They say a woman's job is never done. Ha, they should try being a woman and a nurse at that. A woman may slave from dusk to dawn, but we nurses, we pick up all the slack time in between.
Don't get me wrong! I love my job... well, I love some parts more than others. The paperwork is awful and trying to keep the doctors on an even keel, that's worse. Some of the jokers think they are God's gift to the world. The difference is that God doesn't think He's a doctor. Some of them are very gifted; the rest of them are just pompous asses. Anyone who has spent any time in a hospital knows that it's the nurses who really run the place. The doctors may think they do, but watch thm panic when they can't find something and see who they turn to for it. Hint - it isn't another doctor. Still, doctors do have their good points, or so I'm told.
It's a typical morning at headquarters. As with most hospitals, days sort of bleed into weeks, weeks into months. I go to church when my schedule allows, more often than not it's not on Sunday, but I figure the Lord doesn't care when you pray, just that you hold your faith in your heart and do your best.
I was holding a clipboard and reading down the roster when my sight was suddenly blurred by an explosion of color and I gasped.
That's when I realized they were flowers being wielded by one of my favorite agents, Napoleon Solo. His easy smile and charm makes you understand the appeal of all those old songs about flying to the moon and slow boats to China. He's the sort of man that makes you long for a small cottage and a mess of children, all with his dark brown hair and dimpled cheeks.
"How are you, my charming nurse?" He purred into my ear and I giggled, burying my nose into the bouquet.
"Better now, you charmer. How is your…?" That's when I realized his cast was gone and he waggled his fingers happily at me. He'd re-broken his arm just a few months after fracturing it initially. This time it had taken some fancy surgical work to get everything back together. For a month and a half, he'd been stuck at headquarters, his mood less than joyful as he watched his partner head out for on assignment after another.
"I'm a free man, Nurse Nellie!" That's when I realized he was wearing a lab coat instead of his usual jacket. It makes him look so… so… well, a woman my age should be more articulate and not use words like yummy to describe a man, but Napoleon has that effect on me. At least he doesn't make me drool like his partner does.
"What are you doing dressed like that?" I watched a man wandering in from the ambulance bay. He seemed disoriented, but this place will do that to you. You can be competent and know exactly where you're going upstairs, but down here all the rules change. He was obviously one of our little lost lambs and I made a mental note to go help him as soon as I'd finished with Napoleon.
He grinned and straightened his lapels. "The Old Man stuck me down in the lab until the cast came off. What do you think? Is it a good look for me?"
"Wait a minute." I grabbed a stethoscope from the desk and hung it around his neck. "Perfect! If I didn't know better, you'd have fooled me, Dr. Solo." I set the flowers down on the front desk. "What's the word from that crazy partner of yours?"
I tried to make the question sound casual, but my blush gave me away and Napoleon's eyes started to twinkle. How he does that, captures that joie de vivre, is beyond me.
"Last I heard, he was baking his bones on a small Greek island where the drinks are very cold, the sun is very hot, bathing suits are optional and the women are very…" He made a gesture and I resisted the urge to slap his hands and scold him. At the same time, my mind painted a picture of My Pretty stretched out on a blanket, tanned, naked, and…. oh my… it suddenly got very warm.
Napoleon was laughing now, his hand on my arm. "Nurse, you look a little flushed. Can I get you something, a cool cloth, a bucket of ice water?"
I opened my mouth to say something and that's when I felt the arm around my neck and something cold placed against my temple.
"Say one word, Doc, and I'll make sure her brains are all over the wall."
I watched Napoleon's eyes frantically search my face and I worked really hard at staying calm. The man's breath was hot against my face, and stunk. Obviously, dental care was not high on his list of priorities.
"I'm not…" Napoleon started, but the man tightened his arm and I gasped, my hands trying to pull the limb away as it threatened to cut off my air supply.
"Shut it! Whatever you have to say, I don't want to hear it. Now, we're going to take a little walk, just the three of us. I have a car waiting outside."
Now, I should probably say something about security here. Or maybe the term is lack of security. When the founding fathers of UNCLE put this place together, they designed this extravagant security system. You need to wear badges and a chemical has to be applied and all the stuff you'd expect from a spy outfit. Not that it stops THRUSH, but it does slow them down a bit.
Down here, however, they sort of lost focus… we have some of the best medical facilities in the city… and the worst security. Our ambulance bay opens out into the parking structure and we get a surprising amount of foot traffic. Usually we just call one of the other hospitals and let them take over or if it's something small we render aid. Not usually a problem, until you get something like this…
I frantically looked at a doctor's satchel and then at Napoleon's face and back. Not only did it contain medical gear, it had a tracker in it. Well, we are in the spy business… any port and all that. I was worried that Napoleon might not be able to interpret my look, but he scooped it up with a practiced air. "Just don't hurt her."
The man behind me gave me a push towards the exit. A moment later, we'd left the relative safety of UNCLE HQ and were climbing into a car. A second man grabbed Napoleon and blindfolded him while my friend did the same to me.
I was pushed roughly into a corner and let my hand surreptitiously search for a door latch. I caught my finger on a jagged piece of metal and gasped as it sliced through my skin.
"I took them off - do you think I'm twelve?" My captor snarled and I felt a weight slam into me. The familiar aftershave told me it was Napoleon and that was calming.
"You okay?" His voice was so soft I could barely make it out over the noise of the car engine.
I nodded and then remembered he'd been blindfolded as well. "Yes." I tried to keep my voice as even as his, but a little tremor crept in around the edges.
"You're with me, it'll be fine." I felt a hand take mine, cool and steady compared to my sweaty, shaky one. I told myself to be calm and that Napoleon does this all the time, but another little voice was screaming, "What are you doing? He's not a doctor!" I started a steady stream of promises to God, if He'd only get us out of this mess.
We drove for what seemed like a long time, but in New York, that could well be a block and a half, depending upon the time of day. We were half led, half dragged from the car and eventually yanked to a stop and our blindfolds were taken off.
The room was small and hadn't seen maid service for a few years. It was obvious that these guys had been holed up here for awhile judging from the pile of take out containers and garbage that littered what passed for the kitchen.
"My bag?" Napoleon asked and it was thrust into his arms. That's when he felt the tracking device and his lips gave just the smallest hint of a smile. I breathed a sigh of relief as I watched him finger it on. "Why have you brought us here?"
The guy who initially grabbed me, pointed towards a partially open door. "In there. One of you stinking UNCLEs shot him with something! You're going to fix him enough so we can get him home!"
Immediately, my brain disengaged from the scene at hand and into a catalog of all the various drugs the New York labs were testing. This could be very bad. I only knew of the stuff that had been declassified. If this was one of their newer creations, Napoleon and I were in a very bad spot.
Napoleon shot me a look and I tried to muster up a smile. After all, through that door was an injured human; the fact that we'd been kidnapped at gunpoint suggested that he meant something to someone and was of some importance to THRUSH. Carrying his satchel with him, Napoleon walked to the door and I followed closely behind him.
The room was equally as dirty as the rest of the place. The only source of light was what the next door building let trickle in. The windows were grimy and held shut by years of paint. I supposed in the case of a fire, you'd break the glass and try not to be sliced to ribbons getting to the fire escape on the other side.
"Leave us," Napoleon ordered and I could see our kidnapping buddy was thinking about it. It wasn't like we had any place to go and the room was heavy with the stink of vomit, urine and other… stuff, a hardly surprising result as the body tried to rid itself of whatever had been introduced into it. After a minute the man waved a gun in our direction.
"I'll be right outside, so no funny stuff." He gratefully left us to it, although I knew we still had roles to play.
The man on the bed was in bad shape. He was curled into a fetal position, his back towards us. The shirt he wore was stained with sweat, a dark 'v' down his spine. His shoulders were shaking and his breath was ragged.
I knew Napoleon had his Walther strapped on under that white coat, but no one had thought to pat him down. That was of small comfort though to me at the moment. Napoleon locked eyes with me and I sighed.
"I'll prep him, Doctor." I pulled a chair close to the bed and reached across to touch the man's forehead. My hand came away slick and wet. I wiped it on the blanket and tugged at the shoulder, trying to flop the man over onto his back. That's when I noticed his wrists were bound and one of his ankles was tied to the metal bed frame. THRUSH had pretty much stopped surprising me a few years earlier. So this wasn't one of them; it was an innocent victim. It made me hate them all that much more. Obviously, THRUSH had themselves a hostage for one reason or another.
I walked around and untied the rope and happened to glance up then, seeing our patient's face for the first time. Then I was the one who wanted to throw up. I started to hyperventilate and tremble. "Doctor?" I grabbed the metal frame and held on as the room canted precariously.
"Hmm?" Napoleon was sifting through the contents of the bag and didn't look up. He was looking pretty gray faced and I imagine he was struggling to deal with the less-than-wonderful atmosphere of the room and trying to look as if he knew what he was doing.
"Napoleon, now!" I hissed and he looked up at that. I watched his face shift and he swallowed convulsively a couple of times.
"Oh my God." Napoleon was to the bed in an instant as I resumed my spot, my fingers thick as I tried to undo the knots binding his partner's wrists together. "Illya, what are you doing here? You were supposed to be in Greece!"
"Ch…ch…change of plans," My Pretty got past his clenched teeth. He shuddered, caught his breath, and curled back up, moaning.
"What happened?" Napoleon had abandoned his guise and grabbed Illya roughly.
"Dunno… caught something… Madrid… lab… bad…" It seemed to take all his strength to get the words out.
"What do we do?" Napoleon whispered and that's when I realized he was asking me.
"I'm not a doctor," I whispered back and he made a face at me. "I'd sedate him. At least it'll make him more comfortable."
"Nurse, prepare a hypo please so that we can sedate our patient," Napoleon said loudly, for the benefit of the men outside. "Is he gonna be okay?" he murmured to me.
"I'm not the doctor, Napoleon," I whispered back. "I don't even know what the guys in Madrid were working on… heck, I don't even know what we're working on at the moment." I glanced back towards the door. "Here's the hypo, Doctor. Will he be all right?" I made sure the guys outside could hear me.
"I don't know, Nurse. It looks grave." Napoleon took the hypodermic from me and I removed a pair of scissors from the bag. I cut, then ripped a gaping hole in Illya's pants and nodded. Our friend wandered back in, he wasn't happy. In fact, he was looking just on this side of being sick himself. The smell of the room had that power though.
Napoleon looked conflicted, like he wanted me to inject Illya. Just do it, I mouthed and Napoleon nodded and sank the needle into his partner. For his part, Illya didn't even react. It was just one more pain to add to his current list, I imagined.
"He dies, you die." the man threatened, then disappeared. Napoleon sighed, rubbing the injection site with a gentle finger.
"You can say that again," he murmured. "Hold on, old friend."
After a couple of minutes, Illya's breathing had evened out, not completely normal, but better. I stood and walked boldly to the door, letting my nursing side take over.
The three men at the table jumped, each one reaching for a weapon; I stared them all down. "I need water, some towels and clean clothes."
"He's better?" I think he was the driver, but I wasn't sure. All three of the men didn't look like they were feeling very well, but honestly, I could give a rat's ass how they felt. I had only one man on my mind at the moment.
"Far from it, we need to get him cleaned up to see what's really going on. And some clean bedding as well." I turned, not bothering to see if they were going to follow my orders. When I didn't hear movement, I growled, "Now!" And hid my smile as they leapt into action.
Twenty minutes later and the bed and patient were clean or as clean as possible. I did the nursely things, like taking his temperature, he was running a beaut, and checking his pulse, while Napoleon played at various doctor things, listening to Illya's heart and lungs.
Another ten minutes and there was an explosion of noise outside the door. Without even blinking an eye, Napoleon tipped the bed and had Illya and me behind the minimal protection of the thin mattress. He drew his weapon and dropped our kidnapping buddy as he came through the door. I'd never seen a sleeper bullet at work before and part of me was morbidly fascinated while another part of me hugged my unconscious charge close, protecting him as best as I could from the chaos around us.
I came to the conclusion that a gun battle was a bit like a climax, a lot of worry and anticipation, a brief period of intense activity and then the blessed relief of culmination. Napoleon pulled the mattress off us and I resisted making a snide remark about him catching me in bed with Illya; the situation was still too grave for that.
I let myself out of Illya's room and Napoleon immediately looked up, his eyes worried, his features gaunt from lack of sleep.
"Can I see him now?" He'd been pushed aside the minute our feet hit Medical, ignored and relegated to the uncomfortable chairs of the waiting room.
"He's sleeping now."
"What's wrong with him?"
I wanted to laugh and hug him. Instead, I took his hand, stroking it with one thumb. "When was the last time Illya got sick?"
Napoleon had to think about that for a minute. "Illya doesn't get sick… well, a cold now and again, but as a rule…"
"And when he does?"
"He gets really sick… you mean, he 's…?"
"He came across some new viral strains when he was visiting a friend at the Madrid facility. This one was particularly alarming and when he became aware that THRUSH had infiltrated the lab, he did something you agents are so famous for."
"Bravery in the face of obvious defeat?" Napoleon quipped.
"Stupidity in the face of danger more like… he disposed of the agent, injected himself with the virus and let the THRUSH agents think he was being used as a test subject by UNCLE."
"We don't test on humans, much less on our enforcement agents."
"But THRUSH does and they thought if they could get him back to their labs, they would have the corner on the market."
"What stopped them?"
"Illya's condition really degraded. I'm guessing one or all of them started developing the same symptoms and they panicked …"
"The same symp… you aren't suggesting what I think you're suggesting….?"
"I hope you don't have any big plans, Napoleon. You, me, the Section Three agents, we're all under forty-eight hour quarantine until the doctors are sure we aren't contagious. They still don't know what virus Illya injected himself with and they want to play it safe."
"I'll kill him." I shot him a look and he amended, "Okay, once he's well, I'll kill him…" Napoleon squeezed my hand. "But if I had to be isolated with anyone, I'm glad it's you."
"Keep that in mind when you're trying to vomit up your toes. From what Illya tells me, the first twenty four hours are pretty bad."
"Did anyone ever tell you that you have a wonderful bedside manner, Nurse?"
"No."
"Not surprised… but you were very good back there. You didn't panic…"
"Much…"
"You kept an even head and you followed instructions."
"I'm a nurse, Napoleon, you just recited my pledge." I stood and smiled. "Now, the choice you have is down in the isolation quarters with the rest of us or in there with him."
Napoleon smiled and dropped his gaze to the floor. I knew his answer even before I asked the question.
"You mentioned a choice?" He looked towards the open door leading into my Pretty's room.
"Just wanted you to know… in case…"
It's funny how things turn out. I'd been the one who'd had most of the contact with Illya, but it was Napoleon who got sick… really, really sick. Well, the three THRUSH got sick as well and I tried to feel compassion for them, but it was hard. To my way of thinking, they were the cause of all of this mess to begin with. Never mind that we had engineered the flu strain or that Illya was the initial point of contamination; this was all THRUSH's fault.
Illya hadn't been kidding about the severity of the symptoms. And Napoleon had the benefits of medication to help control the nausea and diarrhea. I didn't want to think about the hell Illya had gone through.
We moved Napoleon to a private room about two hours after he started presenting symptoms. It was just easier for both of them and you really don't want an audience around when you're busy trying to vomit up your stomach lining, no matter how close the relationship.
I was checking Illya's catheter line to make sure it wasn't kinked when I felt someone watching me. I glanced up and saw blue eyes studying me. I immediately dropped the sheet and moved up to the head of the bed.
"How are you feeling?" My voice was muffled by the mask I wore.
"Like I've gone for the world record in sit ups." Illya's voice was raspy and I knew his throat must feel awful. It was raw from his vomiting, and about an hour ago, he'd started coughing.
"Abs of steel," I murmured. Hs hair was still a mess, limp and stringy, and I longed to wash it, but for now, I contented myself by wiping his face with a cool cloth. "You're still pretty sick."
He coughed, nearly doubling over from the effort. I grabbed his IV line to make sure he didn't get tangled in it. We'd been pumping fluids into him since his arrival. Only now were his kidneys starting to pull their share of the load again. With my free hand, I rubbed his back, frowning at the heat still rolling off him. As with Napoleon, I felt so helpless at the moment.
He quieted, but didn't shift away from me, so I kept my hand moving, not really massaging. It was more like just letting him know he didn't have to suffer alone anymore.
"Would you like something for the pain?" I asked when it became apparent he wasn't going to speak. He shook his head. "Would you like me to stop?" This was met with a stronger head shake and I smiled, settling in for the long stretch. By the time I finished, he was asleep again. Right now, the doctors reckoned that was the best thing for both of them.
Now we skip ahead about a month or so. New York is in the middle of a major flu outbreak. The people are presenting symptoms like the crap we developed, but all our virus samples had been destroyed and we had kept quarantine on all and everyone we could think of. THRUSH hadn't been as careful, either through arrogance or sheer spite they hadn't bothered to contain anyone who had come in contact with the three agents we eventually captured. As a result, the virus was spreading and people were dying.
We were doing a rollicking business in Medical, trying to keep our own people healthy enough to keep the organization running. I'd put Mr. Waverly into isolation to keep him from getting infected and we limped along…
It had been a long week of long shifts and just the luxury of being able to peel off my uniform and sensible shoes, to replace them with a pink chenille robe and fluffy pink slippers was second to none.
I'd gotten a nice cup of chamomile tea and was cuddling up with a nursing journal when there was a knock on my door. My friends know better than to bother me at night without calling first and work, well, they don't usually come knocking either. For a minute, I thought about those three THRUSH agents. What if one of them had gotten loose and was coming to settle the score? Then I laughed at myself and went over to the door, getting up on my tippy toes to look through the peep hole. What I saw on the other side almost made me come unglued and I hurriedly unbolted the door.
"Mr. Kuryakin, as I live and breath!" He still looked a little peaked from his bout with the illness and now from trying to run Section Two while Napoleon recuperated from pneumonia.
"Am I disturbing you?" He was barely suppressing a smile at my outfit.
"Do I look like you're disturbing me? Trust me; I don't usually entertain in chenille."
"I think it suits you."
"My manners, would you like to come in? I was just having some tea." I gestured to the living room. He'd been here once before, one very memorable time before and I have to admit that my heart was going like a jack hammer at even the thought of him here again, much less the reality.
"That would be nice, thank you."
"Make yourself at home." I gestured toward the sofa or, as I like to think of it, the Shrine of Orgasmic Highs. I hurried off into the kitchen and poured another cup of hot water. I added the tea bag and reached for the dessert I'd put together for a church bake sale. I cut into it and prayed that God would understand my motivations and be happy with a store bought offering instead. And I had to admit my decision wasn't just haphazard. My Pretty was barely making the minimum weight requirement for a field agent. He still needed to get some meat back on his bones and fairly quickly if he was going to follow Napoleon back out into the field.
I put a large slice of pound cake onto a plate, slathered it with ice cream, then berries, then whipped cream. I made a much smaller version for myself. I wasn't having any trouble making the weight requirements at work.
I set the tray on the coffee table and he glanced over his shoulder. He'd taken off his jacket and was studying my bookcase. The sight of him in that white shirt and black shoulder holster… mmm, my thoughts were earning me another whole round of Hail Marys come tomorrow morning.
"You have eclectic tastes." He sat down and smiled. "NIckolay Gumilyov is a fairly obscure poet outside of the USSR."
"I liked that particular collection." The Way of the Conquistadors was one of my favorites. "Some of his other work, like Gondlah, sort of leaves me cold."
"An Irish man who kills himself to ensure Christianity lives on." Illya reached out and lifted the small gold cross I wore. "I would think it would have special meaning to you."
"If peace had been the message, it would have, but Gumilyov wasn't writing about peace then; he was writing about winning, his kind of winning, at any cost."
Illya sipped the tea carefully. "He was very nearly executed for that particular piece."
I handed him the plate with the cake on it and he looked at it, sort of sadly.
"What's wrong?"
"Would you believe I'm actually tired of eating?"
"No, I wouldn't." I cut into the cake and offered him a forkful. After a moment, he reluctantly opened his mouth and I shoved the cake in before he had a chance to decline. Then I let go of the fork. "Now, you are on your own. How's Napoleon?"
He removed the fork and cut another piece. "They say another couple of days before they will release him and then another week before he can return to work."
"How are you holding up?"
He hunched his shoulders as he settled into the task of devouring his piece of cake. "This is very good."
"Thank you and you didn't answer my question. How are you feeling?"
"I'm… fine."
"Illya." I settled a hand on his knee. "How are you?'
He shrugged his shoulders, focusing his attention on the now empty plate. "Okay, considering I have been responsible for one of the worst flu epidemics to hit the country in years. I'm surprised they're not calling it the Soviet flu or something equally derogatory."
"It wasn't you, Illya, it was THRUSH."
"Eventually, but in the beginning it was me."
"You can think that if you'd like, but I think you were just doing what you thought was the best thing in a bad situation."
"That's not exactly how you phrased it to Napoleon."
I colored at that. "He told you huh?"
"He was slightly delirious at the time. I might have taken advantage of the situation."
"Okay, so maybe you guys tend to act before you think. Lots of people do. By exposing the double agent working in the lab, you saved countless lives. Illya, you could have died, you know. One more night and it would have been too late for you. One of your kidneys was putting out the "for lease" sign and taking a holiday to the south of France. You were starting to go into septic shock. A few more hours and you would have been too far gone. We were just lucky that THRUSH panicked when they did and grabbed us."
"Yes, I'm sure you were feeling especially lucky to be brought to me at gunpoint."
"I was with Napoleon; you can't get much safer than that." His smile was sort of sad. "Illya, it's what you do. You saw a bad situation and kept it from becoming worse. You kept THRUSH from having the corner on the market and you got it to us in time for us to engineer a preventative shot. If you hadn't deduced that scientist wasn't one of ours, this could have been much worse, no matter what you think."
He set the plate down. "I do appreciate all you've done for Napoleon and me."
"It's what I do." I'm still not sure what made me do it, but I reached out and brushed the hair out of his eyes. Apparently he'd been too busy to visit a barber and his hair was longer than I'd seen it for awhile. "The Old Man must love this."
"Again, not exactly the words used in the staff meeting this morning." He sat back on the couch, then immediately leaned forward, to rest his elbows on his knees, obviously restless. "I will not mind confessing to you that I will be glad when Napoleon returns."
"You're not loving command."
"As you mentioned earlier, I am more a man of action. I find considerable energy at hand and no way to disperse it. There is no time to work out properly and Mr. Waverly will not permit me into the field with Napoleon sidelined.
"Nervous energy. You're all dressed up and no place to go."
"In a manner of speaking."
I let my hand drift to his thigh and squeezed gently. "You… don't have to go, you know." If my mother heard me say this, it would have scandalized her. I, an unmarried woman, was inviting an unmarried man to spend the night. Okay, so it wouldn't have been a first for either, but she would have still been scandalized. She wouldn't get off her knees for a week.
He smiled again, sad and sweet. "I know how you feel, Nellie, and I don't want to take advantage of that or you."
Take advantage! I wanted to scream, Please, God, don't be this mean spirited.
"And I once believe you said I had the life expectancy of a kumquat."
"But a very attractive and desirable kumquat…"
"Do you even know what one looks like?"
"Well, no… but if it looked like you, it would be my favorite…fruit? Vegetable? Which is it?"
He laughed at that and I saw him start to relax a little. "It's a citrus, like oranges and lemons, about the size of an olive."
"Black or green?" I got a little closer and wondered if I was going to have to make the first move. Then I felt his lips on mine and had my answer. At first it was almost chaste, like kissing your auntie or something and I almost lost it right then and there. I started to smile and felt just the tip of his tongue, stroking my lips, ready to advance or retreat at my signal. That's one of the many things I like about My Pretty, he's always in command, but he always asks first.
His mouth tasted sweet, whipped cream and ice cream, and it was nice to just sit here, kissing each other like we had all the time in the world. I felt the fingers of one of his hands undoing the sash to my bathrobe and sighed happily to myself. And some people just send flowers or a thank you note… trust Illya to go for the gold…
His hand found my waist and I involuntarily tightened my tummy muscles. He laughed at this, his mouth still on mine. It sent little vibrations through me that went straight to my ever excited clitoris. Oh yes, she was standing up and paying great attention to what was going on topside.
One of the many blessings of being a nurse is being really good at getting rid of any clothes that might cause a problem in diagnosis. Well, my diagnosis now was for some flesh on flesh contact and I deftly worked Illya's tie loose and then applied myself to the buttons of his shirt. I was secretly delighted he wasn't wearing one of those turtlenecks he favors. He looks good in them, but this way I didn't have to lose lip contact.
I got the shirt open and ran my hands up his sides, raking my nails along his skin. He reacted and the kiss I didn't think could get any deeper did just that. I knew it had been awhile since I relieved any sexual tension, but by the way Illya was starting to move, I knew he was right there with me.
I pulled away, partially to grab some much needed oxygen and work my aching jaw, but also to blurt out, "Bed?"
Nope, apparently not, Illya had me on my back on the sofa before I got the word out and was stretched out on top of me, his lips working a path down my neck, exploring every bit of skin he could find. I was practically out of my mind by this point and then he found a nipple.
Okay, so I'm a moaner. Just the feeling of his mouth on my breast sent little fireworks shooting up, then I realized his fingers were brushing through my pubic hair, teasing their way with agonizing slowness towards my clitoris. I hitched up my hips encouragingly, just in case he didn't know I was interested.
All he did was swap breasts and move even slower. There was no way I could hold still anymore. I was going to climax with or without his help. He seemed to pick up on my desperation at that point and one finger slid languidly over my very moist clitoris and he slipped it into me.
That was enough and I gasped, feeling my muscles pulsating around his finger, clutching at it like a mouth on a straw. To his credit, Illya knew to stay quiet for a moment and let me ride this lovely bit of paradise out.
His mouth traveled back up to mine as he slowly pulled his finger out and stroked my leg, open handed. My bathrobe was completely open now and I wasn't the least bit self conscious, but I was annoyed. He was still completely dressed.
"We can't have this now."
"What?" He seemed genuinely confused as my hands traveled down his arms to his cuffs.
"You are still carrying." It scared me to think he still had a weapon stuffed beneath his armpit. If that had gone off while he was… that would have been embarrassing.
"Then perhaps it's time to level the playing field." He pushed back and rolled his shoulders, letting the holster slide off the way I would a bra. He handed it to me and I was surprised.
"I never knew these things weighed this much."
He gave me a devilish smile. "How do you think I made my minimum weight requirement?"
"You didn't…"
"Nothing in the manual that said I couldn't." His shirt was off now, the flesh goose pimpled by the sudden rush of cool air. I vowed to warm him up, then he dropped his trousers and I was the one warming up.
The last time I'd seen his penis was to withdraw the catheter. This was a much nicer view, a before and after, if you will. Hard, beckoning, a desperate woman's dream come true. He held out a hand to me. I came up off the sofa and into his arms, leaving the pink fluffy robe behind.
He took a step towards the bedroom, then paused to squat beside his pants, rooting around in a pocket until he pulled out a foil packet.
"A little presumptuous of you, Mr. Kuryakin," I chastised while grinning like the proverbial Cheshire Cat.
"Hopeful, yes, presumptuous, never."
I took the packet from him and dropped it onto the coffee table. A recent exposure to some powerful radiation had left both him and Napoleon about as likely to father children as an ice cube surviving in the Sahara Desert at noon in the dead of summer.
"And not necessary." He looked conflicted for a moment and I suddenly realized that he might not have been made aware… talk about a wet blanket.
"Is there something you know that I don't?"
"Probably, but it's me, not you." A lie, but one I think even God would have approved of. Still, I wondered. What would happen if… I did… would she have curly blond hair or straight dark brown hair. Would she have my brown eyes or his blue ones? It didn't matter…it wasn't going to happen.
The relief that washed over his face was very obvious.
To say we had a glorious evening would be waxing poetic. Let's just say it was two days before I could pee without experiencing extreme discomfort and leave it at that.
But it was nothing compared to the discomfort I felt when my doctor smiled at me and said, "Congratulations!"