with me," he whispered.

"Derek," she moaned.

"I'm very competitive," he growled as he withdrew his hands and yanked her pants down.  She whined at him, but he slammed his body up against her and crushed her in a kiss that took her pleading away, deep into the back of his throat, curling, winding, twisting down against his vocal cords.

"Very," he whispered, kissing her lips.  "Very."  He put his hands on her hips and dipped.  "Competitive."  He pushed up into her.

She clenched.  Her slick, wet heat tightened around him, and he gasped as the roar of everything he'd pulled back inside himself swung up with a kidney punch.  Take her, take her, take her, it demanded.  His deep, deep well of sexual patience seemed to be abandoning him ever so slowly.  His muscles tensed as he fought not to give in to the drive to push, push, push and lose himself in the electricity of her gaze.

She smiled at him with a sly grin.  "If you were expecting me to whimper just then, think again," she said between pants.  She clutched his shoulders and pushed, rolled, flipping their positions around.  "You, on the other hand, are in trouble already."

She slid her pelvic bone up against him and twisted her lower body in a figure-eight pattern that had him leaning back against the pillows, gulping down a groan.  He wanted to flip her on her back and take her, take her, take her.  And he was losing the battle already.  Minutes, and he was losing.  Her fingers ran like fire along his abdomen.  She leaned flat against him and curled in a wave of motion.  Her chest came up as her lower body dipped.  She kissed his jaw line, snaking her tongue along the underside of his chin.

"I'm winning," she whispered as he degenerated into a throaty mess of sounds that weren't exactly quiet.  She did the figure-eight thing again, which sent him arching back against the sheets.  Take her, take her, take her slowly melted into what, what, what?

Sense, sense, sense, where had it gone?  She made her mistake when she paused for a moment.  He took the hint of clarity and latched onto it like a barnacle before it could leave him in the blur again.  He grinned as he rolled them back over.

"I was just letting you have a head start," he said.  Take her, take her, take her.  His lower body twisted and tightened, threatening to make him hurt if he didn't start to do something, anything to satisfy the slow burn of lust.  He gripped her legs and bent them up toward her head as he pushed into her and started to thrust.

"Do you like it deep?" he said, panting as he ran her through again and again and again.  The whine in his brain became a beating chorus, beating on his skull, forcing him along.  She was his addiction.

She started to twitch against him as if she couldn't stop herself.  "Derek, Derek," she panted his name like it was a religion.  He smiled as he came down on her again and again, smiled into the blur of moving bodies and sweat and heat and...  Lavender.

"Say my name," he hissed.

She clamped her mouth shut, bit her lip, even as she bucked against him in the little jerky motions that said she was going to finish soon if he kept his assault up.  Her breaths came in quiet, high-pitched gasps.  Her eyes started to roll back.  Her face scrunched up in a frustrated rictus that said she was on the cliff, ready to go, if he would just...

He stopped.  The whine in his head became a bitter screaming.  He trembled with the force of holding himself still.  Trembled.  Panting racked his frame.

"Derek!" she yelled in frustration.  She arched into him and flailed against the sheets.  Her fingers scrabbled at his slick skin, unable to get any sort of purchase, so gripped was she by the mindlessness of it all.

"Very competitive, see?" he said, clenching his jaw so hard it hurt.  Holding still hurt.  He wanted, wanted, wanted her.  Wanted.  Needed.  He started to twitch with the need to move, but again, he forced it down, forced it away.

She grabbed his shoulders.  "Oh, it's on, now, you evil, evil man," she growled.  They laughed despite the mutual frustration as they swapped again.

"Remember tip number four?" she asked, her smile innocent as she rocked against him, slowly at first, building, building.

He frowned.  He remembered.  "You can't use that.  That wouldn't be fair."

She grinned.  "Well, I won't.  But it was preceded by tip number three."

"And that was?" he asked.

She reached behind with her finger and ran it down underneath him, pressing on the spot she'd found before to stop him from releasing.  His whole body racked with an intense shudder as the heat of pleasure spiked through him.  His mouth fell open and he moaned.  Every painful, shaking thought of take her, take her, take her exploded, obliterated into dust, and all that remained was a mindless, senseless, moaning lust.

"This spot isn't just for stopping you," she said, grinning as she began to rub her index finger up and down in light, even strokes along the line of skin.

The world peeled away from him.  He couldn't hold still.  Couldn't...  Thoughts.  Gone.  He yelled.  He actually yelled.  Not just a little growl.  It shook his entire chest.  Vibrated his body.  He arched back against the pillows as she did that figure-eight thing again on top of a particularly long, harsh stroke with her finger.

"Mere, Mere, Mere, you're cheat--" he growled, but his voice left him.  He clawed at her, unable to think straight.  His nostrils flared as he fought to suck down enough air to do something like speak, but all that did was give him more fuel to moan with.  She rubbed and stroked and petted.  Everything left his realm of awareness but her, and he might have been yelling some more, but damned if he knew how to stop it.

She leaned down against him, lifted her finger away as she slid up against his torso, her slick, naked skin grinding against his.  He groaned as torturous waves of shivery pleasure ceased and left him bereft, confused, addled.  Her sweat-glazed face hovered inches over his.  She smiled.  "It's not cheating.  It's not my fault you have such a sensitive g-spot."

It took him a moment to form a thought.  It took him longer to form a word.  Several tries, in fact.  Take her, take her, take her came jutting back into the din.  "I'm going to make you scream," he panted.  "You're the screamer."

He rolled them over again.  "You're in denial, Derek," she said with a laugh, but it quickly fell away into a shortened, biting gasp as he pulled out of her and slipped his finger up inside her.  He curled it back toward himself, rubbing against the front wall of her.  She was slick and wet and suddenly moaning.

"G-spot?" he said.  "I'll show you g-spot."  He rubbed the inside of her, rubbed and massaged, and she was back to a mewling, throaty, sobbing mess in moments.

He slipped a second finger in, ignoring the synapses firing in his brain, telling him to skip the foreplay, telling him to push back in and go for it.  Go, go, go, go, go, go his brain whined at him.  His brain was a stupid thing, he decided, panting, racked with tremors as he fought not to jerk and thrust into the air like some sort of rutty teenager.

He curled his fingers again.  Her eyes glazed with desirous panic.  "Derek.  Derek," she pleaded, sputtering, gasping.  She shivered, twitched, shivered, twitched.  "That's really cheating.  You're not even..."  He yanked up against her so harshly that she flailed.  "Inside," she shrieked.

He smiled.  "I told you I'd make you scream," he said.

"Dirty pool," she whispered, moaning as he slowed down again.

"Oh, all right," he said.  He pulled his hand away, trying not to show her what a relief it was for him as well.

"No, don't," she replied breathlessly.

"Don't what?" he growled as he scooted up against her and slid up to the hilt again, drew out, slid up, drew out.

"Stop," she pleaded.

He paused.

"Don't stop," she managed, yelling at him, yelling.  She grabbed his ass and yanked him into her, violently.  Her fingers slid down and clutched his hamstrings so fiercely it hurt.  She wrapped her legs around behind him.

"Truce?" she said, panting as she held him up against her, clenching, squeezing around him.

"Okay," he replied, blinking against the fire, the need, the blinding everything that was crunching his thoughts up one by one and spitting them out, unused.

"Good, because I think I'm losing my mind."

He gasped.  "Mine is gone...  Gone already."

They stopped talking then.  Finally stopped teasing each other, teasing themselves.  He let himself loose to pound and pound and pound, building her up, though not much building was required at that point.  Her legs flexed against his lower back.  He arched back and sighed, gasped, moaned at the flex and grind of it all.  It was a rutting, desperate, violent finish to what had started mostly playful.  The friction built and built.  He held himself in, forced himself not to release until he heard her moaning beneath him.  Her hands pawed weakly at his chest.  She pushed against him mid-writhe, flipped them again so she was back on top before he had a chance to realize what was happening.  She put her finger back along the spot she'd found, rubbing, stroking.

Any resistance he could have provided died, and orgasm hit him like a freight train full of bricks.  His vision blurred as he exploded.  He pawed for the headboard, flailing for something to hold on to, anything as he started to fall into a mindless blur, but he missed, and he fell back against the bed, shaking, twitching, yelling, yelling, roaring.

The blur resolved after just a moment, but the shaking didn't.  She sat on top of him, sweaty, covered in a blush of lust.  Satisfaction hooded her smoky, sexed expression.  She ran her hands up and down his chest, soothing as the shaking subsided.  He blinked, tried to catch his breath.  His throat felt sore.  Thoughts were gone.  And he felt absolutely, undeniably, completely sated.  He never wanted to move again.

Never.

She leaned against him, breathing softly.  The scent of lavender tickled at his nose, barely noticeable after the sensory overload he'd just received.  Her lips, millimeters from his left ear, tickled him with a soft release of air.

"I win," she whispered.

He was too dumbfounded to argue.