Title: The Essence of Grace
Fandom: The Mentalist
Pairing: Teresa Lisbon/Grace Van Pelt
Rating: Mature
Spoilers: None
Word Count: 1401
Summary: Teresa doesn‘t want to be alone.
Disclaimer: "The Mentalist", its characters, and the situations depicted are the property of CBS, Primrose Hill Productions and Warner Brothers Television. This piece of fan fiction was created for fun and not profit.
**
Teresa’s never seen the inside of Grace’s apartment. She’s never *been* to Grace’s apartment. But, it’s late, raining, cold as Hell. Teresa’s about a half sheet away from a full two and, rather than go home, or back to the office, she followed her drunken legs here.
To Grace.
Teresa didn’t know why until Grace opened her door and Teresa learned Grace slept in the nude, judging by Grace’s robe - silk, red, ending mid-thigh and cascades over Grace’s body like a loose fitting skin.
“Boss?” Grace says, surprised, kinda shocked and Teresa shifts nervously on the balls of her feet.
“Do you want to come in?” Grace asks, breaking the sudden tension.
“Yeah,” Teresa answers with a half-grin, even though she knows this is about ten kinds of wrong and breaking twice as many regulations. But, it’s better than going home, or the office. Because being with Grace, even under false pretenses, is better than being alone.
“Do you want a drink?”
“No,” Teresa says. “But, I’ll have one anyway.”
Teresa pulls her gun from its holster, sets it on the coffee table before she sits on the couch. Too buzzed to be formal, crossing her legs, arm propped up on the back, palm against her neck. She listens to the rain. She watches Grace as Grace fixes their drinks. Teresa’s eyes fixate on Grace’s robe, on Grace’s impossibly long legs and Teresa’s suddenly thirsty for something that can’t be poured in a glass.
Grace walks towards the couch, hands Teresa her glass before her sits down. Grace is elegantly nervous, leaning forwards with elbows on her knees, both hands loosely clasping her glass. Teresa stares at Grace’s neck, the way her hair is swept off it and wonders what Grace’s skin would feel like against her lips.
The glass is cool against Teresa’s suddenly warm and itchy palm. She takes a sip, then another. She drinks because it’s cold, it warms her inside. She drinks because it’s liquid courage and concentrating on this is better than thinking about what she wants to do next.
Grace lifts her head, turns towards Teresa. Her mouth opens like she’s about to say something and there’s a moment where Teresa realizes this ‘tension’ isn’t solely one-sided. She sees the sudden flush on Grace’s cheeks, the way her eyes dart away as she tilts her head down.
“Boss?” she says. That word. Boss. A wall, a line, a law and Teresa wants nothing more than to break them all. If just for a moment. There will be consequences. There are always consequences. Teresa doesn’t know if she can live with them. It’s just something she’ll have to deal with.. tomorrow.
Teresa leans, sets her glass down on the coffee table. She watches her hand as she reaches over, takes Grace’s glass, sets it down and then reaches up. And her hand is on Grace’s jaw. A finger grazes Grace’s pulse point and Teresa can feel the sudden spike. A thumb over Grace’s lips, and she feels the hitch in Grace’s breath.
“Grace,” Teresa whispers gently, breaching the distance between the lips and stopping when they’re millimeters apart. If there’s a line to be crossed Grace has to cross it. Teresa can’t do this alone, hover over the edge, miles from the chasm floor but already shattering.
Grace closes the distance. Gentle, almost chaste and Teresa doesn’t know if the acquiescing mewl is Grace or her.
An inhale of breath and Teresa deepens the kiss. Tongue brushing against Grace’s lips in invitation and Grace accepts. The kiss goes on in that way first kisses do - forever and not long enough. Pulses rising, skin warming, kissing isn’t enough any more. Grace’s hand is on Teresa’s head, fingers threading in Teresa’s hair. Teresa’s hand roams, sliding over warm skin, into Grace’s robe, cupping Grace’s breast. Another hitch of Grace’s breath that turns into a gasp as Teresa’s thumb grazes over Grace’s nipple.
They maneuver on the couch, a dance of desire, intent and acquiescence. Until Grace is back flat on the cushions, legs folding over Teresa’s hips, hips already arching as Teresa’s hand slides between them.
Teresa moans/growls at the feel of Grace’s pussy against her fingers, feverishly warm and wet. Teresa knows she should be slow, gentle. She never expected this urge, this *hunger* to be inside Grace. Two fingers, quick, deep and Grace cries out, nails digging into Teresa’s back, legs wrapping tighter, ankles hooking together. They find their rhythm, quick and urgent, like they both know this isn’t supposed to happen and neither wants it to stop.
“Grace..” Teresa husks. “Open your eyes for me.”
Grace’s eyelids slide open like they’d been weighted down and her mouth goes slack at the pressure of Teresa’s palm against her clit, a strained mewl escaping her throat.
A few more strokes, a few more thrusts and Teresa wants more. She’s sliding down Grace’s body, leaving slick trails from lips and tongue, dragging her teeth like she’s marking territory.
Grace is open and arching before her. Teresa mouths her like she’s trying to consume her. Because this might never happen again. It will probably never happen again. Teresa doesn’t want to forget a thing. She mouths Grace’s pussy, tongue licking, poking, lapping, prodding. Everywhere Grace wants Teresa to be, but not where she *needs* Grace to be. Not yet. Teresa wants time to linger, to savor, to extend this as far as it can go because ‘this’ might never happen again.
But time works against her. Grace is writhing, livewire on wet ground, beneath Teresa. Both hands working into Teresa’s hair, threading, fisting, nails against scalp as Grace’s mewls and moans turn to a caterwauling whine.
Grace doesn’t say please, she doesn’t need to. Teresa’s lips finally find Grace’s clit, clamp down with hard suction. She adds a third finger, slip-slides it in with a long, slow push. The time stretches, just a little, not enough for Teresa because Grace is plunging over the edge. Grace’s keening wail is piercing, crescendos then dies in the back of her throat as Teresa takes all Grace can give.
Teresa withdraws her fingers, replaces them with her tongue. The aftertaste of bourbon washed away by the essence of Grace. Teresa pushes and prods, milks Grace of every aftershock and shudder, until the fingers still in her hair are tightening again because Grace can’t take anymore.
Teresa takes her time kissing her way back up Grace’s body, butterfly kisses, flicks of her tongue and gentle suckling. Then her mouth is against Grace’s and Grace moans at the taste of her own sex on Teresa’s lips.
The kiss breaks, Teresa gazes down, fingertips brushing the sweat-slicked strands from Grace’s forehead. Grace’s gaze is a contradiction - strong, china doll fragile.
“What happens now?” she asks.
Teresa smiles anyway, leans in for another kiss. “Tomorrow’s still a long ways away,” she says. She slides off the couch, rises, extends her hand. “And I do believe you have a bed.”
Grace’s smile is all cat who are the canary, as she takes Teresa’s hand and allows Teresa to pull her off the couch. With a steely resolve that comes from nowhere, she pulls Teresa back towards her, hand on Teresa’s jaw crashed their lips together. Searing, passionate, hungry. It has Teresa swooning on her feet. Teresa only opens her eyes because the kissing has stopped and its Grace pulling Teresa into the bedroom.
**
Dawn breaks. Teresa awakens first, notices her languid and sex-sore muscles. She leans her face towards the crown nestling against her shoulder. There’s a moment of panic, the memory of things done that can never be taken back. Then Grace stirs, tilts her head towards Teresa’s and with sleepy eyes she smiles. Something inside Teresa, something locked behind years of thick-stoned walls breaks, shatters and everything within spilling outwards is warm and good and safe.
“Good morning,” Grace murmurs.
“Good morning,” Teresa smiles back.
“Is it tomorrow?”
“No,” Teresa’s smile broadens as she rolls into Grace, pushing her onto her back, lips connecting, skin warming, heartbeats rising. Because Teresa realized it wasn’t her drunken legs she’d followed the night before that lead her to Grace’s doorstep, she’d been following her heart. There would be consequences. Some good. Some probably bad. But as long as Teresa had *this*, as long as she had Grace? Teresa didn’t care.
“Not by a long shot.”
END