Legs: A Sharp-Dressed Man Sequel (Castle, 5 x 20, The Fast and The Furriest)

[pollylynn]

Title: Legs: A Sharp-Dressed Man Sequel

WC: ~7000

Summary: "He may not have mastered it-art or science or wizardry or whatever teasing Kate Beckett comes down to-but he's not prepared to say he's doing it wrong exactly. " Sharp-Dressed Man was a silly PWP insert (ahem) for 5 x 20, the Fast and the Furriest. This is the sequel to that. No real spoilers. It would be delightful, though, if you read Sharp-Dressed Man first.

A/N: Hmmm. Where to place the blame here. First on Luke Reichle, because I invite you to review Beckett's sleep shorts at the beginning of Still. Tell me these are not the tiny camouflage shorts of retaliation. Second, Cora Clavia, because she is pretty much always to blame for pr0n and she clamored for this. But also Tree23 and ms_TGR who showed a certain enthusiasm for a sequel.





Like marriage, teasing Kate Beckett is not to be undertaken unadvisedly or lightly.

Castle sees that now.

Or he will once a certain pair of tiny, tiny camouflage shorts finish disappearing through office doorway into the living room.

With the hard limitations on his current sight lines, that should happen in five, four, three . . .

So, yeah, he sees it now. Without those very distracting and-he really can't emphasize this enough-tiny shorts stealing focus, he sees it.

Teasing Kate Beckett requires impeccable timing, a light touch, and the kind of fearlessness that really only exists in the minds of the truly stupid.

Teasing Kate Beckett is clearly an art. Or maybe a science. Right now-from his current vantage point-he thinks it might actually be some kind of dark wizardry beyond the ken of mere mortals.

Whatever it is, he's doing it wrong.

Sort of wrong.

"Wrong" is really a matter of perspective.

His perspective-his literal perspective-right now is . . . unusual. Limited, definitely. And he really misses the tiny camo shorts, and he hopes they're back soon, so his literal perspective at the moment is not ideal.

As for his metaphorical perspective, well . . . "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," right?

His current situation is fraught with peril, certainly. It is absolutely fraught with peril judging from the way she's slamming things around the far reaches of the loft at the moment. But, call him an optimist, he feels that it's not without the potential for awesomeness.

So he may not have mastered it-art or science or wizardry or whatever teasing Kate Beckett comes down to-but he's not prepared to say he's doing it wrong exactly.

Sure, he's currently enjoying a non-negotiable stay of indeterminate length in the center of his own bed. Sure, he's naked and kind of wishing he'd listened to some of her more pointed complaints about how cold he likes to keep the loft. And, yes, the restraints-which she appears to have used previously undisclosed ninja skills to install and secure him to-lean pretty hard to the not fucking around end of the bondage spectrum.

But "wrong" is really a matter of perspective.

He's holding out for awesomeness.

When embarking on any campaign, it's important to define goals. Looking back now-and she's still slamming around the loft, apparently unconcerned with things like poorly considered temperature control and its possible effects on any plans she has for his participation in the eventual festivities, so it seems like he has some time for a bit of a retrospective-this might be where he started to go wrong when he first set out to tease.

He'd gotten a late start on it, because frankly, it took him a while to figure out what the hell had happened at the bottom of that Bigfoot Trap. Trap for Bigfoot, not Trap by Bigfoot. He's still not happy with the lack of clarity inherent in that nomenclature.

It took him a while to accept that he hadn't imagined the whole thing. And if it hadn't been for some pretty compelling physical evidence-a really unusual pattern of lower body muscle strain for him (unusual even in the Beckett Era, which is saying something), and a long, horrible chain of chigger bites for her-he might still be chalking it up to wishful thinking. Wishful thinking and maybe a slight head injury.

And once he came around to believing it had actually happened-that Kate Beckett, a city girl through and through, had totally jumped him at the bottom of a hole in the middle of the woods-teasing was contra-indicated.

The chigger bites were really terrible. And it's apparently quite early in the season for them. And given that the bites were somewhat farther south of the typical waistline location . . .

Well, he certainly wasn't going to to tease her when one of his very favorite parts of her temporarily turned into an episode of House, MD, courtesy of an overeager dermatology Resident. He can only imagine how awkward the doctor's visit must have gotten when the Attending finally put it all together.

She's actually assured him that he can't possibly imagine how awkward it got. And even if he suspects she's exaggerating-even if he's pretty sure that seven medical students, three Residents, two Fellows, and the Attending wouldn't even fit into a standard exam room-he wasn't about to tease her.

Not at first anyway. At first, he was all apologies and sadly G-rated application of topical corticosteroids on demand. And taking advantage of the dopey, adorable mess that is Kate Beckett on Benadryl was just out of the question.

He didn't. He absolutely did not take advantage of antihistamine-addled Beckett. Despite numerous opportunities, despite the fact that she is fucking scrumptious when she's all sleepy and unguarded, despite the fact that the drugs made her handsy as all hell, he did not once take advantage.

But it's not like he could help listening. She was really uncomfortable. And he wouldn't want her enemies to get hold of the information that allergy meds are capable of neutralizing every shred of her innate grace and coordination, but it's the truth. She needed him to get her things and keep her from slamming her highly valuable brain into the headboard and the corner of the nightstand and Boba Fett. He had to listen.

And it's not like it was a good time for him. It was not a good time, lying there, listening to her litany of dirty thoughts-a litany he's pretty sure would have made Esposito blush-and feeling absolutely honor-bound to keep tucking her back into her side of the bed. It was not a picnic peeling her hands away from all his bits and trying to get her to go to sleep.

It was pretty objectively a bad time, because sleepy, adorable, dirty-talking, bits-grabbing Beckett is like a million times hotter than even regular Beckett, and any would-be critics should please pause to consider that math.

And there was no salvaging any kind of . . . unassisted good time out of it. Any time he tried to leave the bed, she'd follow, and Benadryl or no, she's a light sleeper, and did he mention handsy? All of it was hell on the furniture, hell on her shins and elbows, and hell on him trying to keep her in bed. And not in the fun way. Not in the fun way at all.

A good time was definitely had by none.

Still, he had to listen. He had to watch out for her. It's not like he was deliberately gathering intel, but she really wouldn't shut up about it. The hat, mostly, and what's that about? It's just a baseball cap, but one dose of Benadryl and it was like the Hitchhiker's Guide to Beckett's Fantasyland, where every scenario ends with him leaving the hat on.

So, yeah. He doesn't get it, but it seems to be mostly about the hat. Mostly, but there was enough about reins and ponies-and sometimes some kind of makeshift riding crop?-to imply that apparently the entire ensemble apparently just really, really works for her in ways he doesn't pretend to understand.

She didn't seem to understand either. The whole thing seemed to piss her off. She had some choice descriptors for the get up. And some perplexing ones. Is she even old enough to know what Garanimals are? Do they even make Garanimals anymore?

He really has no idea. He has no idea about any of it. But understandable or not, a clear picture emerged out of the dark days of Benadryl and chigger bites: The camo thing-the total package-really worked for her.

It hadn't even started out as teasing, per se. More hypothesis testing.

He'd hidden it at first. He'd taken the whole thing, still in the dry cleaners' bags, and shoved it as deep in the guest room closet as it would go. The chigger bites hadn't manifested for a few days and by the time he picked up the stuff from White on White, he figured that any reminders of their Woodland Encounter would be unwelcome.

But once the bites had mostly subsided-once she was off the Benadryl-he just had to know. That was his only goal, then. He had to know.

The plan was convoluted. It's his Achilles' heel. He never can resist going for style over simplicity.

He couldn't just move the stuff. He couldn't just have it show up in his walk-in all of a sudden. He needed to gauge her initial reaction. He needed to study it. He needed to know.

The plan involved him getting up really early on a Saturday, sneaking the whole hiking ensemble out, with a couple of regular shirts as window dressing, and having Eduardo hold on to it for him. Then he figured he'd casually wander back in with it draped over his arm after a feigned run to the dry cleaner. Unfortunately, the feigned run turned into an actual run when she asked him to pick up her stuff, too.

And then the actual run was considerably delayed by cuddly late morning sex on the rug in front of the gas fire. Because she asked him to pick up her dry cleaning. She asked him to run an errand for her, and she had her clothes at his dry cleaner.

He was just kind of overcome by the domesticity of it all. And, yes, she rolled her eyes and called him a girl, but she was also completely up for some slow-paced, make-out heavy action that was ultimately pretty fucking earth moving, if he does say so himself.

Things kind of got away from him, then. Then it wasn't just an actual run to the dry cleaners. She asked for lunch from Pound & Pence. She gave him the big eyes and asked if it was ok if she stayed wrapped up on the couch while he picked it up and that was fine. That was more than fine, because he loves to do things for her, and she almost never actually asks him for anything.

But things had really gotten away from him, then. Eduardo, always good in a caper, had astutely pointed that he would need to post-date the tags on his own stuff to match Beckett's. The doorman offered to take care of it himself, no questions asked, but it took some doing.

By the time he'd made it back upstairs, lunch was cold, and he was running afoul of Beckett's blood sugar thing.

Apparently some kind of crazy metabolism is the secret to her particularly deadly combination of soft curves and toned muscle and Beckett. She eats constantly and has this bottomless reservoir of energy that he is more than happy to help her burn off, but if he doesn't time things right her moods can get . . . tricky.

Things were tricky that morning-afternoon by then. They'd had coffee, of course, but sort of skipped breakfast in favor of cuddly late-morning sex, and she was not thrilled that her curry was cold. Plus he'd been so thrown by the actual errand thing that he'd forgotten to get samosas.

He couldn't exactly explain that Eduardo's professionalism and commitment to the caper had delayed him, and her mood had started to lean mopey.

He'd been pretty sure he could fix it with some basics from the pantry. She'd seemed inclined to let him cajole her out of it. She'd let him walk her backwards to one of the stools at the breakfast bar. She'd even pressed up on her toes once or twice to meet him halfway instead of ducking his apologetic kisses.

He'd actually forgotten about it. Things had gotten far enough away from him that he'd forgotten about the dry cleaning, even though it had been the whole fucking point of the exercise. Hypothesis testing. But he'd just draped it over the stool and forgotten about it in his eagerness to get her fed and happy.

The overalls were on top, backed by the aggressive orange of the shirt. She'd had absolutely no reaction to either. At least he'd thought she had no reaction when she calmly moved the whole lot to the back of the couch.

His shoulders had slumped, and he'd turned toward the pantry, thinking to himself that he had kicked the tires of his camo hypothesis and it had crumbled like some of his wilder imaginings about Bigfoot.

He'd been having that exact thought and wondering what the Benadryl-fueled, X-rated ramblings had really been about when she'd spun him around and propelled him across the room. She'd practically thrown him into one of the dining room chairs and then he'd had his answer. Then he'd known.

Not right then. Rightthen, he'd been left wondering how, exactly, she manages to use her mouth as a complex system of rewards and punishments at the same time. Right then, he'd noted for something like the hundredth time that her on her knees in front of him does not at all prevent him from being on the bottom. Right then, he'd had other things and a lot of disjointed, pleading monosyllables on his mind.

But later, when he started seeing color again-when his lower body once again recognized its relationship to the rest of him-he'd known.

He doesn't even need to be wearing it: The camo just really does it for her.

The shorts were teasing, pure and simple.

After the dry cleaning, he'd casually gathered a few more data points. The first hat-based data point-the first post-Bigfoot Trap (for, not by) hat-based data point, anyway-had really been all her.

He'd tucked the hat away high up on his closet shelf. He hadn't even noticed that he'd knocked it down while grabbing something else until she was shoving it on to his head and performing some data collection of her own on the load-bearing capabilities of the built-in shelves.

After that, yes, he'd just kind of casually left the hat in various places around the loft. And from time to time-on the occasional weekend morning-he might have made the decision to leave showering for after he'd run out for pastries, and it would have been irresponsible to roam the streets of New York with unconcealed bedhead, so if the hat just happened to be lying around . . .

None of that was teasing, exactly. All of it was simply having as many facts as possible on hand before embarking on his campaign.

But the shorts were definitely teasing. They were just so cute. And hot. And cute. And when he saw them, he got it. He was instantly able to picture her in them, and just like that, he totally got the camo thing.

Because she has lots of really tiny shorts. She has so many really tiny shorts that he sometimes wonders if designers seek her out and beg for the privilege of making really tiny shorts to showcase the miles and miles of leg she calls her own. No one would blame them if they did. It's just good business sense.

He has several favorites among her dozens of pairs of tiny shorts, but he knew from the moment he saw them that the tiny, tiny camo shorts would rise above them all. So, yes, the shorts were teasing, but not just teasing her. Really, when you think about it, the shorts were teasing both of them. It's really a couples thing. A way to say that he gets the camo obsession now.

Sending them to her at work? That was pretty much teasing just her, though.

That might have been his second mistake. But he missed her and the case they were working sounded so cool and he hated his stupid backlog of chapters. And then, when it turned out that their secondary crime scene was in the woods, well . . . it was too good an opportunity to pass up.

So he'd sent the tiny camo shorts to her at work. Discreet brown paper wrapping and a note vague enough not to mean anything to anyone who wasn't in the habit of jumping him at the bottom of a hole in the middle of the woods and, yes, that was teasing.

It was teasing and it had failed utterly. At least it seemed like it had.

At first it seemed like failure. He hadn't really defined a goal-nothing beyond taking the suddenly urgent fantasy of her in the tiny camo shorts and making it a reality-so it was kind of hard to tell, but radio silence is usually not a win. And the tiny camo shorts failed to materialize in his bedroom or anywhere else, so, yeah. Failure.

But then he'd started to worry. Then he'd gotten the distinct sense that she was biding her time. That retaliation might not be swift, but it would be decisive. Then he'd begun to pray for mercifully uncomplicated failure.

He'd been right to worry.

He's not sure if teasing him is an art or a science or wizardry. Whatever it is, Kate Beckett has had it nailed from minute one. He's not a fool. Or he's not that kind of fool anyway. He's used to her teasing.

Or he thought he was. He's been rethinking that over the last couple of weeks.

She favors the slow burn. Obviously. Four years, two kisses, and incidental physical contact spread out over achingly long intervals. Yes, Beckett's teasing is all about the slow burn.

But the tiny camo shorts have brought home, once again, the hard truth: He really had no idea.

The woman can bide her time. He has to give her that. Right now, he really has to give her that, because he thinks it's been quite a while since he heard any banging around at all, and he hopes she hasn't forgotten about him.

Or maybe he hopes she has. As the tension builds, he has to admit that he might actually hope that she's forgotten him. He might hope that if he didn't miss the tiny camo shorts.

But he does. Thanks to the slow burn, he's only just gotten the briefest glimpse of them-he's hardly had any time at all to enjoy the full effect-and he really, really misses the tiny camo shorts.

She'd made sure he'd miss them. Oh, she'd made sure of that.

Her follow-up to radio silence was epic.

She'd been on her way out the door without him. He was "writing" and not going into the precinct. That day "writing" had reached the point in the procrastination process where doing laundry seemed preferable.

She'd been on her way out the door and dumped a small pile of her things in the basket on top of his with a sly smile and the kind of good-bye kiss that suggested she was not unwilling to compensate him for his services later.

He'd still had compensation on his mind when he'd found them. He'd found them them tangled up with a couple of sweatshirts and her cute monkey socks, crumpled and soft and still warm from her body, and she hadn't been out the door that long. He'd seriously considered chasing her.

He'd calculated the odds of catching her before the elevator closed. He'd weighed the pros and cons of having Eduardo strand her inside and contemplated the likelihood of convincing her to put them right the hell back on so he could slide them over her hips and down her thighs and have his way with her up against the back wall of the elevator.

But it was too late by then. He'd stood there for too long gaping at them-turning them over and over in his hands to capture the last of the heat from her body-and he would like to know how, exactly, that tactic is not illegal.

It might be. Thinking back on it now, he thinks it very well might violate some serious provisions under international law and the rules of warfare. It's certainly not very nice. Nice is definitely not the word for it.

What followed wasn't nice either. What followed is still kind of a blur.

The tiny camo shorts were suddenly everywhere and nowhere at once. It was flashes of artfully rolled cuffs and criminally gorgeous thighs disappearing through the bathroom door. It was just the corner of them peeking out of the hamper. It was them, neatly folded and smelling of her dryer sheets, slipped in among the boxers he keeps in his drawer at her place. It was a controlled barrage.

He couldn't have known the end game would come today. They'd gone missing and, yes, that made him worry. But everything tiny-camo-shorts-related made him worry lately. He hadn't seen them in . . . two days? Three maybe.

Three.

He'd been on his way out to brunch. Alexis was holding the elevator, and he was just going back for his phone. Beckett had strolled into the kitchen in bare feet and one of his t-shirts, so of course he'd had to dart back in for one more kiss.

He's still not sure how she tricked him into it, but all of a sudden his hand was sliding up under the hem of the shirt and over what he had assumed would be bare thigh but actually turned out to be his first up-close-and-personal experience of bare thigh meeting tiny camo shorts. The next second, she was stiff-arming him out the door and using the word daughter very pointedly.

And then the tiny camo shorts had disappeared for three long days.

He was not prepared for their reappearance.

He's not sure how he could have been. He's not sure what could have possibly prepared him to wake up to her smiling down at him-to her sitting astride his chest in all her tiny, camo-shorted glory-and realizing that he could not move at all.

Mistakes were made in those first few moments. He might have panicked. She's made good use of his safe word over the last year. He's made good use of hers. But he still might have panicked.

He might have been a little frustrated to find his arms completely immobilized. It might have made him a little angry to have the tiny camo shorts so close at last and so completely out of reach.

Accusations about Benadryl and retaliation might have been hurled, because he's a heavy sleeper and she really wore him out last night, but Jesus, how could she possibly have pulled this off with him in the room?

He's had time to think about it now, though. He's had what feels like quite a lot of time to think about it and he's prepared to admit that he might have only himself to blame here.

He might even be prepared to stipulate that this particular attempt at teasing has backfired on him. He's not ready to say that he's been doing it wrong. He's still waving his metaphorical pompons for Team Potential Awesomeness. Or he would be if the restraints offered any freedom of movement in his upper body at all, which they don't. They do not.

"Wrong" may not be the right word, but "backfired" is probably in the neighborhood.

She comes back empty handed.

It's considerably more unnerving than anything he's been imagining. And he's been imagining a lot. He's been imagining ice cubes and standard-issue candle wax-which is really not safe for this kind of thing, but she's a total scofflaw in the bedroom-and multiple nightmarish versions of the makeshift riding crop. He's been imagining actual reins a hundred different kinds of torture up to and including total abandonment and captivity in this exact position until his mother gets back on Monday.

Nothing he's been imagining is half as terrifying as empty-handed Kate Beckett in tiny camo shorts.

He doesn't expect her to perch on the edge of the bed. He doesn't expect her to let him get so very close to the tiny camo shorts so soon, but they're right there. They're right there, and they are. Really. Very. Tiny.

She's sitting on the edge of the bed right where he can see them, and that's not an accident.

It's not an accident that she's reaching across his body to trail one fingertip down his arm and across his chest and she's arranged herself just so.

It's not an accident that he can see them riding up over the perfect curve of her ass or that he can admire the frayed edges of the sandy pattern and the eternity of her legs disappearing beneath them.

It's not an accident that he'd like to die now, please.

He doesn't expect her to stretch out next to him. He doesn't expect her to curve herself all along his side, fitting their bodies together like two perfect puzzle pieces.

He definitely does not expect the nuzzling.

The restraints are serious, and the whole deployment-in-the-dead-of-night thing smacks of retaliation and has had him bracing for Angry!Sex Beckett. He has no beef with Angry!Sex Beckett. He's a big, big fan and he's been a proud team member for some of her finest work.

But now there's nuzzling, and that's a fact. That's a very confusing fact that has him babbling.

She is not babbling. She's silent.

Not silent. Wordless.

Wordless is so much worse than silent. It's soft noises. Little moans and her breath catching as she drags her lips over his chest and the flat of her teeth along the line of his shoulder. It's sighs and a low, sexy, indulgent laugh when her hand slips along the inside line of his hip and he's pushing himself closer and cursing her name.

This is not Angry!Sex Beckett and he is confused and desperate and probably, literally, definitely, actually about to completely die if he doesn't get to touch her in the next five seconds.

She doesn't seem to find his line of argument convincing. She doesn't seem to be considering his line of argument, period.

Her plans seem to be proceeding somewhat independent of him. Somewhat, but not entirely because she's . . . releasing his ankle?

He's momentarily stunned by the view. He goes still and doesn't think to protest that she is going in the wrong wrong WRONG fucking direction. He doesn't think much of anything at all, because she's on hands and knees slinking toward the foot of the bed and he has no idea how he could have ever doubted the erotic appeal of camouflage fabric.

He's a believer now. He is fully prepared to tithe at the church of camouflage.

Her fingers make quick work of the buckle at his left ankle and the sweep of them over his skin sends a charge from his toes to his scalp with a few stops along the way. He gasps out her name, the word no, and something about his hands. He tries these in several different combinations, and all it gets him is a glance over her shoulder that's two parts Angry!Sex Beckett and eight parts whoever this patient, nuzzling, tiny-camo-shorted fiend is.

She slides her hand behind his calf and coaxes until his foot is flat on the bed. She twists to face him. Her nails linger at the back of his knee, zigzagging lazily there.

A hundred times before, it's been his fingers, her knee and now he knows. Now he understands the throaty growl and the way her eyes roll back in her head. He's never understood before what that particular spot and just the right touch do to her, but he gets it now. Now he's begging. For her hands. For his. For her mouth and her body and more. He's begging for the sake of it, because he has to do something.

She watches him silently. She brushes her lips over the outside of his knee and trails her fingers along a wandering path up his thigh. When he's quieter-when his throat is dry and raw and he can hardly speak for the chills chasing up and down his body-she asks if he's going to be good.

His eyes go wide and he must ask what she's talking about. He must ask, because she's amused. She's explaining. She's reaching across his body and smoothing her palm up the inside of his other thigh. She explains again, slow and exaggerated. She says she'll undo his other ankle if . . . if something. He doesn't hear the rest over the sound of his own desperate repetition:Yes yes yes.

She sprawls across his knee this time. She stretches her body over him and her sweatshirt rides up. The inward sweep of her waist and the swell of her hip against the fabric pull another plea from him, then another and another. He wants his hands. He wants his hands on her.

She laughs and shimmies further down. She can't quite get the leverage she needs on the buckle. She's not even touching him. The taut, smooth plane of her stomach hovers an inch over his groin and just the heat of it has him pressing his hips up and up.

She tsks and shakes her head. She fixes him with a long, disappointed look. She abandons the cuff around his right ankle and shoves at his other thigh like she's going to do it. Like she actually thinks she's going to get that back on him. He laughs or something to that effect. He tells her it's not fucking happening and a second and a half later, she's doing up the buckle again.

A second and a half later, he swears he's going to cry or explode or yodel. Something drastic, anyway. She laughs. He must have said yodel out loud and she's laughing. Kind of a lot. Shit.

She rolls on on to her side. They're hip to hip and head to toe and even with her at rest-even with her laughing at him-he's going crazy. He's going crazy and he's not going to win this by fighting her.

He's not going to win this at all.

He stares up at the ceiling and swallows hard. He tries for a surreptitious tug or two at his wrists and gets nothing for his trouble but another laugh rippling through her and confirmation that his upper body is going absolutely nowhere.

He tips his head toward her. He's considering a Hail Mary: Silent pleading with full-on puppy dog eyes. He's considering it, but she's watching him intently and all he can do is blink and brace himself.

She's propped on one elbow. Her other hand is toying not at all idly with one frayed cuff. Her fingers trace the line of the fabric back and forth, easing it up over her thigh and letting it fall back. She's talking. It's casual. It's conversational and low. She tells him she really wishes he'd promise to be good.

She draws out the ls and her hand makes its way up one thigh and low across her abdomen. Her thumb hooks over the camouflage waistband and her palm slides back to center and comes to rest just over the little brass button. Her fingers curve down and her hips roll up and there's just the tiniest hint of a groan underneath as her thighs press together-her fingers tight between them for just a second-and she asks again. She asks if he's sure he can't be good.

He stutters out a promise. An oath. The completely immobilized man's equivalent of a pinky swear. He vows that he will absolutely be good.

If he were any less out of his mind it might occur to him to be satisfied with way she twists and goes for the restraints. With the way she tugs at his thighs until she can lean back against him. But he's exactly this much out of his mind and he's just so fucking grateful for the press of her spine against the hard line of his thigh, even through the fabric of her sweatshirt, that it never occurs to him to count the win.

She wriggles her hips and arches her spine back. She makes a production of getting comfortable. She runs her left hand over his hip. She changes course and drags her fingers low across his belly and murmurs praise when he grits his teeth and stays as still as he can.

She stretches the leg closest to him out along his body and pulls the other in. She lets her knee fall open and he will swear until his dying day that his first real look at her-his first real look at those tiny shorts-is like some mystical out of body experience.

He slams back into his body the next second, though, because she is flicking open the little brass button and it is deafening in the sudden silence as the zipper ticks down and her fingers disappear beneath the fabric and fuck. Fuck.

She shifts toward him, spreading her thighs wider. Her back arches and her hips press up. She flings her left arm over his knee and braces herself. Her head drops back on a long moan and he cannot fucking breathe.

He's mesmerized by the rise and fall of her fingers under the fabric and part of his mind kicks and tugs at him, telling him he should pay attention. He should take notes and memorize this exact thing, because he is not the only one the tiny camo shorts are working for. The rest of it-the rest of his mind-is dedicated to not dying before he gets his hands on her.

Her head rolls forward again. She turns in to him a little. She grinds against the heel of her hand and her breath pours over his thigh. He takes a risk. He slides his foot out and eases his thigh toward hers.

A little more of her weight falls on him and it jostles her hip. Her fingers slip and she's close enough that he feels the jolt of the unexpected contact all through her body. He hears the curse between her teeth and he presses the advantage.

He narrates. Somewhere, he finds words in the jumbled mess of his mind and he narrates.

He tells her his fantasies. How he wanted to have her palms down on the bathroom counter. How he wanted to watch her face in the mirror as he yanked the shorts down her legs and fucked her from behind.

He tells her how he wanted her in the elevator, in the kitchen. How he's pictured his own hand inching up her thigh, diving beneath the tight fabric and pressing between her legs.

How he'd love to make her beg. How it would feel right now if he could slide one finger, then two inside her. How wet and tight and fucking perfect she must be. How wet and tight and perfect she always is.

She's fighting it. She's fighting him. Her left hand abandons its post at his knee. She rucks her sweatshirt up and drags her palm, rough and heavy, over her breasts. She pinches and plucks at her nipples and he is out. His words dissolve into a profane, incoherent stream drowned out by a long, low keen that erupts into a scream as she comes.

She's on him the next instant. Not a second of down time or disorientation. The sound from her recedes and she's pure, frenetic movement. She tears the sweatshirt over her head and falls over him. Her breasts drag along his chest as she crawls up his body and she seems torn between recoiling from too much sensation and wanting more.

She throws one thigh over his hips and her mouth comes down over his in a fierce, hungry kiss. It's dark and demanding and it may be the only thing that keeps him from coming the instant he feels the sopping fabric between her legs pressing against him.

She fists her left hand in his hair and kisses him like it's a fight to the death. The heel of her right hand presses at his jaw and her head jerks back as he breaks the kiss and captures her sticky fingers between his lips. He sucks hard and the taste of her drives his hips from the bed.

Her breath hitches and she pushes back, point and counterpoint, and he doesn't know how much longer he can stand any of this.

He darts his tongue over and around each fingertip, then offers it to her. Her lips hover just shy of his. He licks delicately at the corners of her mouth. He coaxes it open and sweeps his tongue inside. They share a moan that ends on a plea from him.

He begs her-asks her again and again-for his hands.

She pulls back, farther this time. She plants her hands on his shoulders and sits tall. There's a faint sheen of sweat along her throat and under her breasts. The waist of the shorts gapes and pools at her hips and he can just see the dark vee of hair descending.

He lets his body go slack and still and passive beneath hers. He says please just once.

She twists her body to one side and stretches over him to work open the buckle around one wrist. He cranes his neck to find her shoulder, her sternum, the swell of her breast with his mouth. She curses and swats at him with one hand, but he's past caring. He sucks and licks and uses his teeth and then one hand is blessedly free and clamped around her hip.

She brings her knee high against his ribs in a vain attempt to control him as she works at the other wrist. His palm works its way under the tight fabric and his fingers curve low between her legs. She falters and her hands fall away from the buckle. He mutters an apology and backs off a fraction of an inch as his mouth closes around her breast.

She lets out a frustrated huff and works viciously and efficiently at the buckle. His hand slithers free as the cuff loosens. Both arms come around her and he crushes her against him. His hands roam wildly. His fingers tug at her thighs and rake down her spine. His palms find the curve of her breasts, her ass, her hips and he can't touch enough of her skin at once.

He hauls himself into a sitting position and every one of his joints protests. He drags them backward and falls against the headboard for support. She digs into his shoulders and presses her knees tight on either side of his hips. She rises up over him and he holds her there, one wide palm at her back.

He spends a long, leisurely time circling his tongue over one nipple, then the other. He sucks and bites and teases and savors every wordless cry until she's tearing at his hair and biting out his name like she means it.

He tips his head back and stares up at her. Her breath comes hot and hard and irregular. Her eyes are huge and heavy lidded and he needs her now. Now.

He twists with her in his arms and has her on her ass against the headboard before she really knows what's happening. He works one hand under her and jerks her hips up from the mattress. He pauses with one hand on the waist of her shorts. There's no small flicker of regret as he works them down the endless stretch of her legs.

He sets the shorts aside with a ridiculous kind of reverence and his mouth makes its way back upward. He turns from side to side, landing a kiss on her calf, her knee, using his teeth on the inside of one thigh, then the other. He pauses. His mouth hovers over her and he can't quite resist one long sweep of his tongue between her legs, but she's impatient now. He's impatient. He needs her.

He struggles to his knees. She grabs him around the biceps and turns. She lets her weight carry them and slams his back against the headboard. She catches the base of his skull in her palm before it can land and she's kissing him and sinking down on him and riding him. He grits his teeth and revels in the feeling of her skin under his. He holds on.

He holds on, but she's so tight and fierce and she's worked out her issues a lot more recently than he has. He drives up into her and closes his fingers around her hips. He roars out her name as she arches her back and slips her fingers between their bodies. He jerks against her again and again as her fingers work furiously and then still.

She sags against him in an endless stretch of sloppy kisses and half-hearted attempts to disentangle herself. He fends off her efforts with quiet nos and hands that have no intention of letting her go far.

He slides them down the headboard and hangs on to her. He bats the leather cuffs aside with a little more force than necessary. She laughs sleepily and lolls against him, dead weight as he struggles to arrange the pillows under her head and shoulders.

It's awkward, but he manages to get them situated under the covers without letting her go. She shivers as the sheets settle on to her and curls closer to him. He sighs and relaxes against her.

She asks if he's ok. Her hand trails down to his wrist and there's a note of real concern as she moves his hand this way and that experimentally.

He stills her fingers.

He laughs and tells her he has it on authority that he's good.

She swats at him sleepily and says that's a matter of perspective.