Pulling No Punches
She sat on the bed as the Doc taped up her ribs - two of them cracked nicely thanks to him - and watched as the nurse stitched up the cut over his eye. She'd come out of the fight far worse than he had - not surprising given how much he outweighed and out-muscled her - knowing that she'd deserved it. And worse. What he'd done to her in this fight had been retribution for what she'd done to him on New Caprica, they'd both known it going into the ring. He hadn't wanted to fight her but she'd known on some instinctive level that it had been necessary and so she'd goaded him into it. The wounds she'd inflicted on him a year and a half earlier had festered to the point where he was a changed man, one she and everyone else apparently didn't really know anymore. It was up to her to break through those wounds, attempt to heal them and find the real Lee again.
Their eyes met and his were enigmatic, unreadable. She wasn't sure if he regretted saying he missed her. She didn't regret saying it - it was the truth.
"Alright you two, no more fighting till some of these wounds heal," Cottle said, voice gruff with irritation.
"Yes sir," Kara mumbled deferentially.
Lee just nodded.
"Back to your racks for some rest. That's an order."
They hopped off the med beds in unison, Kara wincing as her almost broken ribs reminded her of their existence.
They walked back to the senior officer's bunkroom in complete silence. He followed her in, shutting the hatch behind him. Suddenly something odd occurred to her.
"Don't you have your own quarters?"
Lee nodded.
"So ... are you just being gentlemanly and making sure I get home safely?" she asked, a trifle playfully.
"Something like that," he answered quietly.
She frowned and turned back to her bunk, kicking off her boots and sitting down with a grimace.
"Why?"
Her eyes lifted to meet his, the question written there as well as on his lips.
"I need to know why you did it. Why you told me you loved me and then went off and married him." His voice was low but charged with passion and his eyes glittered like sapphires.
Her eyes dropped to the floor. "I can't tell you," she whispered.
"Can't or won't?" he said, face hardening as he strode over to stand in front of her. "Don't you think I deserve an explanation? What you did to me was unforgivable," he added harshly.
"Then don't forgive me." The words came out a trifle more acidly than she'd intended them to. Actually she hadn't really meant to say them at all, her thoughts had just blurted themselves out before she could censor them.
"It's not about forgiving you," he said, dropping to his knees in front of her, "it's about understanding. I need to understand how you could tell me you love me and then leave me and marry someone else only a few hours later with no goodbye, no explanation, no nothing."
She frowned and looked away, not speaking.
"Kara, please," he begged, the note of pleading in his voice tugging at her heartstrings. She felt herself go dangerously weak inside. This was why she had left him - he affected her way too deeply. Caused her to forget everything and act irrationally. Just like Zak, she thought with a shudder.
He sensed it rather than saw it and knew she was close to breaking point. He'd learned a thing or two about Kara Thrace in the two years they'd known each other closely - albeit perhaps too late - and one of them was that in order to get the truth out of her you had to push and not let her run away when things got too painful.
He reached forward and took her hands in his gently, thumbs stroking the backs of them.
Her eyes turned to meet his and he knew he'd done it - there were tears.
"Tell me," he whispered. "Why did you leave me and marry Sam?"
"Because I loved you."
His face went blank. "Because you loved me?"
She nodded.
"Let me get this straight. You told me you loved me and led me to believe we had a future together and then you walked way without a word and married someone else, effectively breaking my heart into pieces, stomping on them and throwing them out the airlock BECAUSE YOU LOVED ME? What the hell kind of love is that?"
She blinked back the tears, unwilling to let him see her so vulnerable, but knowing she deserved every harsh word he speared into her heart ... and more. Obviously the physical fight had only just begun to scrape away at the surface of what was still hurting between them.
She sought in vain for words to describe how she'd felt and what she'd been thinking that night that had caused her to make the heart-wrenching decision she had. It had been the hardest of her life - harder even than walking away from her abusive mother and making her own life at the tender age of fifteen, and harder yet than deciding how to deal with Zak's inadequacies in the cockpit, and it's repercussions.
Lee had been her rock, her salvation since the end of the words. She'd never expected his forgiveness for killing his brother but he'd given it. She'd never expected his friendship, considering the precarious state she'd thrown the Adama family into but he'd given it willingly. She'd never expected his love, considering shewasn't the type of woman he was normally attracted to, but he'd loved her all the same and shouted it to the heavens no less.
"I loved you Lee, you have to believe that," she said quietly, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. "I only did what I did because I was afraid of hurting you."
He pulled his hands away. "And what you did didn't hurt me? I swear I was the happiest man alive that night Kara. I woke up to find you gone but I had no idea you were really gone. When my father told me you'd gotten married, the pain I felt ..." His face convulsed in an expression of agony. "It hurt worse than when you shot me. I wanted to die Kara. I swear I literally wanted to die."
She blinked and lowered her eyes, the tears wetting her eyelashes on their way to the ground.
"I know," she mouthed, barely making a sound.
"Then why did you do it if you knew it was going to hurt me?"
She lifted her eyes, sadness in them meeting the questioning look in his.
"I'm a screw-up Lee, remember? I ruin every relationship I'm in with anyone."
He frowned. "So you ended our relationship before it even began because you were afraid you were going to screw it up somewhere down the line?" His face took on a wounded look. "Give me some credit Kara. You don't think I would have let you screw things up do you?"
"That's just the point! Things are always screwed up between us. Even before when we were just friends we were forever misunderstanding each other and fighting."
That's because we weren't just friends ... we were just afraid to admit it." His hand stole away from his side and cupped her face seemingly of it's own accord. "I've always loved you," he said softly, lines of anger dropping away from his face suddenly. "I wish I could have said so earlier, then all of this mess could have been avoided."
A smile played around the edges of her full lips. "That would be assuming I felt the same way, wouldn't it?"
"Don't you?" His eyes dulled suddenly. "Or was everything you said and did that night a lie?"
She reached forward impulsively and grabbed his head, kissing him long and hard.
His other hand cupped the back of her head, sweaty hair tangling deliciously between his fingers.
"The only lie I told that night was when I told myself I could live without you," she gasped, breaking off the kiss to drag air into her lungs. She winced at the pain.
He licked his lips, tasting the salt from her tears mingling with the familiar sweet taste of her mouth.
"Are you okay?" he asked solicitously, seeing the pain on her face.
"Just a little sore."
He searched her eyes intently. "I'm sorry."
She paused a beat. "I'm sorry too." She stroked his cheek lovingly as the tears continued to stream down her face. "I'm sorry," she repeated, words barely a whisper, and he knew she wasn't just referring to the cuts she'd inflicted on him that afternoon.
He pulled her head close again and captured her mouth, striving to show her all that he couldn't say in that moment for the tightness of his throat.
She sank to her knees in front of him and they knelt together on the bunkroom floor, bodies pressed together as if they'd never let go.
His hands left her head and roamed down her back, tightening around her to feel her breasts pressed more closely against his chest. After a few minutes they slid further down and hooked themselves in the hem of her tank, lifting it and gently pulling it over her head.
"Let me know if I hurt you," he said, giving her a gentle kiss on the nose.
She nodded, eyes closed as their faces pressed against one another's, mouths searching hungrily to taste each other as if it were the first time.
Her bra was still soaked with sweat and as he removed it he realized her skin was chilled from the cold air. He pulled back to look at her, sorrow filling his face at the spreading blackness across her ribcage.
"Gods Kara," he whispered, face stricken with guilt at the sight of her badly bruised body. "I didn't mean to hurt you like this."
"It's okay, I deserved it."
"No you didn't!" he said forcefully.
"Yes I did," she answered stubbornly. "I broke your heart, remember?"
"And I nearly broke your body." His voice quavered as his hands traced over the areas he'd wounded so badly.
She gave a a lopsided smile, tears glistening in her eyes. "Call it even then."
One hand lifted to caress her cheek softly. "Does that mean the hurts cancel each other out and we can start over from the beginning?" he asked shyly.
"I'd like that," she whispered, leaning forward to nuzzle his neck. "There's just one problem."
His mouth sought for purchase against her cool, wet neck. "What's that?" he murmured, tickling behind her ear.
"We're both married." She paused. "And not to each other."
His bottom lip quivered as their eyes searched one another's. "I don't care."
Her eyes widened. That wasn't what she'd expected from straight-laced, by-the-book Lee Adama.
"Are you sure? That would mean ..."
He pulled her flush against him. "I'm sure. I need you Kara. If this last year has taught me anything, it's that." He kissed her face desperately in between words. "Dee told me once that I'm a man who needs a war and that without it I'm lost. You are my war Kara. You make me feel like I've never felt about anyone or anything. You make me feel alive, you're what gets me out of my bunk and running every morning. You're what gives me courage and strength to fight even when the odds are heavily against us. Knowing you've got my back and that you'll never let them get me gives me fuel to continue fighting even when I want to quit." His hands gripped her face. "Even when I hate you I love you. You make me feel complete in a way no one ever has before. I tried to fill the void you left with Dee but she just isn't enough. She isn't you."
Words gave way to actions and his lips found hers, drinking in the life that had slipped away in all the time they'd been apart.
She gave willingly, reveling in the feeling he'd aroused in her at the knowledge that she was everything to him and that he'd finally admitted it to her. Her cracked ribs complained as he clutched her tightly against him but she said nothing, just shuddered with pleasure as his lithe fingers played all the familiar places on her body - ignored during their separation - like an artist sensitively drawing forth a beautiful piece of music on his beloved instrument.
The curves of her body were familiar to him but he explored them again as if for the first time, eyes, fingers and lips drinking her in till he was drunk with the taste and feel of her.
Her body was awash with electrifying sensations and inwardly she was begging him to hurry. She knew he wanted to go slowly, to draw it out like they had the night they'd spent together on New Caprica where the passion had built to such a peak that the release had been more pleasurable than either of them could ever have imagined.
He kissed down her neck and chest, stopping to run his tongue over the hard pink tips before continuing down to her ribs, tenderly kissing every emerging bruise over and over as if trying to erase the hurt he'd inflicted on her.
She let her fingers dance along his chest and back, stopping only long enough to rip his tank off to get to the taut, muscled skin beneath. She let her fingers stop on his broad, slightly hairy chest, remembering how it had felt to wake up with it as a pillow beneath her head.
She sighed and closed her eyes. "I've missed you," she said again, echoing her heartfelt thought from the fight earlier.
"Not nearly as much as I've missed you," he said brokenly, mouth desperately seeking hers as his hands quickly pulled down her shorts and underwear, leaving her completely naked to his touch.
She kicked them off behind her and did likewise to him, inching forward till she could feel his hardness pressed against her lower belly.
He groaned and slid his hands down to cup her firm, full buttocks, tongue fully exploring every inch of her mouth. He grew harder with every passing second as her tongue slid deliciously against his and flicked playfully against the inner portion of his lips.
Finally he could take no more so he stood, picked her up and lifted her onto the bunk behind, lying down beside her and running an appreciative hand down her side. She shivered and her eyes rolled heavenward in pleasure as his fingers grazed the side of her breast and trailed down her waist, up over her full hip, stopping to cup her buttock again.
"Do you want to be on top?" he asked, remembering only too well how exquisitely intense their shared orgasm had been the last and only time they'd made love. It was a feeling he'd strived to recreate with Dee but the only times it had even come remotely close - not nearly close enough - he'd had to close his eyes and imagine the woman he'd truly loved instead of his wife above him.
She shook her head, panting slightly.
"I want to be under you," she whispered, hand stealing up to stroke his lightly stubbled cheek. "I want you to take me and do what you want with me." She rolled over onto her back, showing him she was serious.
His eyes traveled the length of her body, down then back up to rest on her mouth, the part that had always been his favourite - the part he'd found himself staring at more often than not whenever they were together. He knew that when he stared at her mouth his desires were all too plainly obvious but he'd never been able to help himself when it came to her. Just a glance at those full, pouting lips had him nursing a hard-on for hours.
He leaned forward and licked her lips as he crawled on top of her. His hand stole down the length of her body and came to rest in the thatch of blonde-brown curls between her legs. he pressed a finger against her most sensitive spot, swollen with desire, and smiled as her body shuddered under him and she let out a breathy moan.
He continued to stroke slowly, feeling her body tighten with anticipation. He nudged her thighs apart and positioned himself between but didn't enter. Instead, he increased the pressure and she began to writhe, mouth opening wider and tongue pleading with him to go faster.
She closed her eyes as her body arched up against his hand. She bit his lip and moaned as she came, causing him to lose the fragile hold he had over himself. He thrust deep inside her and held still as she pulsed all around him, dragging him closer and closer to the edge of his own orgasm. He began to pant as he started a rhythm above her, slowly at first then faster as her body encouraged him on.
She moaned his name over and over as her orgasm lengthened and continued.
He pushed deeper and harder into, feeling her arch into him, meeting him thrust for thrust. He began to moan her name as he dragged his hand up along the side of her body to grip her head, fingers tightening almost painfully in her short locks.
She scraped her nails up his back as her hands left his buttocks and traveled up to grip his shoulders. He felt himself harden in response and knew he couldn't hold off more than a few more seconds.
"Kara, Kara, oh gods ... I love you," he panted against her lips, wanting to kiss her but needing to breathe. "I love you so frakking much ..." he rasped out, then his body stiffened and he thrust hard one last time, releasing himself deep inside her.
Her legs tightened around his waist and her head arched back into the pillow as the orgasm which had been waning suddenly crested into a second one without warning.
"Lee ..." she moaned softly then let out an incoherent cry of pure pleasure. A full minute later she was still gasping for breath as her heart pounded.
Lee slid off her slowly, laying to one side and facing her as she strove to regain her composure. She rolled to face him and their foreheads touched, sweat mingling together before sliding down hot skin to the pillow.
Nothing was said for a long time while they both drank in what had just happened and what the implications for the future were.
Kara reached up and touched his cheek softly. "I love you," she whispered simply, and the look in his eyes told her he knew everything she hadn't said in those three words.
He pushed the long, wet bangs off her forehead then his fingers drifted down to her lips and traced over them lovingly.
"After our shift tomorrow?" he asked, knowing she knew what he was asking without having to spell it out.
She searched his eyes. The question remained unasked but he answered it anyway.
"I can't live without you." The words were almost a plea.
"Then don't."
fin