Set New Year's Eve between seasons ten and eleven
Gabrielle Jaeger cringed to see her colleague Jack Quade out of the corner of her eyes, pretty blond hanging off his arm. So much for his insistence that he was practicing celibacy after going off the rails and sleeping around – including with one of her nurses. Poor Rachel had been so humiliated by Jack's cavalier treatment of her the next day that she'd felt she had no option but to quit. She should have known better than to believe a word that came out of Jack's mouth. Men like that lied through their teeth and thought nothing of it.
She hadn't wanted Jack to come back to work at the ED after he had resigned his surgical post. She didn't trust him. He had seduced two of her predecessors – Terri Sullivan and Deanna Richardson – and she didn't feel comfortable around him, half-convinced that eventually he would try the same on her.
Not that she had any intention of being his latest conquest.
Not that she was attracted to him at all.
Not one bit. It was just that when she had jumped into his arms after being frightened by a dog, he'd had such a strong grip that made a girl feel like she could be carried off into the sunset. And he had these mesmerising green-gray eyes that made it difficult at times to remember what a jerk he was capable of. And a dazzling smile, when he chose to show it. Which, Gabrielle thought, was a good thing that he didn't often, because it was so easy to forget the way Jack treated women when he focused those eyes and that smile on you.
And now here he was, a new conquest on his arm. Gabrielle wondered if he knew this one's name.
From across the bar, Jack noticed Gabrielle. He'd seen surprisingly few All Saints staff at Cougars tonight, which was odd, given that the place was a Mecca for the hospital staff, and it was New Year's Eve. You'd think the place would be crawling with people.
He smiled at Gabrielle, then frowned when she deliberately turned her head from him. She had been like that ever since he had gone back to the ED – actually, since she had found out about him sleeping with Rachel. He supposed he should really cop to that one; he knew he had treated Rachel badly and felt bad, both for Rachel and for Gabrielle, who had lost an excellent nurse. He wished he could make it up to her some way, but she seemed determined to have as little to do with him as possible.
"Who's that?" his sister, Rebecca asked him, tugging at his shirt. She was well aware of the absence of girlfriends in Jack's life, and if he expressed interest in someone - besides, New Year's Eve was a Mecca for hook-ups.
"Just a colleague."
Rebecca eyed Gabrielle critically. Hardly a knock-out, but not ugly, either. And she was tall, which was good for Jack, because he was six-four. "You should talk to her," she suggested.
"She doesn't want to talk to me," Jack said.
"How do you know that?"
"I just do, OK." Jack was aware of how much Rebecca adored him, hero-worshipped him in fact, and was loathe to lose any of that adoration by admitting some of the things he had done, especially in the last year. It had really been twelve months of feeling sorry for himself and trying to lose himself in sexy and booze after the man who had sexually abused him for two years when he had been a teenager, Patrick Wesley, had reappeared in his life. His downward spiral had culminated in his friend and fellow-accuser Travis dying from Wilson's disease. He had been devastated, and Rachel had been there, a willing warm body to make himself feel like a man.
He had regretted it the second he had woken up, and regretted having inconvenienced Gabrielle like he had. The irony was, he had a great deal of respect with her for the way she ran her department so well – and with Frank Campion breathing down her neck all the time, no less – and he would have liked to have that respect reciprocated But she seemed determined to hold his past against him forevermore.
For the next hour, he pushed her to the back of his mind and chatted with Rebecca. That was easy enough, as Rebecca was a charming, intelligent young woman, and the adoration was mutual.
He went to get himself another drink, and found himself standing next to Gabrielle. "Got bored of celibacy?" she asked him with a sneer.
"Huh?" Jack had no idea what Gabrielle was talking about. He hadn't had sex since his disastrous one-nighter with Mercedes. He knew he wasn't to blame for her husband beating the crap out of her upon discovering her infidelity – she had chosen to sleep with him, and her husband had chosen to react the way he had – but knowing she had been so badly beaten because of something he had done had shaken him to the core. From now on, he decided, he would only get involved with women he actually knew. So Gabrielle's snarky comment made no sense to him.
"Never mind," she said testily. Naturally, Jack would deny what she could see with her own two eyes. She was reminded of that joke, who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes? She said it with as much loftiness as she could manage, as much to hide her jealousy as anything else. Why she should be jealous, she didn't know. Jack didn't owe her anything; she told herself it was because she was disappointed in him
She went to walk off. At that point, Jack snapped. He was fed up of her snooty attitude towards him. She didn't have to be friends if she didn't want, but she could at least be polite. He grabbed her arm and dragged her into a nearby storage room. Gabrielle shrieked at him, but her voice was lost over the din of a noisy pub for of New Year's revellers. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded shrilly.
"Wanting to know what your problem is," Jack said. "You've been rude to me ever since I got back."
"I don't have a problem, Jack. You're the one hauling women into storage rooms. How did you know it was here, anyway? Used it in the past?" she jeered.
Actually, he had, but he wasn't about to admit to it. "I just want to know why you've been so rude. You don't want to be friends, fine, but a little politeness wouldn't go astray."
Gabrielle scowled at Jack. She wasn't be rude, she was just being – cautious. And she was well aware of how masculine he looked right now. He wasn't bulky like Steve, but he still radiated something confident and sexual that Steve had never possessed. She wanted out right now. She pushed past Jack, trying not to think about the sparks of heat that generated between them as their skin touched. She went to open the door and was horror-struck to discover that the door didn't budge. "Shit!" she cried.
There was a tone in her voice – even in that one word – that got his attention. She was more than simply annoyed; she was a little panicked. "Here, let me," he said, stepping up behind her and testing the handle. She barely got her hand out in time. He rattled the handle for a few seconds, then tried yanking on it to try and open it by force, and was forced to admit that the door was going to open from this side.
"Oh, God," she said. "Oh, God, Oh, God," she repeated a few times, each time her voice taking on a more hysterical note.
"It's OK. Someone will find us eventually. My sister will realise I'm not around soon enough." Actually, Jack wasn't so sure about that. Rebecca was perfectly capable of not realising he was gone for several hours; longer, if she found a cute guy to flirt with. Mentally, he envisioned spending New Year's locked in a room with a woman who'd made it her mission to be rude to him for the last three months. He would have preferred sitting at home, twiddling his thumbs.
"No, you don't understand," she said, the panic in her voice rising. "I hate confined spaces."
"You're claustrophobic?" Jack asked.
Gabrielle nodded. "Oh, God," she said again, and started to pace the small room. "There's no air in here. I can't breathe."
"There's plenty of air," he said as gently as he could, given how shocking it was to see cool, calm and collected Gabrielle Jaeger unravel like this. "Just try and relax. C'mon, sit," he directed her, leading her to a stack of crates so she could sit down. She was too distressed to take offense at Jack's touching her. He gently nudged the back of her head in a motion to lean forward and breathe deeply like she would recommend for anyone who was hyperventilating. He didn't remove his hand from the back of her neck, and she didn't ask him too, taking some comfort out of his steadying hand. "Why don't you tell me about – your relationship with Steve," he suggested, scrambling for someone he knew about her which he knew would keep her talking for a while.
"Don't condescend me, Jack, I'm not one of your patients," she snapped.
"Good to see you can breathe steadily enough to insult me," he quipped. "How long were you together for?"
"Five years... and a few months," she said, meaning five years when they had first been together and a few months from their brief reconciliation very recently.
"My record isn't even five months," he admitted ruefully. "You must have been young."
"Sixteen."
Why does that not surprise me? Jack asked himself. There was something about Steve that had grated on Jack from the get-go; something a little sleazy. He certainly wouldn't leave the guy alone with Rebecca. So it didn't come as any surprise to Jack that he had started dating Gabrielle when she had been sixteen, just skirting statutory rape. "What happened?" he asked.
"The first time or the second?"
"Both."
"The last time – he was drinking so much and walked out on me. The first time – he cheated on me. With my best friend," she added, a touch of bitterness in her voice. It had been five years since she had found out, but it had never completely stopped hurting.
"Ouch. That must have been awful."
"You're being condescending again. You have no idea what it was like."
"Actually, I do. I've been cheated on. It sucks. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."
"Sorry," Gabrielle said. It was the second time tonight she had misjudged Jack; the first in assuming that the attractive woman he was with was his latest conquest, and now this.
"It's fine."
His easygoing tone only made her feel guiltier. Here he was, the perfect opportunity to come into her and she wasn't in a position to tell him no, and he was doing all he could to put her at ease. "I haven't been very nice to you, have I?"
"Nope. Care to tell me why?"
"I don't feel comfortable around you," she admitted.
"Because of Rachel?" he asked.
"Because of Rachel... and Deanna... and Terri," she clarified. "You know when I started working at All Saints, it seemed everyone went out of their way to tell me you liked to date the ED NUM. I didn't want to be your latest conquest."
"You make it sound like I wouldn't have given you the choice. I'm pretty good at judging what a woman wants from me, and if I'm prepared to give that to her. Or at least I was," he added, thinking of Rachel and Mercedes. "And if it makes you feel better, I think you have too much integrity to become someone's conquest."
"Really?" she asked, blushing a little.
"Yeah. The way you handle Frank? That takes a lot of savvy. You're the fifth NUM I've known in that position and no-one's done it as well as you."
Gabrielle was glad she had her back to Jack and he couldn't see her blushing. She couldn't believe such a minor compliment had her so red. "Um, thanks," she said.
For the next hour, Jack and Gabrielle were holed up in that storage room and Gabrielle found herself distracted from her claustrophobia. She found him very easy to talk to and as the minutes slipped by, she found herself feel guiltier for making such assumptions about him. He hadn't tried to touch her apart from when he'd put his hand on the back of her head to calm her down. And as the minutes slipped by, she was becoming increasingly aware of just how attractive he was. The way he smiled at her, the way his eyes sparkled – even his smell. She wondered what he would taste like. Certainly not the scotch that Steve always tasted like. And Rachel had said he was a good kisser.
She blushed at the thought. She definitely should not be venturing into that territory.
Before they knew it, the chant began for the count-down into the new year. Gabrielle jumped out, suddenly remembering that she was trapped in a storage room and was severely claustrophobic. For her, who had grown up surrounded by fields which stretched as far as they eye could see, to be trapped in a small, dusty, dank room was unbearable.
"Oh, God," she said, and she started to hyperventilate again. She began pacing the room, getting more worked up with every second.
"Gabrielle, calm down," Jack ordered her, to no avail. Jesus Christ, she was starting to make him panic. "It's going to be OK." Rebecca would realise soon enough that Jack wasn't around to ring in the new year, and start looking for him.
Gabrielle continued to pace and hyperventilate, and Jack pounced on her, pushing her against the wall. He didn't know exactly what he was doing, except that it felt absolutely natural to mash his mouth against hers into a hard kiss, pushing his tongue into her mouth – he had said she had made it sounded like he wouldn't have given her a choice, except now, he wasn't giving her a choice. Pushing his body against hers so she was wedged in between his body and the wall, he plundered her mouth with his tongue.
For a second, she kissed him back. Rachel had been right; he was a good kisser. With a small whimper of delight, she opened her mouth to receive his tongue and met it with her own. Even though he had the taste of beer on his breath, it somehow tasted cleaner and fresher than any of Steve's kisses...
Then she remembered that she was kissing Jack Quade and, wedging her hands between their chests, she pushed him hard, then slapped him just as hard. "You asshole!" she yelled at him. "Everyone was right about you! Keep your fucking hands off me!"
But even as she was yelling at him, he could see the longing and desire in her eyes and the way her mouth was wet from his was just too captivating to ignore. He closed the gap between them again and slid his hand across her neck, his fingers feeling for her pulse. He grinned when he got it. "Your heart's racing," he said, and he kissed her again.
This time, she didn't push him away. There seemed something pointless about trying to resist him when she was stuck in a small space with him and was, she could no longer deny, hot for him. "Jack," she cried out his name when he pushed his tongue into her mouth again, and this time, she kissed him back. "Jack..." She brought her arms around his neck, her fingers caressing the short hairs at the back of his neck then up to run her fingers through his hair.
Jack responded by grabbing her hips and hoisting her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist obligingly. The boost put her head above his, and it was a trip to have to crane his neck up to kiss someone. They kissed hungrily, hands all over each other, until Jack started undoing the buttons of her blouse. She didn't object as he undid the material, exposing a sexy black satin bra that, if he had ever thought about it before, he would never have suspected Gabrielle of owning such a thing. Grunting slightly, the thought occurred to him that he would very much like to know what other surprises she had in mind for him.
She was wearing a pendant tucked under her blouse, a cheap, showy silver necklace with a 'G' pendant on the end. It was the kind of thing you would find in a cheap costume jewellery store, not at all consistence with the classiness he knew of her, and Jack knew exactly who would have given it to her. "This from Steve?" Jack asked. Gabrielle nodded. And in one swift movement, Jack had yanked the cheap chain, breaking it at the clasp. Gabrielle started to yelp in protest, and Jack silenced her with a kiss. "I'll get you another," he said in a tone that suggested he intended on being around for a while. "But I don't share well."
She accepted this without another word of protest and went back to enjoying Jack's kisses and caresses. She felt giddy with desire; she honestly knew that she had never felt like this about anyone – not Steve, not anyone – not on fire like this. She tightened her grip on Jack's waist and arched her back so she thrust her breasts into his face. He responded by kissing the swell of her breasts and fumbling with the remaining buttons on her shirt. She knew once he was done there he would seek to unclip her bra, but she didn't care. In fact, she wanted it. Nothing mattered but feeding this hunger she felt for him...
There was a knock on the door. "Jack?" came Rebecca's voice through the other side. "Are you in there?"
Jack let Gabrielle slide down with as much gracefulness as he could manage – which wasn't much. "Um, yeah, just give us a sec," he called through the door. Gabrielle hurriedly buttoned her shirt, feeling very flushed. Jack turned to face her. "Look, I really have to go, but – I'll come around soon and we'll talk, yeah?" he asked. Gabrielle nodded, feeling somewhat bewildered. She had let Jack put his hands all over her – and she had enjoyed it. She had acted like a complete slut and found every moment exhilarating.
Jack leaned down to kiss her, and she found herself unable to resist. All to abruptly, he pulled away from her and, when Rebecca opened the door, went off with her with barely a second glance in her direction. "What were you doing in there?" she asked him, and Gabrielle couldn't hear his reply.
On the second of January, Gabrielle opened the door to be greeted by Jack standing there. "Hi," he said. "I told you I'd come by."
"How did you get my address?" she asked, dumbfounded. She hadn't expected him to actually come by, certainly not the next day. She wasn't sure if she was happy to see him or not. The more she thought about it, the more ashamed she felt of acting the way she had in Jack's arms. You'd think she was some silly teenage girl with her first crush and not a grown woman who should know better than to make out with men who had reputations like Jack's. If she had allowed things to go further, if Rebecca hadn't interrupted them when she had, she would have ended up being the last of how many in the long line of Jack's conquest. Just another notch on his bedpost, she thought, the shame bringing colour to her cheeks to think of it.
"Contact list." He stood awkwardly at the door, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Can I come in?" he asked.
Gabrielle stepped back so Jack could enter the house. "Nice place," he said. "You own it?"
"Yeah."
"Cool. I need to stop paying rent. Such a waste." He followed her into the kitchen, feeling stupid for the inane conversation when he actually wanted to take her in his arms and finish what he had started that night. "Look, I, uh, got you something," he said, thrusting his hand into his pants pocket and withdrawing a small jewellery box. "I told you I'd get you a new one."
She opened it. It was a silver necklace with a 'G' pendant, but it was a different as could get from the one Steve had bought her. It was smaller and much classier. "Jack, I can't accept this," she said. "It's too much."
He shrugged. "Bec's a total magpie, loves shiny things. If I didn't find a place that sold nice costume stuff for a decent price, I would have gone broke by now. It was nothing, really. I want you to have it. I want you to have something from me."
Gabrielle didn't know what to say to that, and she didn't have the heart to tell him no, so she turned around so Jack could fasten the pendant around her neck. "I didn't realise your hair was so long," he said, running his fingers through her hair, which she still had out. He immediately envisioned having it draped across his chest in bed.
He gently turned Gabrielle around again so she was facing him. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about you," he said, and he leaned in to kiss her.
She panicked and pulled away. "I don't want to," she said with all the believability of a child saying that didn't want Christmas.
"What do you mean, you don't want to?" he asked her incredulously. "You were all over me at New Year's." Quite literally, he added silently, a touch smugly. He wondered where she got all the strength in her thighs from, because his waist was actually bruised.
"I was panicked," she said. "And drunk," she added melodramatically. She hadn't been that drunk – sober enough to be well aware of what she was doing – but maybe it might make Jack pause if he thought he had taken advantage of someone who had had too much to drink.
"Rubbish," Jack said. "You don't kiss someone like that if you're not hot for them. I should know," he added, with a touch of smugness. He leaned in to kiss her again, and she pushed him away again. "What?" he asked in exasperation.
"Exactly, Jack, you do know. How many women have there been? How can you possibly think I could trust you? You humiliated one of my nurses into quitting, remember? And I can't quit if you don't speak to me the next day."
"I'm not going to do that to you," he said, feeling a combination of residual guilt over the way he had treated Rachel and irritation that Gabrielle was still holding that against him.
"How do I know that?" she asked him with as much strength and dignity as she could muster, which wasn't easy, given the way he was looking at her intently, not exactly making it easy to remember how wonderful it had been to kiss him. He was right in one regard; you didn't kiss someone like that if you weren't hot for them. She was attracted to Jack big-time, and she hated herself for it. "Jack, you humiliated her, and no-one knows why." Or at least, no-one who was willing to tell her anything. "How do I know it's not going to happen again?"
"It won't," he said, stubbornness creeping into his voice, as well as something else – fear, perhaps? Surely he wasn't scared of rejection, was he?
"I don't trust you," she said honestly. "Not when I don't even know why you did it." Everyone knew Jack had been acting strangely for most of last year; secretive, moody, promiscuous, drinking far too much. No-one knew why – or if they did, they didn't say – and a lot of people pointed to his fondness for Travis Knight, who was way out of Jack's league. When there was no other information to go on, it had only been a matter of time before people started talking about exactly what Travis had meant to Jack that he had taken Travis's death so hard. Had the two men been lovers? It would certainly explain jack's homophobic streak, or his promiscuity with women; he wouldn't have been the first man to use it to hide gay tendencies.
Well, Gabrielle had no intention of waiting for Jack to exhibit the same destructive behaviour again. She'd had plenty of that with Steve. She didn't care how attracted she was to him. "Please, I want you to go," she said, pushing past him and directing him to the door.
He grabbed her wrist. "If I tell you, will you let me stay?" he asked.
"What?"
"If I tell you why I did it, will you let me stay?" he asked, and she was floored that he seemed so keen on being with her that he was offering her this bizarre deal.
"If I believe you," she said cautiously.
"You can't tell anyone."
"Jack, I'm hardly the town gossip," she protested, a little put out that Jack seemed to think so little of her.
"I'm serious. Only four other people know so if it gets out, I'll know it was you."
"Jack, I won't say anything." What could he possibly have to tell her that was so important that it be kept a secret? It wasn't like he had much reputation left to care about.
Jack walked over to the couch and sat down. She sat down across from him, folding her legs under her. He was twisting his fingers around and barely noticing it, which was strange given the pressure he was apply, he had to be hurting himself. "D'you remember Patrick Wesley?" she asked.
Gabrielle nodded. She remembered it for three reasons; firstly, that Travis had been connected to Patrick some way; secondly, that Dan had been thoroughly convinced that Jack shouldn't be treating Patrick, to a point he'd gone over both Jack and Zoe's heads and gone directly to Mike; and thirdly, because the wounds Travis had inflicted on Patrick had been particularly vicious, a series of stabs and lacerations to the groin and thigh area. Largely through luck she had avoided such injuries, but she knew from her studies that they were often revenge for a sexual crime, real or imagined. God knew, there were enough urban legends floating around the place of women who had cut off their partner's penis over a infidelity that turned out to be imagined.
And then it clicked. Travis's motives had no doubt been revenge for a sexual crime, and Jack had been hell-bent on protecting him, even if it meant sabotaging his own career over it – and sabotage is what it would have been had Mike not stepped in and taken over. Travis hadn't been Jack's lover, he had been his ally against a paedophile. Jack's homophobia didn't stem from gay tendencies but having been abused. "My God," she whispered. "I had no idea."
"No," he said dryly. "I imagine not. I tend not to advertise it. Frank let me come back on the condition that I take up counselling. I think there was something in there about not getting involved with his staff, too," he added ruefully.
"When?" she asked. "How long?"
"Thirteen," he replied simply. "Two years. Then another ten convincing myself I was straight. I got into the triple digits before I started to believe it. Sorry," he added when he saw the look on her face. "I'm trying to get you to let me kiss you and I'm just disgusting you."
"Jack..." she said, not sure what she was supposed to say in this situation. She knew how to deal with patients who had been sexually abused, but this was Jack. Jack, who she was insanely attracted to. Jack, who she had made out with in a storage room and was now trying to convince her to go out with him – or at least let him kiss her. "I'm sorry," she said helplessly. "No-one should have to go through that."
"I don't want your pity, Gabrielle," he said. "Look, this was clearly a mistake. I should get going."
He got up to go but Gabrielle put a restraining hand on his arm before he could. "Please stay," she asked him quietly. He stayed put and she let go of his arm. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.
"No."
"Do you want a hug?"
"That would be nice," he said in a small voice. She held out her arms to him and he buried his head in her shoulder, flinging his arms around her neck. She was initially startled by the intensity of his reaction as he started to cry into her shoulder but when she thought about it again, it really didn't surprise her. By his own admission, he'd slept with over a hundred women but how many of those had he felt he could open up to? How many had he been keen enough on to tell the truth just so he could stay? She knew from experience that sometimes it was far lonelier to be with someone you didn't really connect with than to be alone. She brought her arms around his back and rubbed her hands up and down in comfort.
"Sorry," he said after a few minutes, still sniffling. "I'm such a baby."
"It's fine. Here," she said, getting to her feet and holding out her hand to him. "Come and lie down. You look exhausted." She wondered why she had never seen it before. But then, she hadn't exactly been tripping over herself to check how chipper he was; usually, she was tripping over herself to avoid him. And if he looked tired, well, she figured he was just staying out too late with too many women. Of course, it never would have occurred to her the real reason he couldn't sleep. "You taking anything?"
"Diazepam, when I really can't sleep," he said. "I try not to take it too much."
She led him into her bedroom. "Nice," he couldn't help but quip, a fraction of his ingrained cockiness surfacing. "I thought I'd have to wait at least a week before I saw the inside of this place."
"You keep that up and it's the last you'll see of it," she retorted. "Lie down, and if you try anything, I'll throw you out."
Obediently, Jack lay down and Gabrielle cradled his head in her lap. She kept up a stream of gentle babble and he responded in kind until his responses became further and further apart and he eventually fell asleep in her arms. He looked so peaceful asleep that she couldn't help but stare at him. He was a very good-looking man and maybe having a cry had done his soul some good because he looked so serene.
She stayed with him for a little longer than left him to sleep. He slept a full six hours and roused with the slow luxury of someone who has had a proper rest. "What time is it?" he asked, noticing it wasn't fully bright outside anymore like it had been when he'd gone to sleep.
"Eight."
"Eight! Shit! I was meant to meet Bec an hour ago."
"I know, she called."
"What did you tell her?" Jack asked suspiciously.
"That you were asleep. I offered to wake you but she said not to." Rebecca must have noticed something was up with Jack herself, even if Jack hadn't told her all that had happened to him.
Jack groaned and buried his head in the pillow. "You told her I fell asleep? In your bed?"
"Yeah, why? Scared I blew your cover as a Catholic virgin?" she teased.
"Not funny. I just... like her to have a certain opinion of me."
Gabrielle went to say something about that then decided to let it go. It could be discussed in the future – if there was a future for them. "I made you dinner," she said.
At precisely that moment, Jack's stomach lurched in hunger. It had been almost two years since he'd had someone cook for him – his former landlady, Mary – and the pile of sausages, steamed vegetables and mashed potatoes smothered in gravy, simple as it was, was exactly what he felt like at that moment. "I haven't had much of an appetite for a while," he admitted.
"I've seen what Dan thinks passes for food," Gabrielle said. "I don't blame you."
"So long as it's not crumbling charcoal, he thinks it's edible," Jack agreed. "Thanks." He reached for the plate, then put it on the bedside table and reached for Gabrielle.
Gabrielle squealed. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"What I came here to do in the first place," he said. His eyes were sparkling playfully; the rest had done him good. He leaned in to kiss her and, predictably, she pulled away.
"Eat first," she said.
"If I eat, can I kiss you?"
"Jack! Were you always this persistent?"
"When I wanted something bad enough."
"And you want me badly enough?" she asked cautiously.
"Not in the way you're thinking. I don't want you as a conquest. I may not have been thinking all that straight when I slept with Rachel but I always knew there was a difference between seducing a temp and seducing the best damn NUM the ED's had. I actually enjoyed talking to you and God knows I'm attracted to you. Look, I don't know where this is going or even what I'm capable of giving right now, but I do know that I like you and – if I eat, can I please kiss you?"
She decided she could trust him. And if it was hard enough to resist him when he looked at her in a certain way, it was even harder when he seemed to be putting so much stock in a kiss. "OK," she said shyly.
"OK, what?"
"OK... you can kiss me."
"Now?"
"Yes, now. Unless you'd rather just eat your dinner and be quiet?" She got up to go.
"Hey! You come back here!" Jack reached for her and grabbed her playfully, pulling her down onto the bed and expertly flipping her so she was on her back and he was on top of her. He kissed her deeply and responded with a depth and hunger she hadn't realised she possessed. He ran his hands down her sides, resting them at her waist where her shirt ended. He kept them there, strangely shy about going any further even though she'd had her legs wrapped around his waist and her shirt undone.
"Jack," she said, well aware that he was keeping his hands respectfully in place. "I'm not, uh – " she said, stumbling with the words. She had never been very good with men and sex and something told her that Jack wasn't used to be turned down. As it was, she was incredibly tempted to sleep with him.
"Not ready to have sex with me?" Jack offered. Gabrielle nodded. "It's OK. I told you on New Year's that I'd give you a choice. I don't want you to feel like you have to sleep with me out of obligation or 'cos you think I'll dump you if you don't."
"Dump me?" she asked. "But that requires –"
"A relationship?" he finished for her. "I thought that's what I've been trying to get from you."
Gabrielle had to laugh at that. If she had little experience with men and sex, then Jack had about as little experience with relationships. It was kind of charming to know there was something Jack sucked at. "No, what you've been doing is showing up on my doorstep all hell-bent on kissing me," she corrected.
He blushed at that. "I'm not very good at relationships," he admitted.
"I can see that." And for the first time since the whole debacle with Rachel, she didn't hold it against him. "When was the last time you had a girlfriend?" she asked. "A proper girlfriend that you took out on dates."
"Two years," he said, making a face to think of Deanna Richardson.
"And when was the last time you had a relationship that didn't involve you sleeping with them on the first date?" she pressed.
"Um..." Jack started to think.
The fact that he was tracking through several years told her all she needed to know. In some ways, Jack's attitude to sex and relationship was the right one; he established straight-up weather or not he was attracted to someone, and she realised now that sexual attraction was important in a relationship. She'd generated more heat with Jack in a few minutes than she had with Steve over five years. But there was also something a bit sad about the fact Jack had never gotten to know a woman before he took her to bed. She understood that it stemmed from a need to prove himself sexually, but that didn't make it any less sad. "Never mind, I get it. Look, why don't we go out for dinner or something sometime?" she asked.
"Something sometime?" Jack asked, smirking with some of his old cockiness. "Are you try to ask me out?"
"Um, yeah... I guess."
"OK," he agreed. "But I am so choosing the place. I've heard your idea of good restaurants in this city. You don't know shit," he teased.
"Deal," she agreed.
"And by the way, I forgot to tell you at the time, on account that you were all over me and that, but – Happy New Year."
8