Fic: Two Paired
Title: Two Paired
Author: joss80
Pairing/Characters: Reese/Zoe
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Post-ep 2x06 The High Road, John and Zoe decide to drink the left-over scotch and play some more poker.
Warnings: Sexual content
Word Count: 2250
She’d won the first hand fair and square, three Jacks and a pair of sixes. The irony of her full house versus the almost-empty house they were now sitting in was not lost on either of them.
He’d jokingly asked her which non-existent sleeve she was hiding her cards up, knowing full well her skin-tight dress would have given anything of the sort away.
The second hand had gone her way too, but in a less overwhelming pair-of-kings to his pair-of-queens manner.
The third glass of scotch had burned its way down in a most delightful way, a nice accompaniment to his spoonful of sugar in the form of him winning the third hand with three aces.
The poker chips practically flew across the hardwood between them during the fourth hand, Zoe egging him on from her seat on the floor. His butt was getting numb but he didn’t mind the view, eyeing her long legs curled up beneath her - a view their former table and chairs had not allowed him during their previous game.
She matched him glass for glass with the scotch, her eyes wandering and lingering more on him and not as much on the cards as the poker game went on. During the ninth - or was it tenth? - hand, he made the mistake of meeting her gaze. Not a mistake so much, perhaps, as the nail in the coffin of their poker game, because she was looking at him so coyly and he found himself transfixed.
“Pair of tens,” he whispered across the space between them.
“Pair of tens,” she whispered back, raising her eyebrows and showing her identical cards.
“Who’s got the next highest card?” he asked.
“I don’t really care. I’m in no state to do any sort of math,” she countered, a smirk on her face.
“True.” He leaned back and braced himself up with his hands behind him. “So what now?”
“Well,” she drawled, stretching out her legs and body in much the same manner he had, “There’s nothing much left in our lovely domestic abode. We could play truth or dare.”
He chuckled slightly at that and knew his face had turned a nice shade of red. “Oh, I think that game could be quite dangerous with the two of us playing.”
“You’re right.” She cocked her head and winked at him. “How about just ‘dare’?”
He raised his eyebrows back at her and grinned knowingly. “I think that game could be quite dangerous with the two of us as drunk as we are.”
“Too bad. Like I said before, John, the party never ends when you’re around...” she trailed off, a resigned tone to her voice.
“What I meant to say,” he offered, the alcohol making him bolder in a way he was well familiar with, a way that tended to get him in trouble, “was that I think we both know where that game would take things.”
She looked over at him, confusion etched on her face. “So what are you saying?” she asked, struggling with metaphors. “You don’t want to play, or let’s dispense with the game and skip to passing GO and collect $200... well, you know?”
His eyes were a glossy black in the dim light, but they burned straight into her and left her breathless. Then he dropped his gaze and scooted the two feet over so he was sitting next to her. He placed a tentative hand on her knee, and several seconds later one of hers joined to rest on top of it, her fingers intertwining with his.
“I don’t know what to do about this, Zoe.” His voice was a raspy whisper again, his head still bowed, an admission a self-assured and sober John Reese would never have made.
She leaned in to him, her long hair tickling his ear in her nearness. “Don’t think too hard, John. Besides, we always have the option of cuddling on our non-existent couch and watching our non-existent TV.”
He smiled at that and turned towards her, but her face was still right there and his lips brushed the corner of her mouth unintentionally before he pulled away a fraction, breathing hard. He felt her hand tighten its grip on his, and when he looked at her again she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
“Why does this feel so awkward?” She mused quietly. “I’m fake married to you for goodness sake.”
“You know, we have kissed before,” he teased, trying to ease the tension and still trying to meet her eyes. It worked. She met his gaze, mere inches separating them, almost in a challenge.
“Well, your turn for the first move this time, John… if that’s what you want.”
Her suggestion of don’t think too hard was still swimming around in his mind, warring with the alcohol and his usual caution. He could smell her, too, a light cocoa butter scent that had started digging itself under his skin the moment he noticed it… and all the while, her eyes looking patiently at him, waiting for his decision.
He knew then that either choice would be okay, that they would be okay no matter what did or didn’t happen. And after all that, it seemed quite simple, really.
He dipped his head forward and kissed her.
His lips landed hard on hers and she pushed right back into him, her hand rising up to touch his cheek as if suddenly being given permission. He nipped at her lower lip, eliciting a groan from her, before seeking her tongue out with his own. Her hand moved lower, gripping the back of his neck and pulling him more insistently to her, and her other hand found the line between shirt and pants and slipped under and upwards to meet his warm skin and scars. He shivered slightly at her caress and she paused, but he reached his own had down to cover hers and pressed it firmly back onto his chest. The back of his other hand traced a line down from her hair, along her cheek and neck, and over the curve of her breast, coming to rest at her hip in a firm grasp.
They both gave themselves over to the moment, kissing and exploring with as much fervour as their seated position on the floor would allow. It was when his hand reached around to cup her rear that he paused and pulled them up to standing. She pressed herself against him and he crushed her to himself with his strong arms, the lengths their bodies melding together from head to toe, and they stumbled towards the stairs.
He hoped to goodness that the four-poster bed was still up there.
The extent of their lack of sobriety became more and more evident as they tried to navigate their way upstairs, both of them tripping and leaning against the wall and each other for support at every move. By the time they reached the top, his shirt halfway unbuttoned and Zoe’s dress hiked up around her hips, it was all John could do to sit on the last step, rest against the wall, and pull Zoe into his arms. He nuzzled at her neck, praying for clarity and equilibrium, but it didn’t come.
“It’s not going to happen, is it?” she asked softly against his cheek.
“Not this way, Zoe,” he breathed out in a sigh. “I can’t do it this way. I’m so sorry.”
She pressed her lips lightly to his, then drew back to look at him. “Ever the gentleman, John. I appreciate that.”
He smiled shyly at her. “This,” he said, indicating between them with his hand, “is too important… and something I’d like to be able to remember in the morning.”
“Well, why don’t you join me in my bed anyway and we can try to get some sleep,” she whispered, kissing him softly again on the lips, before he picked her up and somehow managed to make it through the door of the master bedroom without dropping her. He laid her down gently on the bed and unbuttoned his shirt the rest of the way, then cast it aside to shimmy out of his pants. His bag was still in one of the spare bedrooms, but he didn’t need anything more than his boxers to sleep in. He pulled the plush blankets over himself and politely averted his eyes as Zoe pulled her dress over her head, unclasped her bra, and slid beneath the covers in only her underwear too. She reached for his hand in the space between them, and he heard her quiet “Goodnight, John,” before sleep claimed both of them.
* *
The light seemed to pulse in rhythm with his heartbeat, an ethereal dream that encompassed him in a whole-body sense of well-being. It was a few minutes before he realized that the glow was sunlight through the bedroom window, and that the heartbeat pulsing against his chest was not his own. He eased his eyes open to find Zoe’s head nestled under his right shoulder, hair splayed out in all directions, and her arm stretched comfortably across his chest. Beautiful.
He silently marvelled at his lack of hangover, grateful to have had the wherewithal to drink down some water in the middle of the night when he’d had to get up to relieve himself. He tilted his head slightly and could see one of the scotch glasses, now half-filled with water, next to Zoe’s side of the bed, and smiled. Clever girl.
She stirred against him, then, and he felt himself harden as her breasts pressed into his side. Her hand on his chest unconsciously moved lower and lower until it froze against the waistband of his boxers and her head suddenly jerked up, wide awake, questioning eyes meeting his.
“Morning, Zoe,” he drawled, and kissed her forehead.
“John,” she returned the greeting. “How’s your head feeling?”
“Fine. Yours?”
“Good.” A pause, then, “Can we fuck now?”
“God, yes,” he let out in a low growl.
Her hand slipped into his boxers and he strained up towards her, trying to increase the contact. His lips captured hers as she gave several intense strokes up and down his shaft, but after a few seconds he lightly pushed her onto her back and began kissing his way down her neck, along her collarbone, and found himself at her left breast. Her urgent sighs and shifting under his attentive touch emboldened him, and he reached one hand down to brush against her panties, and then pushed the material aside. His finger found its target and slid up and down, up and down over her for a minute or two, before dipping lightly inside and eliciting a gasp from the woman under him. He looked up at Zoe’s face and she gave him a shy grin and a breathy “Please!” and he redoubled his efforts on her breasts and pushed her underwear down her legs and off to give him better access.
Soon he could feel her pressing up against him more urgently and he kissed her again, mesmerized by the ease of their openness and intimacy. She bucked up against him then, her half-strangled cry of “John!” escaping against his lips as she came. After a minute he brought both hands up to cradle her face and kissed her deeply, trying to convey his unexpected depth of emotion. She returned his kisses with equal passion and moved a hand between them to touch him again, and he had to still her arm with his hand because he was too close already.
“Do we need a -“
“I’m covered. We’re all good,” she reassured him.
After meeting her eyes once more, she gave a subtle nod and he positioned himself between her legs and pushed gently into her. He moved slowly at first, eyes closed, savouring the exquisite feeling of being with her in that way. Then he looked down at her and lost himself in her eyes, and he moved quicker and harder and faster as she wrapped her legs around his back. He came quietly and suddenly, seeing fireworks behind his eyes and then, still propped up on his forearms, he whispered a soft “Zoe” before ravishing her lips with his again.
It was several minutes before their kisses slowed and he withdrew from her, pulling her to lie against him in the same manner that they’d woken up in. He gathered her against himself with his arms this time, though, reluctant to relinquish the newfound closeness they shared. Zoe sighed against him, part in satiation and part still in longing.
“Too bad our suburban life has to end,” she smiled against his skin. “This fake marriage thing is growing on me.”
“We kind of put the cart before the horse on this one,” he mumbled against her forehead. “It might be nice to have an actual date first, especially since you interrupted my last one.”
She tilted her head back to look up at him, eyebrows raised. “Somehow I think you and I don’t exactly fit into the ‘date’ mould, John.”
“You’re right,” he agreed, kissing her nose. “So… how about Friday night, my place? I’ll cook dinner and we can have a non-date. Wear sweatpants if you want, I really don’t care.”
She scowled playfully at him then paused, thinking for a moment.
“On one condition,” she threw back at him, a deliciously evil tone in her voice. “Only if you can be dessert.”
Author: joss80
Pairing/Characters: Reese/Zoe
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Post-ep 2x06 The High Road, John and Zoe decide to drink the left-over scotch and play some more poker.
Warnings: Sexual content
Word Count: 2250
She’d won the first hand fair and square, three Jacks and a pair of sixes. The irony of her full house versus the almost-empty house they were now sitting in was not lost on either of them.
He’d jokingly asked her which non-existent sleeve she was hiding her cards up, knowing full well her skin-tight dress would have given anything of the sort away.
The second hand had gone her way too, but in a less overwhelming pair-of-kings to his pair-of-queens manner.
The third glass of scotch had burned its way down in a most delightful way, a nice accompaniment to his spoonful of sugar in the form of him winning the third hand with three aces.
The poker chips practically flew across the hardwood between them during the fourth hand, Zoe egging him on from her seat on the floor. His butt was getting numb but he didn’t mind the view, eyeing her long legs curled up beneath her - a view their former table and chairs had not allowed him during their previous game.
She matched him glass for glass with the scotch, her eyes wandering and lingering more on him and not as much on the cards as the poker game went on. During the ninth - or was it tenth? - hand, he made the mistake of meeting her gaze. Not a mistake so much, perhaps, as the nail in the coffin of their poker game, because she was looking at him so coyly and he found himself transfixed.
“Pair of tens,” he whispered across the space between them.
“Pair of tens,” she whispered back, raising her eyebrows and showing her identical cards.
“Who’s got the next highest card?” he asked.
“I don’t really care. I’m in no state to do any sort of math,” she countered, a smirk on her face.
“True.” He leaned back and braced himself up with his hands behind him. “So what now?”
“Well,” she drawled, stretching out her legs and body in much the same manner he had, “There’s nothing much left in our lovely domestic abode. We could play truth or dare.”
He chuckled slightly at that and knew his face had turned a nice shade of red. “Oh, I think that game could be quite dangerous with the two of us playing.”
“You’re right.” She cocked her head and winked at him. “How about just ‘dare’?”
He raised his eyebrows back at her and grinned knowingly. “I think that game could be quite dangerous with the two of us as drunk as we are.”
“Too bad. Like I said before, John, the party never ends when you’re around...” she trailed off, a resigned tone to her voice.
“What I meant to say,” he offered, the alcohol making him bolder in a way he was well familiar with, a way that tended to get him in trouble, “was that I think we both know where that game would take things.”
She looked over at him, confusion etched on her face. “So what are you saying?” she asked, struggling with metaphors. “You don’t want to play, or let’s dispense with the game and skip to passing GO and collect $200... well, you know?”
His eyes were a glossy black in the dim light, but they burned straight into her and left her breathless. Then he dropped his gaze and scooted the two feet over so he was sitting next to her. He placed a tentative hand on her knee, and several seconds later one of hers joined to rest on top of it, her fingers intertwining with his.
“I don’t know what to do about this, Zoe.” His voice was a raspy whisper again, his head still bowed, an admission a self-assured and sober John Reese would never have made.
She leaned in to him, her long hair tickling his ear in her nearness. “Don’t think too hard, John. Besides, we always have the option of cuddling on our non-existent couch and watching our non-existent TV.”
He smiled at that and turned towards her, but her face was still right there and his lips brushed the corner of her mouth unintentionally before he pulled away a fraction, breathing hard. He felt her hand tighten its grip on his, and when he looked at her again she couldn’t quite meet his eyes.
“Why does this feel so awkward?” She mused quietly. “I’m fake married to you for goodness sake.”
“You know, we have kissed before,” he teased, trying to ease the tension and still trying to meet her eyes. It worked. She met his gaze, mere inches separating them, almost in a challenge.
“Well, your turn for the first move this time, John… if that’s what you want.”
Her suggestion of don’t think too hard was still swimming around in his mind, warring with the alcohol and his usual caution. He could smell her, too, a light cocoa butter scent that had started digging itself under his skin the moment he noticed it… and all the while, her eyes looking patiently at him, waiting for his decision.
He knew then that either choice would be okay, that they would be okay no matter what did or didn’t happen. And after all that, it seemed quite simple, really.
He dipped his head forward and kissed her.
His lips landed hard on hers and she pushed right back into him, her hand rising up to touch his cheek as if suddenly being given permission. He nipped at her lower lip, eliciting a groan from her, before seeking her tongue out with his own. Her hand moved lower, gripping the back of his neck and pulling him more insistently to her, and her other hand found the line between shirt and pants and slipped under and upwards to meet his warm skin and scars. He shivered slightly at her caress and she paused, but he reached his own had down to cover hers and pressed it firmly back onto his chest. The back of his other hand traced a line down from her hair, along her cheek and neck, and over the curve of her breast, coming to rest at her hip in a firm grasp.
They both gave themselves over to the moment, kissing and exploring with as much fervour as their seated position on the floor would allow. It was when his hand reached around to cup her rear that he paused and pulled them up to standing. She pressed herself against him and he crushed her to himself with his strong arms, the lengths their bodies melding together from head to toe, and they stumbled towards the stairs.
He hoped to goodness that the four-poster bed was still up there.
The extent of their lack of sobriety became more and more evident as they tried to navigate their way upstairs, both of them tripping and leaning against the wall and each other for support at every move. By the time they reached the top, his shirt halfway unbuttoned and Zoe’s dress hiked up around her hips, it was all John could do to sit on the last step, rest against the wall, and pull Zoe into his arms. He nuzzled at her neck, praying for clarity and equilibrium, but it didn’t come.
“It’s not going to happen, is it?” she asked softly against his cheek.
“Not this way, Zoe,” he breathed out in a sigh. “I can’t do it this way. I’m so sorry.”
She pressed her lips lightly to his, then drew back to look at him. “Ever the gentleman, John. I appreciate that.”
He smiled shyly at her. “This,” he said, indicating between them with his hand, “is too important… and something I’d like to be able to remember in the morning.”
“Well, why don’t you join me in my bed anyway and we can try to get some sleep,” she whispered, kissing him softly again on the lips, before he picked her up and somehow managed to make it through the door of the master bedroom without dropping her. He laid her down gently on the bed and unbuttoned his shirt the rest of the way, then cast it aside to shimmy out of his pants. His bag was still in one of the spare bedrooms, but he didn’t need anything more than his boxers to sleep in. He pulled the plush blankets over himself and politely averted his eyes as Zoe pulled her dress over her head, unclasped her bra, and slid beneath the covers in only her underwear too. She reached for his hand in the space between them, and he heard her quiet “Goodnight, John,” before sleep claimed both of them.
* *
The light seemed to pulse in rhythm with his heartbeat, an ethereal dream that encompassed him in a whole-body sense of well-being. It was a few minutes before he realized that the glow was sunlight through the bedroom window, and that the heartbeat pulsing against his chest was not his own. He eased his eyes open to find Zoe’s head nestled under his right shoulder, hair splayed out in all directions, and her arm stretched comfortably across his chest. Beautiful.
He silently marvelled at his lack of hangover, grateful to have had the wherewithal to drink down some water in the middle of the night when he’d had to get up to relieve himself. He tilted his head slightly and could see one of the scotch glasses, now half-filled with water, next to Zoe’s side of the bed, and smiled. Clever girl.
She stirred against him, then, and he felt himself harden as her breasts pressed into his side. Her hand on his chest unconsciously moved lower and lower until it froze against the waistband of his boxers and her head suddenly jerked up, wide awake, questioning eyes meeting his.
“Morning, Zoe,” he drawled, and kissed her forehead.
“John,” she returned the greeting. “How’s your head feeling?”
“Fine. Yours?”
“Good.” A pause, then, “Can we fuck now?”
“God, yes,” he let out in a low growl.
Her hand slipped into his boxers and he strained up towards her, trying to increase the contact. His lips captured hers as she gave several intense strokes up and down his shaft, but after a few seconds he lightly pushed her onto her back and began kissing his way down her neck, along her collarbone, and found himself at her left breast. Her urgent sighs and shifting under his attentive touch emboldened him, and he reached one hand down to brush against her panties, and then pushed the material aside. His finger found its target and slid up and down, up and down over her for a minute or two, before dipping lightly inside and eliciting a gasp from the woman under him. He looked up at Zoe’s face and she gave him a shy grin and a breathy “Please!” and he redoubled his efforts on her breasts and pushed her underwear down her legs and off to give him better access.
Soon he could feel her pressing up against him more urgently and he kissed her again, mesmerized by the ease of their openness and intimacy. She bucked up against him then, her half-strangled cry of “John!” escaping against his lips as she came. After a minute he brought both hands up to cradle her face and kissed her deeply, trying to convey his unexpected depth of emotion. She returned his kisses with equal passion and moved a hand between them to touch him again, and he had to still her arm with his hand because he was too close already.
“Do we need a -“
“I’m covered. We’re all good,” she reassured him.
After meeting her eyes once more, she gave a subtle nod and he positioned himself between her legs and pushed gently into her. He moved slowly at first, eyes closed, savouring the exquisite feeling of being with her in that way. Then he looked down at her and lost himself in her eyes, and he moved quicker and harder and faster as she wrapped her legs around his back. He came quietly and suddenly, seeing fireworks behind his eyes and then, still propped up on his forearms, he whispered a soft “Zoe” before ravishing her lips with his again.
It was several minutes before their kisses slowed and he withdrew from her, pulling her to lie against him in the same manner that they’d woken up in. He gathered her against himself with his arms this time, though, reluctant to relinquish the newfound closeness they shared. Zoe sighed against him, part in satiation and part still in longing.
“Too bad our suburban life has to end,” she smiled against his skin. “This fake marriage thing is growing on me.”
“We kind of put the cart before the horse on this one,” he mumbled against her forehead. “It might be nice to have an actual date first, especially since you interrupted my last one.”
She tilted her head back to look up at him, eyebrows raised. “Somehow I think you and I don’t exactly fit into the ‘date’ mould, John.”
“You’re right,” he agreed, kissing her nose. “So… how about Friday night, my place? I’ll cook dinner and we can have a non-date. Wear sweatpants if you want, I really don’t care.”
She scowled playfully at him then paused, thinking for a moment.
“On one condition,” she threw back at him, a deliciously evil tone in her voice. “Only if you can be dessert.”