Fandom: White Collar
Title: Treatise on the Sexual Mores and Habits of Neal Caffrey
Rating: Adult. (Hard R? Maybe even NC-17? Maybe I'm being too leery of sex to judge it ...)
Summary: Neal has lots of sex. Neal/Elizabeth, Neal/Peter, Neal/Kate
Author's Note: There were two thoughts in my head when I started writing this. The first was "How come nobody in fandom likes Kate?" The second was "Kate and Elizabeth look exactly the same to my untrained eye." And somehow ... this evolved?
Sometimes, when he allowed the dimly-lit room to fool him, he could pretend that she was Kate. Only for a few moments at a time. Maybe it would be the way her toes curled as she shuddered with pleasure, or the way her silky hair felt against his skin, or the hitch in her throat as he pushed her to climax and stopped at the brink. Whatever it was, for one blissful moment he could pretend it was Kate he was fucking raw, it was Kate he was nudging to orgasm, it was Kate he had wrapped around his waist.
Sometimes, it disappointed him during the day when he saw hair that was a shade too dark or heard a throaty chuckle that was just a tad too deep. Elizabeth's carriage was always more self-assured than Kate's had ever been, her perfume more floral, and the click of her heels more purposeful. It was only at night when her body arched in pleasure and the room smelled only of sex and the darkness forgave the differences that Neal could pretend.
--
With Peter, he never pretended. Peter wasn't a fantasy, he was an escape. He was all hard muscle and callused hands, as far from Kate's soft curves and delicate hands as Neal could get. Where Kate kissed and caressed and nipped and tongued, Peter pushed and shoved and tugged and pressed. Where Kate surrendered herself with a sigh to orgasm, Peter was always in control even when he was coming.
With Peter, sex was about being grounded in reality, a visceral reminder that Kate was who knew where. Sex with Peter was a push and pull for dominance that Neal invariably ceded, allowing himself to be pushed back, relinquishing control. It wasn't about soft cushions to lean on or silky sheets sleek against his skin, but about the cool hardwood floor against his knees and the coarse bargain-basement fabric against his cheek, the discomfort that rooted him in the harshness of the real world.
--
When he finds Kate again, the kiss they share is desperate and needy. He tangles his fingers in her hair (not as silky as he remembers, must have switched conditioner), wraps his other arm around her waist (bonier than before, she must not have eaten well in her stress), and holds on as if she were a wisp of a figment that could blow away at any minute.
When they (eventually) fall into bed again, he finds that he has to re-learn quite a lot. He has changed, and she has changed, and her gasps sound higher than he is used to after Elizabeth, and her frame is more fragile than he is used to after Peter. Her hands feel strange against his chest, and his arm is pinned awkwardly against the bed.
It isn't until her fingers tighten around his arms in a familiar deathgrip, until his body remembers the rhythm to take, until she throws back her head as she climaxes with a familiar gasp, that he thinks things might be alright after all. He spends fifteen minutes devoted to re-learning her breasts, and she spends as long seeing if he's still so sensitive to a whisper-light breath against the nape of his neck. They spends hours talking as they lay among the sticky sheets, until their hearts know each other as well as their bodies now do.
And for the first time in a long time, Neal doesn't escape the present, nor force himself to stay in it. For the first time, he lets himself think of the future.
Endnote: This ended up a lot more Neal/Kate OTP than I had intended...