She's still watching.
The woman is youngish, white, long limbs and heart-shaped face, a little gawky. Her breasts push at the seams of her tailored jacket. She's been caught staring at least a dozen times since they both sat down, and she hasn't seemed even a little apologetic when Kalinda has returned the eye contact.
The woman's sitting with Kalinda's original targets, a small group of men, square-shouldered and clean-cut, newly minted Special Agents just a few months out of Quantico. She could be a girlfriend, an agent herself, someone who just wandered over to the wrong part of the bar; Kalinda really can't tell. Her gaze is a bit too frankly sexual for someone in the presence of a partner, and particularly a male partner, but different people think differently. She's always understood that, but these last few months have given her more opportunity to learn it than ever before.
She hesitated across the street for nearly twenty minutes, longing for the privacy that has eluded her for ten years, but ultimately pure pragmatism drove her into the bar. Grateful though she may be, anyone with half a brain could tell that Florrick's wandering eye will do his political career in, probably sooner rather than later, and she's not going to be left holding the bag. She needs more support. And oddly enough, her skills as an investigator have already bought her a certain level of respect, leaving her confident that that support will most likely be found the legal and law enforcement sectors—cops, law firms, the Feds. The irony doesn't escape her, but nor did it stop her from entering.
Heads turned when she walked in. She still hasn't gotten used to that, but it seems to be part of her new character. Nick always told Leela she was lovely—that was his word, "lovely"—but it had been quite a while since that felt like a valid compliment. Kalinda, now, seems to be more than lovely; she's magnetic, gorgeous, visible. A row of older men at the bar, all balding, bobbed their heads in her direction, like turtles on a log. If she wanted to be cruel, she could have laughed, but she just took a seat far from the reptiles and ordered tequila, idly biting a slice of lime as she picked the most likely conquests.
It's been nearly an hour now, and the agents seem more inclined to a casual ogle than trying to get her home. The woman at the end of the bar, however, has taken her ogling far beyond casual. Kalinda wonders who she is, and cocks her head towards her. It's all the woman needs: she slips a few barstools down until she's beside Kalinda, her movement clearly attempting sexy and yet, oddly, succeeding.
"Hey," she says when she's on the stool beside Kalinda's, legs akimbo. "You come here often?"
She arches one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. She isn't smiling—she seems almost to take the question seriously, as if its answer genuinely interests her. As if she doesn't know it's a pickup line so common as to be parodic, as if she's never heard the words before. Kalinda decides to like her.
"It's my first time." She lowers her eyes in a mockery of shyness, looks up through her lashes to catch the woman giving a gentle nod of approval. "Woman"—she's almost a girl, Kalinda thinks.
"Lana," she says. "What's your name?"
"Kalinda." It still tastes crisp in her mouth, fresh. It makes her glad she picked it.
"That's pretty," Lana says, her tone somehow both reverent and dismissive. "Did you make it up?"
Her heart jumps. "Did I what?"
Lana shrugs. "For a while I made up a name. Or, I mean, I changed mine up. When I was a teenager. I ran away from home and I needed to feel … memorable. I was Leandra for a couple of years. People would always ask me about it." Kalinda almost releases an audible sigh of relief. Lana's not really asking the question. She has to watch this woman, though; she could catch Kalinda without even meaning to.
There's something exciting about that.
"You with the Feds?" Kalinda says, jerking her head in the direction of the booth teeming with square-shouldered guys, now engaged in a game of darts. It's a guess, but Lana smiles again.
"Special Agent Delaney," she says. "Still feels pretty good to say it."
"I know what you mean."
"And I got Chicago," she says. "I was afraid they would stick me in Tennessee or someplace. Or back in Nebraska."
"Wouldn't be so bad."
"It would." Lana's voice turns sharp for a second, brokering no discussion, but the tone is gone by the time she asks, "What do you do?"
"Private investigator," Kalinda says. She doesn't see what she has to gain by lying, but there's never any reason to delve too deeply into the truth.
"Really," says Lana, leaning over, showing Kalinda where her bra cups end. "Do you have your own outfit?"
"I do contract work." Her sole contract is with the State's Attorney's office, but she'll have to change that soon.
"If you have the investigative skills," says Lana, "my job is really a pretty sweet deal." She's leaning forward. The seduction is so blatant that Kalinda's a little shocked to realize it's working.
"I don't think I'm cut out for government work." Chicago, she guesses, is so corrupt it hardly counts as government.
"Why not?"
"Well, for one thing, I'd never pass the background check."
Lana laughs like it's a joke, and Kalinda offers a quick smile to make it one.
"Hey, you want to get out of here?"
Well, that was certainly quicker than Kalinda expected. From the corner of her eye she looks at the group of young male agents in the booth by the kitchen door, but she's not getting anything else out of this night; there's no reason not to have some fun. Her face is still as she says to Lana, "Sure."
Lana's eyes glow for a second, but all she says is "All right." She slips on her coat and belts it. On such a slender woman, the gesture should be graceful, but her hands are clumsy, as if the shape of a coat isn't quite familiar to her. Kalinda wonders whether the bit about being a runaway was a line. It's hard to tell with a woman this blunt.
She follows the long legs in their seamed stockings down several blocks and around at least four corners before Lana whips around and kisses Kalinda. For a split second Kalinda has to quell the panic that comes of kissing anyone, particularly a woman, in public, but Nick is hundreds of miles away and he knows that Leela's dead. No one, so far, can stop Kalinda Sharma.
And it feels good, rough and whole and spreading like whiskey. Lana's clumsiness can't mask the magnetism between them: Kalinda's lips and tongue, breasts and thighs are locked to Lana's, there's no use even trying to pull loose. Nor is there any reason she would want to. She digs her fingers into Lana's ass, firm and tight from six months of Quantico.
"Whoa," Lana breathes, pulling back as far as their energy will allow. "Can I get you upstairs first?"
Kalinda presses against her ribs, kisses her deeper, harder. She tastes like freedom. "Depends. How many flights?"
/
The month sweeps by, taking Lana with it.
That first night Kalinda dominates as soon as they're inside Lana's apartment. Everything about her is sharp and quick. She grips Lana's wrists in her left hand while corkscrewing three fingers of her right hand inside her, staring into Lana's eyes until they flutter shut with the sheer bliss of it all. In the gray predawn room Kalinda's tongue loops Lana's clit while Lana grips Kalinda's shoulder; Kalinda scrapes her teeth against her, and everything in Lana comes undone, her voice unwinding like a whip through the walls and windows, then falling to the street like scraps of paper, like snow.
The kiss Kalinda gives her afterwards is still hungry, but gentle in a way that somehow leaves Lana only a step away from crying. They sleep touching each other only lightly; Lana herself has never been a cuddler, and holding Kalinda would clearly, at a minimum, make her squirm. Lana wakes up once in the middle of the night. Kalinda doesn't, at least not as far as Lana knows, though she's noisy and a little frightening in sleep.
The mornings are tender and polite, both of them readying for work. Not quite all business, but it's certainly clear Kalinda is not the type for morning sex.
Night after night she shows up, though; it's a week before they even bother to exchange phone numbers. Lana sizzles when Kalinda touches her, and Kalinda seems insatiable. It should be every woman's dream, and she knows it is, but it's also overwhelming. She's just come back from six completely chaste months at Quantico, barely even a moment to touch herself, and the truth is Lana hasn't had much sex in her life, and it still scares her a little.
She never says anything, but she sometimes thinks Kalinda can sense it—the way her fingers hesitate at Lana's entrance, circle tentatively until Lana sighs or shifts downwards or moans, and then tease, slow and steady and sure, until Lana is soaked and so turned on she bites whatever part of Kalinda is nearest.
Sometimes, afterward, it makes Lana tell Kalinda things, even about Seward, about coming out to her parents, the Greyhound buses to Chicago, the weeks she spent behind the Belmont Dunkin Donuts at sixteen. Kalinda nods, asks a couple of questions, kisses beneath Lana's ear, drives her fingers into Lana until Lana forgets what she was talking about, until her words fragment into moans again. Kalinda never talks about herself. Lana doesn't even know where she lives, never mind where she grew up or how she got here.
It doesn't distract Lana from her work; in fact, it seems to make her better, energizing her investigations, giving her a charisma that causes her superiors to sit up and take a surprising amount of notice. Kalinda's eyes glimmer with need when she looks at her, and it makes Lana feel powerful, ready to take on not just Kalinda but her own toughest cases, the sexist bastards in her cohort at the Bureau, the first e-mail from her elder brother in seven years, which she has thus far refused to touch. It makes Lana feel experienced, which seems, in turn, to make her a better lover to Kalinda.
"I want to try it," says Lana one day, shyly, looking at Kalinda sitting sideways, legs thrown over the arm of the wing chair.
"It?"
"I want to be in charge."
"Can you be?" Kalinda says, her tone something like lazy. But Lana sees the teasing somewhere behind her eyes. She pushes Kalinda's legs down, straddles her lap, leans her hands on Kalinda's knees. Her kiss shoves Kalinda's head against the back of the chair.
"Do you like that?" Lana says hoarsely when she pulls back several minutes later.
Kalinda nods. "Yeah."
"Do you want more?" Lana's trying, a little, to sound like Kalinda. She doesn't at all, she sounds more like herself, but it seems to be working.
"Yeah."
"Will you do as I say?" Lana unzips Kalinda's jacket, slides it back, runs a finger down her breast and flicks a rigid nipple.
Kalinda swallows and nods. "Yeah."
"Okay." Lana kisses Kalinda again, stands, pulls her up into an embrace. She has no idea what she's doing. She guides Kalinda to the bed and pushes her down, reaches to kiss her while she herself is still standing. That makes her feel less powerful than she thought it would, so she pushes Kalinda's shoulders back until she's lying down, then crouches astride her, kissing her, holding her shoulders down. That feels much better. She strips Kalinda of her blouse, her bra.
"Don't move," she whispers. Kalinda doesn't. Lana swings her leg back over Kalinda and stands. She fumbles in her windbreaker for her handcuffs.
She doesn't know what she's expecting when she holds them up, but Kalinda's eyes widen and she shakes her head, the movement so miniscule Lana's not entirely sure she saw it. She leans over Kalinda, puts a hand on her waist, kisses her. Then she rises and puts the handcuffs on the bureau, pulling a scarf from the top drawer as she does so. She holds it up for Kalinda to see.
Kalinda visibly relaxes and even puts her wrists together and holds them out for Lana. Lana straddles Kalinda. Kalinda rolls her hips, just once, as Lana ties her hands to the headboard.
"Wait." Lana says it firmly, in this same voice that's not quite hers and not quite anyone else's. Kalinda obeys and Lana feels like she owns the world. She steps back to admire her handiwork and experiences a jolt to her core, because she has never seen anything so hot in her life, certainly not in her own bedroom. Her hands shake as she slides off Kalinda's boots, her skirt, her underwear. Kalinda's smiling a little when Lana looks up. "This isn't funny," Lana says.
"Well …" says Kalinda.
"Do you want me?" says Lana, her voice dropping. She steps back, unbuttoning her own blouse.
"Yeah," Kalinda says.
"Yeah, I know you want me." Lana is amazed at how easy this is. She leans over Kalinda and kisses her, then lies on her side and slowly, slowly traces her hand down Kalinda's body. She stops just short of her clit, runs one finger lightly along Kalinda's wetness. "You laugh at me, you don't get any of this. Do you understand?"
Kalinda nods.
"Say it."
"I understand," Kalinda says. Lana plunges three fingers into Kalinda as soon as she says the word. Kalinda gasps. Lana plays her fingers in slow grinding circles, watching the patterns her movements make on Kalinda's face, listening to the sounds they evoke. She has never been this turned on in her life.
She curls her tapered fingers forward inside her lover, making Kalinda moan. She swings her body so she's hovering over Kalinda again, lowers her breast carefully to Kalinda's lips. Kalinda takes it. Lana's shocked to find her areoles so sensitive she could almost come right there, but she murmurs her pleasure for a few minutes and then pulls back so she can focus on Kalinda. She considers crawling down, tasting Kalinda, but she wants to watch. She draws her fingers out, waiting just long enough for a disoriented, betrayed expression to pass over Kalinda's face. Then she twists her clit between wet fingers. Kalinda cries out. Lana keeps it up a few more minutes, pulling and circling, watching while Kalinda thrusts towards Lana's fingers and strains against her bonds. When she shifts over to her thumb and pushes her fingers into Kalinda once more, Kalinda wails and pulses ferociously around Lana's fingers. Lana keeps it up, seeing how long Kalinda's sound will last unbroken. She's throbbing a little herself. More than a little.
Kalinda's eyes open again, and she gazes at Lana, mouth open and askew. Lana strokes her side.
"Let me go?" Kalinda says, her voice throatier than usual.
"Why should I?" says Lana, surprised she still wants to play the game.
"Because you want to."
"Don't tell me what I want."
"I guess that's fair. I only know what I want." Kalinda's not smiling at all. "First, I want to see how wet you are."
"You," says Lana, "are not in a position to be making any demands." She runs her fingers over Kalinda's clit again and Kalinda jumps a little. But she doesn't sway her gaze from Lana's, and Lana feels a wave of heat pass over her.
"I want to taste you," says Kalinda quietly. Suddenly, there is more for her to taste. Lana shifts. "I want to eat you like you have never been eaten. I want to show you what I mean." Lana's breathing heavily. Kalinda jiggles her wrists. "Take this off."
"I don't think so," says Lana, still not quite able to believe she's doing this, that she has Kalinda at her mercy. "I think you can do that just fine from where you are."
While Kalinda watches, Lana removes the rest of her clothing (true to Kalinda's words, her undergarments are soaked through). Then she sits astride Kalinda, pressing herself against Kalinda's stomach for a minute. Kalinda smiles, nods. Lana edges her way up, knees apart. When she's settled, Kalinda's tongue flicks out, licking Lana in a way Lana somehow wants to describe as graceful.
Kalinda is as good as her word. It's maybe twelve seconds before Lana starts to see stars. She holds the bars of the headboard above where Kalinda's wrists are tied, about to let loose, but, "Wait," Kalinda says. Lana no longer cares who's in charge. She tries to slow herself down—she can barely stand it, but it's worth it, the tip of Kalinda's tongue outlining with precision (how can anyone in the world have this kind of control over her tongue?) a sensation unlike any she's ever felt. When Kalinda goes back to sucking her clit, the sensation shoots outwards, all through Lana, and she has to rest her head against the wall as she shakes, the noises she's making not quite recognizable, not quite hers.
Lana unties the scarf with shaking hands as soon as she can breathe again. Kalinda's arms fly around her and they kiss and kiss and kiss. Suffused with power and satisfaction, Lana falls asleep with Kalinda's head against her shoulder, and for the first time—and what will be the only time—since Lana met Kalinda, Kalinda's dreams do not wake her.
/
"What do you dream about?" Lana finally asks a few mornings later, gazing at Kalinda and pushing back a lock of her hair. Pearly light peeks around the curtains, casting itself on their faces.
She tries to say it calmly. Kalinda thrashes at night, whimpers, sweats, has hit Lana on more than one occasion, and seems to remember nothing of it in the morning. No stranger to nightmares or to their origins, Lana's tried to keep quiet about it, but she can't any more.
Kalinda gazes at her, looking for something. Then she shrugs. "Don't remember."
"It sounded awful," Lana persists. Normally she wouldn't push, she never has, but the cries that woke her last night sounded like wounds, raw and infected and frightening. She stroked Kalinda's back and shoulders until she calmed, but it took more than an hour to will herself to sleep again, and she's started to feel that the knowledge of Kalinda's fears is something she's owed. Not as a girlfriend—Kalinda doesn't seem the type who would take to that term, and Lana's still not sure whether she herself is—but at least as a witness, as someone whose days and nights have been changed.
"Sorry," says Kalinda. It doesn't sound like a word she uses often. "Wish I knew." She slides out of bed, and Lana hears the shower a minute later.
Two nights later they fall asleep together again postcoitally, sweaty and entangled. Lana jolts awake at three, startled by what feels like anticipation. The numbers on the digital clock glow, the complete darkness making them fuzzy at the edges. It takes her a second to notice that Kalinda's gone.