"And I've been searching for a nice girl who can, on occasion, be just a bit wicked." - Lisa Kleypas
He knew when he finally muzzed up far enough into being awake that he had an extremely limited window of time in which to enjoy the fact that her naked butt was so tightly nestled into his side-turned lap. What he knew, clinically and without question, was that regardless of the fact he'd gotten her to lighten up on a lot of little things – Gillian Foster was still his (sweet and funny and darling) Gillian. She was gonna be outta his bed in less than twenty minutes and set herself on a rampantly and annoyingly calculated morning schedule that'd have her in the office near on the same exact minute she was every other day.
Which... just made it more entertaining a challenge, actually. And accepted.
On the clock, Lightman. Twenty minutes to make or break.
Twenty minutes to convince her that some slow morning sex sounded like a deliciously brilliant idea.
He knew ahead that it'd probably be a no-go, but he had to try. Especially when she seemed to unconsciously wiggle her arse tighter into him and clutch his hand closer to her face. He knew most all of this because she was already awake and spending time in another of her scheduled little rituals that still surprised him every time it happened, despite its repetition. She was threading her fingers back and forth between his own while her thumb rubbed deep into the center of his palm, her head tucked low so that she could watch the movement.
Her tactile obsession with his hands, his fingers tucked between hers, it had bemused him at first. At least until he'd just let her silently make the movements and observed them, her touch stroking gentleness on him until she'd curled his hand up in hers and then drawn his arm tighter round her and into the center of her chest. She'd curled possessively around his entire forearm and he'd, all at once, throttled deeper into love with her (if that had really been possible) as she'd crowded her face down along his fingers.
And he'd swallowed just as hard as she'd done it again, say, half a week later...
A day or two after that. And again two mornings ago.
And she was distantly letting the tips of her fingers slake over his knuckles as he breathed a snort of laughter into the side of her neck and buried his face down against her bare shoulder. "You've a fetish, darling."
She made a throaty noise of acceptance, nodding her head a little lower along the pillow and passing her lips along his stretched fingertips. "Complaints?"
"Not a one." Cal confessed easily, warmly answering before he licked a long line from her shoulder and up along the side of her neck, feeling the submissive and agreeing tip of her head beneath his mouth. "Gonna let me use it against you?"
A contented sigh seethed off her as she laxed into the pillow and curled his hand closer to her chest. She cradled it into her and let silence hum between them as she made a mockery of considering it, a thoughtful noise lifting through pressed lips. Cal grinned at her haughty playfulness, feeling the smile widen against her shoulder as she turned her head down to catch her jaw against the side of his head. She nudged against him quietly, messing with him even as he turned his fingers enough under hers to trace between her breasts.
Maybe... maybe it wouldn't even take twenty minutes.
She seemed just as lazily pleased as him, all wrapped and curled up as she arched up into the touch.
And especially when she snuggled back again, intentionally wiggling into the unintentional thrust of his hips and the hiss that groaned through his teeth.
Her shoulder came up a margin on a light laugh, dragged his attention back down and had him kissing the bare curve of it. "Depends on whether you mean that literally or figuratively."
"Oh, both." He nipped the words brightly along her earlobe, closing his fingers to catch hers between them as he dragged their locked knuckles along her sternum. "Most definitely both."
Both and more. And again.
"Tell me somethin', Foster?" Cal let his voice tweak teasing at her, let his amusement flood up along her ear and warm there.
"Hmmm?"
His tongue took a lazy swipe along her earlobe. "How extraordinarily late to the office would you like to be?"
Her laughter huffed warm breath through his hair as he tugged her onto her back and giddily pinned her down, catching both hands up, her smaller and delicate wrists looped up in his palms and tucked into her chest just by the pressing of his weight. Cal watched her eyes flick brighter, her teeth catching onto her bottom lip as she met his scrutiny and patiently rubbed her head back into the pillow. She let him watch and search over her, let his eyes take in every pass of her face as he tightened on her wrists and watched her teeth dig deeper into her lip in response to his rush of movement.
"Right," he hummed off quietly, nodding as he slowly straddled over her hips and rubbed his thumbs into the centers of her palms. "So, quite late then. Yeah?"
Her eyes flared sharp before she slicked her tongue against the nipped divots in her bottom lip, her jaw inching even higher. "I had Anna re-schedule both our morning appointments."
"You... y'mean yesterday you did?" He laughed the whisper past his lips. "For today?"
Her features went staunchly proud as she shifted her hips flatter beneath him and relaxed as he leaned forward over her. "I'm smarter than you. Remember?"
"That bit's true." The agreement was ducked down her throat, the words kissed and sucked along thinly delicate skin, markings nipped and sucked possessively onto her paleness. "Why today?"
"Because yesterday sucked." Gill huffed back as she tugged at his fingers and made a grunted little noise of annoyance when she couldn't pry away to touch him back. "Can I have my hands back?"
"No," he ribbed his teeth against her collarbone and felt her spine slant upwards in response, a weak moaning rattling off her rib cage to volley under his mouth and hands. "I don't think so."
"Please?"
He winced a thinner glance up over her, cautiously gauging her seriousness and finding more amusement in the quirked lift to one corner of her mouth than expected, more bright in the blue of her eyes than minutes before. "Nope."
Her face pitched toward derisive, brow arched but still the lingering twist of a smile on her lips as he lifted his head to grin at her. "Then how exactly do you plan on using your own?"
"One at a time, love." Slowly he tangled both her wrists into the grip of one flexed palm, the other hand stroking down the center line of her body to tease circling around and back up. "Psssh. And you thought you were the brains of this outfit."
She made a subtle noise of agreement as she stretched her fingers out and then let them relax, her entire body slaking out at ease beneath him as she grinned. The less than subtle shifting of her hips had one leg stroking up against his hip, rashing heat there until her foot came up and her heel went happily and sharply digging into the back of his thigh. Her hips took another small shift and he groaned as she purposely angled up into how he was very suddenly wedged between her thighs.
Uh, huh. Right, so... Tangling her up was the point then, yeah? Wicked little thing.
He'd given himself twenty minutes and she hadn't even needed five of 'em to flip him on his head.
The smile on her as she lifted her jaw was devious and flared with a sort of heat that made him suddenly dumbstruck, jaw slacking before he laughed a conquered kiss down into her mouth, "Playin' me every step o'the way, huh?"
"Sometimes you make it so ridiculously easy." Gillian sighed off into his temple as he started kisses on her jaw and stroked down her stomach, the breathy rise of her laughter softer and sweeter than the words implied.
Her cheek against the side of his face was flushed and the heat off her made his head a little hazy, drugged his eyes closed as her mashed up hands tensed again, twisted enough that she could catch one of his fingers up in hers. His other hand stalled and made a lazy circling along one pelvic bone, his thumb digging against it while he weighted his chest into her trapped hands and kept his lips roving lower. He teased back along her stomach, slowly let his fingers play stroking between her thighs and the fidgeting shifting of her hips. Wouldn't give in to her implied begging, though. Not when she was being cheeky and coquettish and all the things he fuckin' gloried in waking up to.
Well... he couldn't let her have all his fun too, could he?
Had enough of her own already. No need to be selfish.
"Right," he kissed sharply against her collarbone and gripped her hands up, the other hand catching the leg she had hooked on him so that he could pull it down. "Over you go, then."
She pouted into his hand pushing her leg down, "What?"
The surprised yelp of laughter she gave up as he rolled her was crowded down into the pillow, her hair flush against her face as she rubbed her cheek into the pillow case. Cal shifted over her, catching her hands quickly and tagging both back lightly so that he could lock their fingers knotted up into the shallow dip of her back. He groaned roughly out, emptying his lungs before he sent his mouth shushing down the arching line of her spine. The long and dragging moan she laid into the fabric of the pillow had him smirking, nuzzling his nose against warm skin as her shoulders loosened. He felt her hands grip up and flex once before they went loose, fingers stretching under his hold as he slicked his mouth lower, finding each rivet along the stretch of her spine.
"Cal?" Her breathless questioning seemed so decadently sweet, expensive chocolate or smooth caramel in the hushing haze of her tone.
He ignored it much as he could, despite the fact that its prettiness had his cock more than attentive. "Hush – I'm focused."
A whimper came off her as his tongue slicked tauntingly back up her spine rather than any farther down, teasing at how much she was wiggling under his hold and the assault of his mouth on fresh sweat. "Cal."
He just grinned his lips rubbing against the damp on her skin. "Try again later."
"Come on." The words whispered along his pillow, the one that smelled more like her than him.
Cal lifted his head over their joined hands and then dropped just above the curve of her bottom, head turning just enough so he could nip his teeth roughly on the flare of her hip. "All lines are busy at the - "
"Don't be a shit." Her demand sharpened at him, mostly controlled but a bit blurring, like her patience had gotten shredded up but she was enjoying the loose edges.
He laughed full and broad and uncontrolled into the dip of her spine, forehead resting comfortable into their tangled fingers. A slow glance drifted down and he laid out a groan before closing them, stretching his spine out before his head came back up to kiss against tucked and curled fingertips. She teased against his lips, blindly stroked for his cheek as he wiped his face against her hands. The impatient shift of her hips followed after and he heard the breathless and gasped sound she made into his pillow as he loosened one hand away from hers and teased touching down her. By the time he was tracing a line up and down the back of her right thigh she was shivering a little, trying to clamp it still and failing miserably each time he added a flick from his fingernails.
"This what you want?" The quieted question hovered over her palm, breathed into the crook of it as one of his hands nudged her thighs farther apart and he sloped his fingers up to find wetness. "Yeah? Just a touch?"
A noise slipped out of her that had his chest clenching up on his breath, the nearly pained but sublime sound of it echoing moaned through the room as both her hands gripped closed. Cal smiled, felt his cheeks and jaw ache as he bit down against it and focused on the movement of his hand. He teased against her, starting slipping a finger into her only to draw it out and laugh at the disgruntled drop of her hips against the bed and the staccato noise of annoyance that shot off her. A moment later and he was grinding his palm between her legs to catch a fingertip on her clit, holding her hands tighter clasped with the other fist as her body went rigid and tightly flexed at the slowly repetitive touch.
"Jesus." The unconscious shifting of her hips had him blatantly watching her as he sat up enough to straddle her, enjoying the stretch of her body face down below him as he flicked at her clit and brought a whimper off her. "Please?"
"Impatient this mornin'," he teased gently, circling her clit with the tip of one finger while he made nearly the same pattern on her palm with his thumb. "Aren't ya?"
Another sound came off her that made plain agreement to the statement but there was no shame in it. Just a euphoric sounding concession as she buried her face into the pillow and let off a long and shuddering moan. He couldn't help a smug grin to himself, watching her wriggle lower into his hand, his sweet and happily puddled mess of moaning. Her fingers locked all up together as she buried her face in his pillow and slaked a moan into the fabric that was barely stifled and all pleased sounding as it hummed and valved through her throat. His thumb rubbed into her wrists while he shifted the angle of the other hand, keeping a slowly teasing circle going around her clit, catching against it each time her hips seemed to settle too much into relaxation.
"I let go, you behave yourself, Foster." Cal flexed his fingers against one of her wrists and pinched on her clit at once to reaffirm the order. "Hands where they are, yeah? Or I stop. Understood?"
"God," he assumed the crooning way she said it through the damp muss of her hair was some sort of assent. "I love your hands."
He loved her. No question about it. No turning back around on that one, was there?
He loved her confidence and trust and the way her spine arched as she stretched happily beneath him and slaked a long moaning into his pillow- a sound he hadn't really ever thought she'd let him have.
Eh, correction to make there - her pillow.
Hers now, wasn't it? Wasn't every little thing?
He slicked a finger into her slowly and added another, watched her spine stretch and arch as she drove down farther on the mattress, swallowing on the lump that had found a home low in his throat. "And damn fond of you, they are."
He watched her quietly, let his shoulder lean into the door frame while she seemingly ignored his presence and continued what she was doing. He'd barely showered himself coherent and gotten his first round of caffeine and she was already mostly dressed and using the mirror in his bedroom to put her make-up on. Cal bit against the smile that wanted over his lips as he studied her bare feet and forced his glance upwards, inwardly groaning appreciation over the sleek black of the pencil skirt she'd brought with her the night before.
It did especially wonderful things to her hips and the gloriousness of her legs, really.
And the straight line of delicate black buttons that went from her lower back to just above the curve of her backside had him digging his teeth into the inside of his cheek.
"Thinkin' it's past time you stopped payin' rent on an apartment y'don't use, love." Words slipped right out on him - and before he'd even a chance to realize what it was he was saying. Words had a habit of cheating him sometimes, though. And if anyone knew it – Christ, it was Gillian.
"And I think it's long past time you realized that you don't tell me what to do, Lightman." The quickness of her response did nothing to deter her as she put mascara on. "Despite flagrant use and abuse of that accent."
He grinned shamelessly, shrugged his loose shoulder into acceptance of her accusation. "Is it workin'?"
Her head turned sidelong though her glance stayed on the mirror, jaw rising high as she considered the question, debated whether or not it was valid as her head went back and forth a touch. "Maybe a little."
"S'why I always called you for a ride home, y'know?" The words went up between them with humor but it was forced a little, sighing as he pressed off the frame and stepped fully into the room. "You were the only responsible adult close by that I knew could translate drunken Lightman."
Gill shrugged blithely away from his watching and supposed joking. "Well, seems I've got an ear for it."
She'd already turned back entirely toward the mirror, leaned forward in a way that had him slanting an aching glance down her spine just before his fingers trailed the line of it. He rubbed past silkiness and onto the high hemline of the skirt, felt her spine twitch arching at the touch. Her shoulders lifted back into his touching and he met the movement with a kiss against the fabric covered spread of her shoulder, felt her watching him in the mirror as she blindly closed the mascara and twisted it tightly shut.
"I mean it, Gill." His hand rose, the flat of his palm taking a slow run against her hair as he watched his own movements, tucked the softness away so he could enterprisingly tease his fingertips on the back of her neck. "You're here most nights anyhow."
"I know you mean it," she shushed off under the slow onslaught of his mouth following directly after his fingers, her head tipping unconsciously to give him more room even as her voice hovered near nervous or concerned. "You think you do anyhow."
His fingers dug quick insistence into her hair and tugged her farther back into his mouth, forced her head slowly into the brush of his lips. "I mean it."
She shivered, shivered pleasantly and then let her shoulders relax into him.
That was a deliciously good sign if he ever saw one (felt one– down to his damn toes).
"I'm paid through the next two months, Cal. This discussion is - "
"Then call it a temporary insurance policy," he hummed it as an interruption on the skin of her shoulder, prying the collar and silken white of her shirt far enough aside that he could kiss on bare skin and along her bra strap. "In case of... me being me."
The clatter of her mascara hitting wood top just preceded her fingers reaching along his jaw, lifting his head forcefully so that he caught her searching blue glance in the mirror. "But live here?"
"And why not?" He felt the sound of smug on his tongue as he spoke.
A smirk twitched at her lips and her nose wrinkled just enough that he saw the familiar heat of a tease coming from miles away. "Because you're you?"
"Gill."
"Okay," she nodded as her fingers touched against his lips in brightened apology, a quick catch-up after the reflexive pinching of his features. "I was just... okay. Yes."
"Yeah?"
She let a laugh trip off her as she turned into his leaning and tapped against his lips, "But, right now? We're extraordinarily late."
A childish growling took over his whole frame as he cuddled her up into his chest, dragged her hips harshly up into his as he buried his pouting into her cleavage. The rub of her jaw against his head and the lay of her hands along his shoulders were more patient than he expected and he just snugged closer, grumping annoyance at the fact she was still far more responsible an adult than he was sometimes. Couldn't help himself from smiling when her lips turned along his scalp, though. Not when she went teasing and scraping at the back of his neck with her nails.
"Then, really," his lips wiped the words damply on along her collarbone, "what's the point of goin' at all?"
"See," Gill moaned off into scraping her nails against his scalp slowly, "this is why moving in with you is a horrible idea."
"Nonsense, Foster." He'd managed to make his kisses line all up her throat and land along her jaw. And she was sure as hell enjoying it – didn't take a deception expert to sort out the fact she was more than happy angling her hips so that he was rubbing hard against her thigh.
"I'll never be on time again," she groused – and he mighta felt guilty if she hadn't said it with the sound of a smile ringing in his ear.
Cal turned a tight and quick kiss against her lips, added a smug wink that had her caging her head slightly to the side and watching him with scrutiny. "I'll speak t'your boss."
He knew her reaction before it landed on her face and she rolled her eyes into annoyance as he busied himself back along her jaw, back down her throat, sucking against how hard she suddenly swallowed. "You are speaking to my boss, technically."
"Exactly. With accent." He kissed the rapid and staccato answer against her throat, hands both circled against her so that he could tease against those teeny buttons he'd noticed earlier. "Undo this. Why're you buttoned up, darling?"
"We have to go to work, Cal."
"Don't have to do nothin'." His head lifted so that he could give her a wonky grin, the sorta smile he knew she couldn't necessarily stay mad at. "Called Anna and said we're takin' the whole day."
Both her hands caught him still, trapped his face up so that she could look him over entirely. "You did what?"
"Turnabout's fair play, love. Loker and Torres are on it." He managed one of the dark and small buttons through an equally tiny hole and frowned at how little the space the movement had afforded him seemed. Hardly worth all the effort, really. He loved how tightly the fabric cradled her curves but there seemed a very slim chance of just tugging the thing off her. "These are very silly buttons. They're so small."
"Cal - "
"Foster, I'm gonna undo you - completely." He hoped. If he could get the damn skirt off her without destroying it and thereby throwing her into a complete fit for ruining something that actually seemed like it was probably pretty expensive. "Then I'm drivin' you to your place, you're packing things up and we're coming back here. I'll make dinner."
Gill squinted at him, gave him a look that said he was far and above full of it. "You're very bossy, you know that?"
He jerked the next buttoning open with a little more force and he caught the annoyance that flicked through her eyes as she glared over him. "Been told, yeah."
A sigh that sounded like she was about to whack him about the head rose and fell in her lungs before she caught up on his chin and forced him to meet her wry glance. "There's a zipper on the side, you idiot."
Cal blinked at her playfulness before jerking his head away and glancing down the beautiful length of her. "What's with all the damn buttons then?"
"Distraction," Gill chuckled as he pried her half sideways toward him, his hands both grappling against the hidden zipper before he glared up at her and sluiced a hand under the now parted fabric.
"And for what purpose?" he asked quietly while finding the hem of promisingly small knickers and tugging at it. "Circumvent the blood supply to my brain?"
The shoulder nearest his chest came up slowly as she smiled (such a riotously sinful little smirk) and her eyes thinned a little in humor. "Your hand's on my ass now, isn't it?"
He grinned widely, unintended and completely despite his own guarding. "Christ, I love you, you wicked little - "
"You love me?" she asked with purposefully feigned innocence, head lifted by humor and excitement and absolute pleasure as she curled his shirt up into her fingers and tucked closer. "You sure about that?"
Abso-bloody-lutely. Most fuckin' definitely. Sure. Yeah. Double yes. In multiple languages.
Especially when she let him slide his hand between her skirt and panties and rub on her so possessively.
Most especially when she was making happy little sounds of adoration and encouragement – sounds he'd find a way to memorize past all possible head trauma, memory loss and/or amnesia.
Most especially because she was the one making them.
"Well, I mean... it's a science, y'know?" His voice swayed affectionate and teasing, warm as his fingers squeezed on her. "Eighty percent."
He chuckled when she pinched into his ribs, laughing his face into the curve of her neck and listening to the hummed moan of pleasure she made. "I mean it, Gill."
A nodding sound of agreement went kissed just along the shell of his ear and he blinked his eyes shut into the inherent softness of the movement, the sheer... Gillian-ness of it. "You're carrying the heavy stuff."
His hands caught against her hips and tugged her uneven as he shouldered her laughing onto the mattress. "Deal."