fanfiction: Biology, Chemistry, Physics
Five Ways You Didn't Sleep With Gregory House (Part Three): Biology, Chemistry, Physics
Summary: The three cells of your brain that are still working insist that this is biology, what you're doing, and chemistry and physics, magnetism and gravity and friction and volatile reactions and combustion and the reproductive imperative and irresistable forces and you'd laugh except you can't really breathe because your mouth is wedged against his but you don't ever want to break away.
Timeline: pre-infarction/college days
A/N: Happy SmutTuesday from la belle France! I'm jealous of everyone in the U.S. that's getting to watch the new episode tonight. I didn't really do my research for this one, so I'm not sure if Cosmo existed/carried advice about fellatio during Cuddy's college years, but I assume that if the first condition (existence) was fulfilled, then the second followed naturally. Next week you're getting garters. Also, as far as I know, practice rooms at universities all over the country are notorious for exactly these kinds of reasons, according to the rumors I've heard.
Disclaimer: House M.D. and all related characters are the property of Shore Z, Bad Hat Harry, Fox, etc. I don't make any money off this and no infringement is intended.
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You meet him in college. UMich is large and exciting and you settle into the premed program immediately, taking science classes with the sophomores and juniors because you killed your AP exams. You're proud of yourself and determined to start life off right. By the fourth week, you've mapped out the perfect running route, which is good because it's around then it starts to get cold and sometimes the only way to drag yourself out of bed is to remind yourself of the beauty of the river in the crisp mornings. Before long it's gotten snowy and there are white crusts on the tufts of grass. You learn to love it, running in winter. The cold air feels so clean and sharp in your lungs. You run alone because that's what you've always liked best. You work things out during runs.
It's full winter when you notice him, the lanky guy running along what you think of, rather jealously, as your route. He doesn't try to talk to you, just lopes along. Mostly he stays off in the distance, or outpaces you pretty easily with his long legs, but then one day he settles in next to you and keeps pace for a couple of miles, and from then you can't shake him off. You've always been stubborn. You stick to your route and ignore him for weeks, until the day you can't take it any longer, and you prop your hands on your hips at the end of the run and pant out your questions.
"Who the hell are you?" you demand, bright red in the cold, and he stretches his hamstrings and ignores you.
"Why do you keep following me?" you try, knowing you and your fury are a laughable tableau. You're not that short, but you're not tall enough to pull off all this anger, and he is all height and stubble and indifferent lean muscle, and it only makes you madder.
"You're not big enough to defend yourself," he says, still bent over his knee. "You're little and you're a girl. You shouldn't run alone."
"Oh, so you've nominated yourself as my grand protector? Listen, I don't need you to watch my back. For all I know, I should be watching against you. Most guys wouldn't be afraid to give their names."
He straightens up, almost magnificent in his thermals and his running shorts, and you're impressed despite yourself. You like tall men and he's well put together even if his face has sharp hollows that make you want to drag him home and let your Jewish mother feed him until he softens a bit. His eyes are very blue. "Your scientific little brain would be put to better use studying for your bio final than trying to riddle me out, Cuddy."
"Who the hell are you?" you ask again, spooked. He just grins this crooked mysterious grin.
"Ask the right questions, Cuddy."
Then he lopes off, and you watch him, hot with anger and curiosity and maybe something else you're not willing to admit or discuss. You play tennis in the afternoon and slam the balls across the net imagining they're his head, but in the morning, you come prepared with questions about the tricky sections of molecular bio and you know his name.
"You're Gregory House," you accuse him, after he's explained all of biology with a lazy brilliance and you're starting to shiver a little because you're sweaty and it's cold. "The infamous. Why are you hanging around me? I'm an undergrad. I'm a freshman. You're the most notorious med student in history." You didn't have to ask around too much to figure out who he was, and the rumors floating around about him are varied and startling: he got kicked out of Hopkins for cheating, he knows everything about everyone, half the professors hate him because he could get them fired, half the professors hate him because he's the smartest guy the med school's ever seen, he's had sex in half a dozen impossible places across campus and he's only been here a year, he's better than the entire lacrosse team but he won't play in the actual matches, he plays the piano at the Old Town on Sundays sometimes. Most of all the rumors say he's smarter than should be legal, a rude cynical bastard, and he doesn't care about anyone. You wonder why he's paying attention to you.
He looks you up and down slowly, blatantly, and you blush under the flush of exercise and cross your arms over your chest. "I like to pick the winners," he says. "Bring your books. Eight tonight. My apartment's number 37 in that complex by the river."
He's gone before you can object and you spend the whole day confused, swearing to yourself that you won't go, that it's probably some ruse to get into your pants. But you don't tell anyone in your study group and you don't tell your roommate or your best friend. "I was seriously considering not coming," you mutter that night as he opens the door.
"Doesn't matter. You're here." He ushers you in and his apartment is fairly clean, which surprises you a little. There's a keyboard in the corner with a guitar propped against it, and he plays around with the guitar as you study, answering your questions for an hour in the form of improvised bits of songs before he picks up his own books. You get up and putter around his kitchenette and make coffee, which he seems to appreciate, and at three he walks you home as you yawn against the weight of your books. He's only half a gentleman: he doesn't offer to carry anything.
Every night that week you end up at his place, even when you're studying for your English final, and you ace everything. He starts to call you Lisa with his half-lisp that's nearly endearing after it becomes clear that you're going to call him Greg, but sometimes he still calls you Cuddy and it's somehow attractive. He isn't going home for winter break because he says he's got nowhere to go and you think about kissing him or inviting him home, and decide that you've got to swear him off when you get back, get down to the studying again because you want to be a doctor so badly. Everything he knows you'll find in your books eventually.
It doesn't work, of course. You're in his bio section for the spring, the one he TAs, and though you try your best to ignore him the first day, you can hear the ripple of whispers as he crosses the lab to stand behind you. He leans in too close over your shoulder to murmur in your ear, "Six. I bought food. You can make dinner." You stand firm against his magnetism, but the rumors will start, and the bitterness of the other students, and the talk of favoritism. He'll enjoy it and you'll just have to kick ass in class to prove that it isn't true. In class you call him House, enforced distance, the roundness of his surname sweet in your mouth like a secret, but you learn to make the syllable crack like a whip when he gets inappropriately close or disregards the other students.
The semester pushes on and you're spending too much time with Greg: your classes aren't suffering, but your friendships are, and you have to make a conscious effort to be with other people. You're still not sure why he's interested in you. Your face has a little baby fat left, despite the running and the tennis, and the rest of you is more skinny than curvy. You dress up well when it's called for, but around him it's always t-shirts and jeans, no makeup, your untameable hair in a messy ponytail. He could have his pick of the pretty girls, you're sure. The blondest, curviest sorority girls are intrigued by his dangerous reputation, flirting and pouting when they see him in the library, and he disregards them entirely. There are other students probably just as smart as you and yet you've never seen him offer to help anyone else outside of class. He never makes a real move on you, either, just flirts the way he seems to flirt with everyone, and you're not sure what to make of him.
It snows and melts and snows and melts and rains, and you study through all of it, and run in the mornings with him beside you, an elongated masculine shadow. Once or twice you fall asleep studying at his place and wake up alone in his bed. Once or twice you visit the Old Town on a Sunday night and he buys you a beer and you sit nervously with the glass and your biochem book, listening to him play jazz and waiting to get caught with your fake id. Finally it warms up enough to play tennis outside and you're on your way to meet your singles partner, wearing your new tennis dress, when Gregory House appears, looks you over, wraps one hand around your wrist, and starts to drag you off like a caveman.
"Greg, I've got to meet someone," you protest, trailing along behind him. His hand is very warm on your wrist. You wonder if he's feverish. "Where are we going?"
"Fine arts," he says. "Something to show you."
"Can't it wait?" You look over your shoulder, as if you're going to see your tennis partner looking after you all forlorn, racket drooping to the ground. It's just the usual collection of students enjoying the sunshine, and no one pays the least attention to you. Greg takes you down to the basement where the practice rooms are and drags you into one of them and almost before the door closes, he's got you up against it and he's kissing you like he's been wanting to do it since the first time he saw you. A thought about your age differences flits through your mind, freshmen are museums and not petting zoos, but your arousal is hard and fast like you've slammed into a brick wall of need, and your skin feels scraped raw with wanting him. You kiss him back, arms thrown around his neck, your tennis bag slipping down your arm into the crook of your elbow, and you don't care that it hurts. He turns the lock behind your back and the click of the bolt is like everything sliding into place. You untangle your arm long enough to drop your bag, careless of your racket, and then you're kissing him again with all you've got, up on your tiptoes, quivering against him.
God, he's good at kissing. Better than he is at biology. The three cells of your brain that are still working insist that this is biology, what you're doing, and chemistry and physics, magnetism and gravity and friction and volatile reactions and combustion and the reproductive imperative and irresistable forces and you'd laugh except you can't really breathe because your mouth is wedged against his but you don't ever want to break away.
When you're light-headed and about two seconds away from passing out from lack of oxygen, he drags his mouth away from yours, his lips grazing your cheek as if he can't stand to really pull away, and the scrape of his stubble makes you shiver. He ducks out of the circle of your arms and you feel cold and rejected for a split second before he takes your wrist again and leads you to the piano. It's a beautiful instrument, a full-size grand, and before you can wonder what he's doing, his hands are around your waist and he's lifting you onto the piano as if you don't weigh anything. The wood is cool against the backs of your thighs. He sits down on the bench, pushes your knees apart with one hand, and starts to kiss the skin just above the joint of your left knee. You've done your share of experimental petting, gotten close to sex at summer camps and parties, but no one's ever kissed your knee before. It's startlingly intimate and Greg's mouth is amazing.
"Where did you get this stupid outfit?" he murmurs into the crease of your knee. "Victoria's Secret have an athletic department now?" He lets his teeth graze your skin as he talks, and between the edges of his incisors and the stubble, you're being driven quietly crazy. His hands are pushed up under your skirt, working at the elastic of your bloomers. You hold on tightly to the edge of the piano's top, trying not to fall off or moan as his mouth moves over the insides of your thighs, sampling at random, and his long fingers work off your bloomers and then your panties. They're damp, which would be embarrassing if you weren't so distracted by your desire for him. You are suddenly, irrationally glad that you shaved your legs and that your underwear is cute. His cheek scrapes some especially tender skin and despite your best efforts, you moan a little. He grins up at you.
"Relax. Practice rooms are soundproofed for a number of excellent reasons." He rubs his chin over the top of your thigh, looking up at you. "Ever done this before?"
"Not exactly," you mutter, a little shy. You want to close your legs except that you're trying to be brave and he's still holding your other knee anyway. You're not afraid of sex and you're not afraid of him, but you're a little afraid of sex with him. You've known Greg long enough to know that he doesn't do anything casually, and what will it mean for your friendship? Your studies? How will you get any work done and he's got his clerkships to start and what if he decides this shouldn't be a repeat performance?
"Trust me, Lise," he says, and he's never called you that before but you like the way it sounds. He hooks one arm around your hips and pulls you forward, putting his shoulders between your knees. Then his face is between your thighs, the tip of his nose against your curls, and he's playing something on the piano at the same time. It's a Bach piece, you think, trying to place it from the days that you had to take flute lessons, but the music ripples and his tongue flickers out and it's all you can do not to fall off the piano. He has one of the pedals pressed down, the loud one, because the music is shimmering through you, and you're never going to be able to listen to Bach again without blushing. He plays and plays and you're not sure how many tongues he has, but it has to be more than one, and it's a good thing the room is soundproof because you can't keep quiet. His hands move over the keys and the music fills the whole room with a joyous dissonance that your whimpering melts into, and you're learning the real meaning of crescendo as your body responds to him. Your knees are tense against his shoulders and you're holding on wherever you can, afraid of flying away. He starts to hum along with the music and the world narrows to his lips and tongue against your sensitive flesh as he kisses and licks and you feel the rough of his tongue and the flat of his teeth and then he's only got one hand on the keys and two fingers of the other inside you, but the music is still ringing through you. You come hard against his palm, your perception shattering into notes of music that bounce off the walls and into the half-sonata that his left hand is still playing.
"Easy, easy," he says, stroking the inside of your thigh with the back of his hand and kissing your knee again. "That's it. Come back to me, Lise." Your whole body is limp and you're trembling a little, and he looks more turned on than you've ever seen anyone look, even the drunken frat boys at the parties you've been to. His eyes are bright blue and his pupils are huge. You glance at his lap and the swell of denim. He follows your gaze, smirking a little at himself.
"Vasodilation," he says, "resulting in erection. Symptomatic of desire. You'll understand when you're a doctor."
"I don't have an M.D. yet, but I think I have a cure for your condition," you tell him, trying to be bold.
"You don't have to," he says, but his pupils get even bigger and his voice is a little hoarse. You ease off the piano, trying not to sit on the keys on the way down, and he cups both hands under your ass for support or just because he likes to touch you, you're not really sure. You coax him into turning so that he's straddling the end of the bench and unbutton his jeans, pushing his boxerbriefs down over the tops of his thighs, and he lifts his hips to help you. His erection is impressive: you wrap your hand around it a little timidly as you kneel in front of him. You've really never done this before, but it can't be that difficult. You've read Cosmo.
You let your fingers move along the underside and he quivers, breathing faster. A little moisture glistens at the tip and you touch your tongue to it. He is salty and smooth, the skin like hot silk under your fingertips, and you take him into your mouth a little at a time, laving with your tongue any part that strikes your fancy. "Lisa," he says roughly, and his hands twine into your hair, loosening your ponytail elastic until your hair tumbles in waves over your shoulders and falls across your cheeks to brush his thighs. Your pulse throbs between your legs at his obvious enjoyment. His pleasure is turning you on all over again. Your breasts feel heavy and your bra is almost painful as the fabric rubs against your nipples. You toy with him, drawing back and blowing across his damp skin, flicking your tongue out, careful not to use your teeth directly but letting them slide against him through the cover of your lips. After a few minutes, he groans and pulls you up for a kiss, your salty mouth against his lips that still taste the way that you must, and you melt against him, trying to keep your hips away from his. You can feel all your blood moving through you, better than an angiogram, the scrape and crowding of the red cells against the white cells and the platelets.
"Want you," he says, looking into your eyes, and you nod. He reaches awkwardly for his wallet and pulls out a condom, ripping the packet open with his teeth, spitting out the little bit of foil. You take the latex from him and roll it down over the hot length of him as he closes the piano, and then he turns and leans back against the case, motioning you to straddle his lap. You lean over him and he kisses you again, cradling your face in both hands like it's the most fragile thing he's ever found.
"We don't have to if you're not sure," he says, drawing back so that he can see your face, his hands still big and gentle on either side of your head. "I'm not much for sentiment, but if it's your first time, this isn't very romantic."
"Want you," you tell him, which earns you a little smile, and you reach down and guide him in. You let yourself down slowly, very slowly, but still it hurts like hell for a moment. You close your eyes and bite your lip hard against the pain, and he kisses your eyelids and you can tell he's trying not to move. Then the pain fades into a new, astoundingly pleasurable feeling of fullness, and you open your eyes and raise one eyebrow at him.
"Brave girl," he says approvingly, putting his hands on your hips. He coaxes you to rock a little and both of you gasp. "You're a natural," he tells you, the words choppy as he breathes heavily. "You're sure you haven't done this before?"
"I hope like hell it doesn't hurt like that every time," you retort, and move again. He feels good. You feel good together. He keeps one hand on your hip, steadying you as you rock against him, and the other wanders over your back and up to the nape of your neck. Your hips are tipped against his and the friction is amazing, especially since you're already ridiculously sensitive from the first orgasm. Suddenly you want to feel his mouth on your breasts and you balance over him as you grab the hem of your dress and peel the thing over your head, tossing it onto your bag. Your sports bra is tight and won't come off easily, but you tug it until the band is on top of your breasts, and his eyes light up.
"For me?" he says, and starts to kiss them without waiting for an answer. God, you hope he never stops. The hand that isn't on your hip moves to your breast, his thumb rubbing over one nipple as he pulls the other into his mouth and it's like someone hooked you up to a battery. You're tingling all over. You rock faster, feeling the band of his jeans against your legs. The feel of the denim under you is great, but he's wearing too many clothes, and you reach down and pull at his t-shirt until he lifts his arms and lets you wrestle it off, and although it means he stops kissing your breasts for a moment, you're glad to feel his skin against yours. You lean to kiss him as he palms your breasts, your hands on his shoulders for balance, and you have Bach running through your head as the pleasure begins to build.
"Lise," he warns, "getting close." You press against him, rocking hard.
"Just," you pant, "just...moment." He grabs your hips and holds you as he thrusts, and your breasts rub against his chest as you bury your face in his neck, trying to muffle your moans against his beautiful bare shoulder. You grind against him and you can feel his thighs tensing under you and he's moving just right and you're suddenly so glad that it's him as you crash against that wall of pleasure again and break through. He grunts a little and pushes hard into you, hands tightening on your hips, and then he lets out a long sigh and wraps his arms around you, pulling you against his chest. You are breathing hard, almost dizzy, damp with sweat, and you can hear his heart beating triple-time, almost rattling in his ribs. You stay tucked against him until your breasts start to ache under the compression of the bra, and then you move carefully, separating yourself from him with something that feels almost like regret. You pull the bra down so that it's comfortable again and then pick up your panties and bloomers, dragging them on with hands that shake. In your tennis bag there are some tissues and you hand him a couple before you put your dress back on. There is a little blood on the condom and you tuck a tissue into your panties just in case. No point in ruining your underwear, even over really good sex. He peels off the condom and rolls it up in the tissue, tossing it into the trash before dressing slowly.
"Better than tennis?" he asks, not looking at you, and you duck around until he has to meet your eyes.
"Much better," you tell him, and drag him down for a kiss.
"Burns the calories," he says, looking more cheerful. "If you decide you're looking for a regular partner."
"We'll see," you say, because what you want to say is yes, over and over, and saying yes to Gregory House is almost never the safe option. You shoulder your bag as he opens the piano again, moving a little stiffly. You smile fondly for a moment, but you have to recompose your face into something more snarky than affectionate as he looks over. You know you will never call it dating, but you know you will sleep with him again, certain as the sun rising, and he's going to be part of your life for a long time, one way or another.
"Coming over after class?" he asks, not sitting down yet, stretching his fingers in the air over the keys like he doesn't care about your answer, but he's listening.
"Wash your hands," you remind him, and he rolls his eyes like you're taking all the fun out of life though he's smiling. "I may come by. I've got a chem test on Thursday to study for, and I've got to get an essay started for one of those humanities you can't believe I'm taking. Are you going to play for me?"
"Anything you want," he says, getting up and opening the door for you. "I'll just go wash my hands. You know, sanitary habits and all. You should probably shower before you trip off to class. See if you can wash off that I-just-got-laid smug look, too. You wouldn't want everyone getting jealous, not that there isn't plenty of me to go around." He raises his eyebrows suggestively.
"There wouldn't be," you grin up at him. "But lucky me - no one else wants you."
"Get," he commands, kissing you quickly so that you stagger a little with a whole new rush of desire. You don't look back as you walk off down the hall, but you know he's watching you, and you can't stop smiling to yourself.
Summary: The three cells of your brain that are still working insist that this is biology, what you're doing, and chemistry and physics, magnetism and gravity and friction and volatile reactions and combustion and the reproductive imperative and irresistable forces and you'd laugh except you can't really breathe because your mouth is wedged against his but you don't ever want to break away.
Timeline: pre-infarction/college days
A/N: Happy SmutTuesday from la belle France! I'm jealous of everyone in the U.S. that's getting to watch the new episode tonight. I didn't really do my research for this one, so I'm not sure if Cosmo existed/carried advice about fellatio during Cuddy's college years, but I assume that if the first condition (existence) was fulfilled, then the second followed naturally. Next week you're getting garters. Also, as far as I know, practice rooms at universities all over the country are notorious for exactly these kinds of reasons, according to the rumors I've heard.
Disclaimer: House M.D. and all related characters are the property of Shore Z, Bad Hat Harry, Fox, etc. I don't make any money off this and no infringement is intended.
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You meet him in college. UMich is large and exciting and you settle into the premed program immediately, taking science classes with the sophomores and juniors because you killed your AP exams. You're proud of yourself and determined to start life off right. By the fourth week, you've mapped out the perfect running route, which is good because it's around then it starts to get cold and sometimes the only way to drag yourself out of bed is to remind yourself of the beauty of the river in the crisp mornings. Before long it's gotten snowy and there are white crusts on the tufts of grass. You learn to love it, running in winter. The cold air feels so clean and sharp in your lungs. You run alone because that's what you've always liked best. You work things out during runs.
It's full winter when you notice him, the lanky guy running along what you think of, rather jealously, as your route. He doesn't try to talk to you, just lopes along. Mostly he stays off in the distance, or outpaces you pretty easily with his long legs, but then one day he settles in next to you and keeps pace for a couple of miles, and from then you can't shake him off. You've always been stubborn. You stick to your route and ignore him for weeks, until the day you can't take it any longer, and you prop your hands on your hips at the end of the run and pant out your questions.
"Who the hell are you?" you demand, bright red in the cold, and he stretches his hamstrings and ignores you.
"Why do you keep following me?" you try, knowing you and your fury are a laughable tableau. You're not that short, but you're not tall enough to pull off all this anger, and he is all height and stubble and indifferent lean muscle, and it only makes you madder.
"You're not big enough to defend yourself," he says, still bent over his knee. "You're little and you're a girl. You shouldn't run alone."
"Oh, so you've nominated yourself as my grand protector? Listen, I don't need you to watch my back. For all I know, I should be watching against you. Most guys wouldn't be afraid to give their names."
He straightens up, almost magnificent in his thermals and his running shorts, and you're impressed despite yourself. You like tall men and he's well put together even if his face has sharp hollows that make you want to drag him home and let your Jewish mother feed him until he softens a bit. His eyes are very blue. "Your scientific little brain would be put to better use studying for your bio final than trying to riddle me out, Cuddy."
"Who the hell are you?" you ask again, spooked. He just grins this crooked mysterious grin.
"Ask the right questions, Cuddy."
Then he lopes off, and you watch him, hot with anger and curiosity and maybe something else you're not willing to admit or discuss. You play tennis in the afternoon and slam the balls across the net imagining they're his head, but in the morning, you come prepared with questions about the tricky sections of molecular bio and you know his name.
"You're Gregory House," you accuse him, after he's explained all of biology with a lazy brilliance and you're starting to shiver a little because you're sweaty and it's cold. "The infamous. Why are you hanging around me? I'm an undergrad. I'm a freshman. You're the most notorious med student in history." You didn't have to ask around too much to figure out who he was, and the rumors floating around about him are varied and startling: he got kicked out of Hopkins for cheating, he knows everything about everyone, half the professors hate him because he could get them fired, half the professors hate him because he's the smartest guy the med school's ever seen, he's had sex in half a dozen impossible places across campus and he's only been here a year, he's better than the entire lacrosse team but he won't play in the actual matches, he plays the piano at the Old Town on Sundays sometimes. Most of all the rumors say he's smarter than should be legal, a rude cynical bastard, and he doesn't care about anyone. You wonder why he's paying attention to you.
He looks you up and down slowly, blatantly, and you blush under the flush of exercise and cross your arms over your chest. "I like to pick the winners," he says. "Bring your books. Eight tonight. My apartment's number 37 in that complex by the river."
He's gone before you can object and you spend the whole day confused, swearing to yourself that you won't go, that it's probably some ruse to get into your pants. But you don't tell anyone in your study group and you don't tell your roommate or your best friend. "I was seriously considering not coming," you mutter that night as he opens the door.
"Doesn't matter. You're here." He ushers you in and his apartment is fairly clean, which surprises you a little. There's a keyboard in the corner with a guitar propped against it, and he plays around with the guitar as you study, answering your questions for an hour in the form of improvised bits of songs before he picks up his own books. You get up and putter around his kitchenette and make coffee, which he seems to appreciate, and at three he walks you home as you yawn against the weight of your books. He's only half a gentleman: he doesn't offer to carry anything.
Every night that week you end up at his place, even when you're studying for your English final, and you ace everything. He starts to call you Lisa with his half-lisp that's nearly endearing after it becomes clear that you're going to call him Greg, but sometimes he still calls you Cuddy and it's somehow attractive. He isn't going home for winter break because he says he's got nowhere to go and you think about kissing him or inviting him home, and decide that you've got to swear him off when you get back, get down to the studying again because you want to be a doctor so badly. Everything he knows you'll find in your books eventually.
It doesn't work, of course. You're in his bio section for the spring, the one he TAs, and though you try your best to ignore him the first day, you can hear the ripple of whispers as he crosses the lab to stand behind you. He leans in too close over your shoulder to murmur in your ear, "Six. I bought food. You can make dinner." You stand firm against his magnetism, but the rumors will start, and the bitterness of the other students, and the talk of favoritism. He'll enjoy it and you'll just have to kick ass in class to prove that it isn't true. In class you call him House, enforced distance, the roundness of his surname sweet in your mouth like a secret, but you learn to make the syllable crack like a whip when he gets inappropriately close or disregards the other students.
The semester pushes on and you're spending too much time with Greg: your classes aren't suffering, but your friendships are, and you have to make a conscious effort to be with other people. You're still not sure why he's interested in you. Your face has a little baby fat left, despite the running and the tennis, and the rest of you is more skinny than curvy. You dress up well when it's called for, but around him it's always t-shirts and jeans, no makeup, your untameable hair in a messy ponytail. He could have his pick of the pretty girls, you're sure. The blondest, curviest sorority girls are intrigued by his dangerous reputation, flirting and pouting when they see him in the library, and he disregards them entirely. There are other students probably just as smart as you and yet you've never seen him offer to help anyone else outside of class. He never makes a real move on you, either, just flirts the way he seems to flirt with everyone, and you're not sure what to make of him.
It snows and melts and snows and melts and rains, and you study through all of it, and run in the mornings with him beside you, an elongated masculine shadow. Once or twice you fall asleep studying at his place and wake up alone in his bed. Once or twice you visit the Old Town on a Sunday night and he buys you a beer and you sit nervously with the glass and your biochem book, listening to him play jazz and waiting to get caught with your fake id. Finally it warms up enough to play tennis outside and you're on your way to meet your singles partner, wearing your new tennis dress, when Gregory House appears, looks you over, wraps one hand around your wrist, and starts to drag you off like a caveman.
"Greg, I've got to meet someone," you protest, trailing along behind him. His hand is very warm on your wrist. You wonder if he's feverish. "Where are we going?"
"Fine arts," he says. "Something to show you."
"Can't it wait?" You look over your shoulder, as if you're going to see your tennis partner looking after you all forlorn, racket drooping to the ground. It's just the usual collection of students enjoying the sunshine, and no one pays the least attention to you. Greg takes you down to the basement where the practice rooms are and drags you into one of them and almost before the door closes, he's got you up against it and he's kissing you like he's been wanting to do it since the first time he saw you. A thought about your age differences flits through your mind, freshmen are museums and not petting zoos, but your arousal is hard and fast like you've slammed into a brick wall of need, and your skin feels scraped raw with wanting him. You kiss him back, arms thrown around his neck, your tennis bag slipping down your arm into the crook of your elbow, and you don't care that it hurts. He turns the lock behind your back and the click of the bolt is like everything sliding into place. You untangle your arm long enough to drop your bag, careless of your racket, and then you're kissing him again with all you've got, up on your tiptoes, quivering against him.
God, he's good at kissing. Better than he is at biology. The three cells of your brain that are still working insist that this is biology, what you're doing, and chemistry and physics, magnetism and gravity and friction and volatile reactions and combustion and the reproductive imperative and irresistable forces and you'd laugh except you can't really breathe because your mouth is wedged against his but you don't ever want to break away.
When you're light-headed and about two seconds away from passing out from lack of oxygen, he drags his mouth away from yours, his lips grazing your cheek as if he can't stand to really pull away, and the scrape of his stubble makes you shiver. He ducks out of the circle of your arms and you feel cold and rejected for a split second before he takes your wrist again and leads you to the piano. It's a beautiful instrument, a full-size grand, and before you can wonder what he's doing, his hands are around your waist and he's lifting you onto the piano as if you don't weigh anything. The wood is cool against the backs of your thighs. He sits down on the bench, pushes your knees apart with one hand, and starts to kiss the skin just above the joint of your left knee. You've done your share of experimental petting, gotten close to sex at summer camps and parties, but no one's ever kissed your knee before. It's startlingly intimate and Greg's mouth is amazing.
"Where did you get this stupid outfit?" he murmurs into the crease of your knee. "Victoria's Secret have an athletic department now?" He lets his teeth graze your skin as he talks, and between the edges of his incisors and the stubble, you're being driven quietly crazy. His hands are pushed up under your skirt, working at the elastic of your bloomers. You hold on tightly to the edge of the piano's top, trying not to fall off or moan as his mouth moves over the insides of your thighs, sampling at random, and his long fingers work off your bloomers and then your panties. They're damp, which would be embarrassing if you weren't so distracted by your desire for him. You are suddenly, irrationally glad that you shaved your legs and that your underwear is cute. His cheek scrapes some especially tender skin and despite your best efforts, you moan a little. He grins up at you.
"Relax. Practice rooms are soundproofed for a number of excellent reasons." He rubs his chin over the top of your thigh, looking up at you. "Ever done this before?"
"Not exactly," you mutter, a little shy. You want to close your legs except that you're trying to be brave and he's still holding your other knee anyway. You're not afraid of sex and you're not afraid of him, but you're a little afraid of sex with him. You've known Greg long enough to know that he doesn't do anything casually, and what will it mean for your friendship? Your studies? How will you get any work done and he's got his clerkships to start and what if he decides this shouldn't be a repeat performance?
"Trust me, Lise," he says, and he's never called you that before but you like the way it sounds. He hooks one arm around your hips and pulls you forward, putting his shoulders between your knees. Then his face is between your thighs, the tip of his nose against your curls, and he's playing something on the piano at the same time. It's a Bach piece, you think, trying to place it from the days that you had to take flute lessons, but the music ripples and his tongue flickers out and it's all you can do not to fall off the piano. He has one of the pedals pressed down, the loud one, because the music is shimmering through you, and you're never going to be able to listen to Bach again without blushing. He plays and plays and you're not sure how many tongues he has, but it has to be more than one, and it's a good thing the room is soundproof because you can't keep quiet. His hands move over the keys and the music fills the whole room with a joyous dissonance that your whimpering melts into, and you're learning the real meaning of crescendo as your body responds to him. Your knees are tense against his shoulders and you're holding on wherever you can, afraid of flying away. He starts to hum along with the music and the world narrows to his lips and tongue against your sensitive flesh as he kisses and licks and you feel the rough of his tongue and the flat of his teeth and then he's only got one hand on the keys and two fingers of the other inside you, but the music is still ringing through you. You come hard against his palm, your perception shattering into notes of music that bounce off the walls and into the half-sonata that his left hand is still playing.
"Easy, easy," he says, stroking the inside of your thigh with the back of his hand and kissing your knee again. "That's it. Come back to me, Lise." Your whole body is limp and you're trembling a little, and he looks more turned on than you've ever seen anyone look, even the drunken frat boys at the parties you've been to. His eyes are bright blue and his pupils are huge. You glance at his lap and the swell of denim. He follows your gaze, smirking a little at himself.
"Vasodilation," he says, "resulting in erection. Symptomatic of desire. You'll understand when you're a doctor."
"I don't have an M.D. yet, but I think I have a cure for your condition," you tell him, trying to be bold.
"You don't have to," he says, but his pupils get even bigger and his voice is a little hoarse. You ease off the piano, trying not to sit on the keys on the way down, and he cups both hands under your ass for support or just because he likes to touch you, you're not really sure. You coax him into turning so that he's straddling the end of the bench and unbutton his jeans, pushing his boxerbriefs down over the tops of his thighs, and he lifts his hips to help you. His erection is impressive: you wrap your hand around it a little timidly as you kneel in front of him. You've really never done this before, but it can't be that difficult. You've read Cosmo.
You let your fingers move along the underside and he quivers, breathing faster. A little moisture glistens at the tip and you touch your tongue to it. He is salty and smooth, the skin like hot silk under your fingertips, and you take him into your mouth a little at a time, laving with your tongue any part that strikes your fancy. "Lisa," he says roughly, and his hands twine into your hair, loosening your ponytail elastic until your hair tumbles in waves over your shoulders and falls across your cheeks to brush his thighs. Your pulse throbs between your legs at his obvious enjoyment. His pleasure is turning you on all over again. Your breasts feel heavy and your bra is almost painful as the fabric rubs against your nipples. You toy with him, drawing back and blowing across his damp skin, flicking your tongue out, careful not to use your teeth directly but letting them slide against him through the cover of your lips. After a few minutes, he groans and pulls you up for a kiss, your salty mouth against his lips that still taste the way that you must, and you melt against him, trying to keep your hips away from his. You can feel all your blood moving through you, better than an angiogram, the scrape and crowding of the red cells against the white cells and the platelets.
"Want you," he says, looking into your eyes, and you nod. He reaches awkwardly for his wallet and pulls out a condom, ripping the packet open with his teeth, spitting out the little bit of foil. You take the latex from him and roll it down over the hot length of him as he closes the piano, and then he turns and leans back against the case, motioning you to straddle his lap. You lean over him and he kisses you again, cradling your face in both hands like it's the most fragile thing he's ever found.
"We don't have to if you're not sure," he says, drawing back so that he can see your face, his hands still big and gentle on either side of your head. "I'm not much for sentiment, but if it's your first time, this isn't very romantic."
"Want you," you tell him, which earns you a little smile, and you reach down and guide him in. You let yourself down slowly, very slowly, but still it hurts like hell for a moment. You close your eyes and bite your lip hard against the pain, and he kisses your eyelids and you can tell he's trying not to move. Then the pain fades into a new, astoundingly pleasurable feeling of fullness, and you open your eyes and raise one eyebrow at him.
"Brave girl," he says approvingly, putting his hands on your hips. He coaxes you to rock a little and both of you gasp. "You're a natural," he tells you, the words choppy as he breathes heavily. "You're sure you haven't done this before?"
"I hope like hell it doesn't hurt like that every time," you retort, and move again. He feels good. You feel good together. He keeps one hand on your hip, steadying you as you rock against him, and the other wanders over your back and up to the nape of your neck. Your hips are tipped against his and the friction is amazing, especially since you're already ridiculously sensitive from the first orgasm. Suddenly you want to feel his mouth on your breasts and you balance over him as you grab the hem of your dress and peel the thing over your head, tossing it onto your bag. Your sports bra is tight and won't come off easily, but you tug it until the band is on top of your breasts, and his eyes light up.
"For me?" he says, and starts to kiss them without waiting for an answer. God, you hope he never stops. The hand that isn't on your hip moves to your breast, his thumb rubbing over one nipple as he pulls the other into his mouth and it's like someone hooked you up to a battery. You're tingling all over. You rock faster, feeling the band of his jeans against your legs. The feel of the denim under you is great, but he's wearing too many clothes, and you reach down and pull at his t-shirt until he lifts his arms and lets you wrestle it off, and although it means he stops kissing your breasts for a moment, you're glad to feel his skin against yours. You lean to kiss him as he palms your breasts, your hands on his shoulders for balance, and you have Bach running through your head as the pleasure begins to build.
"Lise," he warns, "getting close." You press against him, rocking hard.
"Just," you pant, "just...moment." He grabs your hips and holds you as he thrusts, and your breasts rub against his chest as you bury your face in his neck, trying to muffle your moans against his beautiful bare shoulder. You grind against him and you can feel his thighs tensing under you and he's moving just right and you're suddenly so glad that it's him as you crash against that wall of pleasure again and break through. He grunts a little and pushes hard into you, hands tightening on your hips, and then he lets out a long sigh and wraps his arms around you, pulling you against his chest. You are breathing hard, almost dizzy, damp with sweat, and you can hear his heart beating triple-time, almost rattling in his ribs. You stay tucked against him until your breasts start to ache under the compression of the bra, and then you move carefully, separating yourself from him with something that feels almost like regret. You pull the bra down so that it's comfortable again and then pick up your panties and bloomers, dragging them on with hands that shake. In your tennis bag there are some tissues and you hand him a couple before you put your dress back on. There is a little blood on the condom and you tuck a tissue into your panties just in case. No point in ruining your underwear, even over really good sex. He peels off the condom and rolls it up in the tissue, tossing it into the trash before dressing slowly.
"Better than tennis?" he asks, not looking at you, and you duck around until he has to meet your eyes.
"Much better," you tell him, and drag him down for a kiss.
"Burns the calories," he says, looking more cheerful. "If you decide you're looking for a regular partner."
"We'll see," you say, because what you want to say is yes, over and over, and saying yes to Gregory House is almost never the safe option. You shoulder your bag as he opens the piano again, moving a little stiffly. You smile fondly for a moment, but you have to recompose your face into something more snarky than affectionate as he looks over. You know you will never call it dating, but you know you will sleep with him again, certain as the sun rising, and he's going to be part of your life for a long time, one way or another.
"Coming over after class?" he asks, not sitting down yet, stretching his fingers in the air over the keys like he doesn't care about your answer, but he's listening.
"Wash your hands," you remind him, and he rolls his eyes like you're taking all the fun out of life though he's smiling. "I may come by. I've got a chem test on Thursday to study for, and I've got to get an essay started for one of those humanities you can't believe I'm taking. Are you going to play for me?"
"Anything you want," he says, getting up and opening the door for you. "I'll just go wash my hands. You know, sanitary habits and all. You should probably shower before you trip off to class. See if you can wash off that I-just-got-laid smug look, too. You wouldn't want everyone getting jealous, not that there isn't plenty of me to go around." He raises his eyebrows suggestively.
"There wouldn't be," you grin up at him. "But lucky me - no one else wants you."
"Get," he commands, kissing you quickly so that you stagger a little with a whole new rush of desire. You don't look back as you walk off down the hall, but you know he's watching you, and you can't stop smiling to yourself.