"Baby, I'll Bleed You Dry"

Disclaimer: Without Prejudice. The recognisable characters herein are the property of Anthony Zuiker and CBS, all of whom have more money and power than I ever will. I don't own them and I never will. The title is from "Closer" by Kings of Leon, so I don't even own that. Seriously, any lawsuit against me would be a serious waste of money unless you want to inherit a temperamental Ford Fiesta, my toaster and hefty wad of student debt.

Content/Warnings: Written for a smuthathon, so sexual content. Oh, and not-so-occasional cuss words. And it's dark. You've been warned.

Spoilers: No explicit spoilers, but set in early Season 9 (also references "Fannysmackin' and "Post Mortem")

Her eyes are well adjusted to the half-light. She has the night vision of a cat, always has had. She is also completely still, silent, which is why she hasn't been busted up until now.

She's long since committed every detail of his body to memory. A photographic memory, it turns out, can really come in useful sometimes. She loves to watch, and then relive later, the long lines of muscles moving under skin, all light and shadow. It's her own personal photo album.

He has scars. A small smile plays her lips.

Don't we all?

She fingers the dent in her own hairline out of instinct. Hers are all well hidden. He wears his outside (and inside, but she guesses she's not meant to know that). She's fascinated by people's imperfections. She has a dark longing, darker than she imagined herself capable of, to run her fingers over his scars one at a time, to pick him apart, turn him inside out.

She hears whispers – a beating, a lawsuit, what he did. What any of us would have, she thinks, a natural instinct. That fact didn't make the guilt go away. Because stronger than the whispers, she saw it in his eyes – haunted, like one forced to grow up too fast, to become someone darker than they intended to be - that reflected a truly good soul, broken by the hand life had dealt.

Eyes that, every time they fell on her, stripped her bare. Metaphorically speaking, obviously. She's never felt someone know her instantly. It's unnerving. So unnerving, she hasn't done anything yet, and instead got her kicks in the situation by watching, and then, alone in the quiet of her own bedroom.

o-O-o-O-o-O-o

It's a particularly dark and vile night, the details of which are barely relevant, and she just feels grimy. Some days just get you like that. She shrugs out of her t-shirt on her way across the locker room. She's alone, and besides, she's not ashamed of her body even if she weren't.

Her t-shirt is cast haphazardly back across the room, and lands on the edge of the bench. She keeps moving forward – she'll pick it up when she's finished – and she's halfway to the shower before she realises there's someone else there. She isn't sure which sense picks it up first.

She turns on her heel, tries to pick the figure out the shadows, narrowing her eyes. He steps out of the shadows, and her breath hitches just slightly in her throat, feeling exposed. She glances down at her attire, runs her eyes over his expression, and takes a reflexive step backwards. She isn't sure why her stomach is in knots, but it is.

She shoves her hands down in her pockets, deliberately holds the silence between them, forcing him to move, forcing him to take action, and he does. He's almost right up against her before she knows it, and far from watching, she feels his physicality and it's almost enough to break her.

He hasn't made eye contact, his eyes fixed on the curve of her breast, where the midnight lace edge of the bra makes contact with her paler than white skin. She almost shivers.

"Nice." The word takes too long to end, lingering around the shell of her ear before it finally disappears. She feels the muscles around her spine pull straight, anticipating the touch before it happens. One long finger traces the scalloped edge of the strap almost thoughtfully. "Expensive. Figures."

He sucks a long breath through his teeth, thinking over his next words. This she can't read – it's too dark, too unpredictable, too poised – so she doesn't move.

"Girl like you likes to assert her independence, give the old 'don't touch what you can't afford.' shtick." She wonders how exactly he thinks he has the right to comment on girls like her, but doesn't say anything, doesn't bristle, doesn't even move. "But, really, that's exactly what you want to happen. It's bullshit. You're no better than your everyday common street whore, except that they're being more honest about their intentions…"

She's not the kind of girl who lets herself get called a whore, not by him, not by anyone, so why is she letting this happen? She keeps telling herself she could get out of this, she could move away, she isn't frozen to the spot and she definitely isn't scared. But she doesn't, she can't, she is. Frozen. Not scared. Her eyes are on his – defiant – he's not got her frightened.

Her breath hitches as his fingernails dig into the sensitive flesh of her stomach, fingers working the button on her jeans, sliding the zip down and pulling the fabric apart.

"Oh, but there's a surprise." A finger flicks the elastic and she blinks, remembering what she put on that morning. "What's the excuse? Time of the month? Laundry day? Not expecting to get fucked in the locker room?"

The fact that the matching pair to this bra inflict damage worse than razor wire.

She wants this, she knows she wants this, wants him, but she can't shake the knots in her stomach, and it's not just anticipation. This isn't him, isn't what she waited so patiently for. Isn't what she spent idle nights thinking about in the quiet of her bedroom, with only her photographic memory for company.

"Women only wear panties like that if they aren't expecting to get laid. So, you are a contradiction, aren't you?" He pauses, dragging a finger along the elastic, deliberately scratching her skin as he goes. "Top half is all business, below has shut up shop."

"How long's it been? Huh?" His voice is low, but dark, demanding, taunting her. She clenches her teeth hard, desperate for the answer not to be as long as it is, not to be quite as desperate as she is. "When was the last time someone did this?"

He pushes a hand roughly between her legs, and she drives her elbows back into the wall, drawing a sharp hiss from between her teeth.

"Wow. It has been a while."

Because despite herself, despite everything, she knows what he is referring to. It's been there, between her thighs, from the moment he ran his finger over her bra strap. She's almost hyper aware of it, the pull in her groin, the telltale dampness.

"Fuck you." She manages eventually, between clenched teeth.

"That is the intention - " She flinches when she realises he's got a thumb pressed just so, and in the long pause that follows, he flexes it every few seconds, just to reassert control and wear her down. " – unless you have a problem with that?"

Her thoughts, any response, melt away in the swipe of a finger, rough and careless, between her legs.

This isn't fair… isn't what she wanted… how she wanted….

Half of her wants to fight, is telling her he's not that much bigger than her, she could fight him off. She could scratch, slap, bite, make her escape and leave him bruised. But the bigger part of her knows the stark reality. The only marks she really wants to imagine leaving on him are the red, raw rakes of her fingernails across his back, the purple black of a bruise just to the left of the supra-sternal notch, just where it'll be hidden by a button down shirt. But she'll know it's there. She'll be able to see it every time she looks at him. Her stomach curls at the thought.

"This isn't you." She insists, clenching fists at her sides. She wants nothing more than to arch her hips shamelessly, force her mouth onto his and nip at that tantalisingly full lower lip. But she's not the one in control, she's not got a grip on the pace, and so she waits.

"Isn't it?" He challenges, almost breathlessly, right in her ear. The dark part of her imagines a bite at her ear, teeth running down the side of her neck, tracing their way to her pulse point. "You would know."

She exhales, a breath she wasn't aware she was holding, and knows she's cornered. And she has been watching, and longing, and waiting, but not for this, that part of her screams, not for this.

"You've been watching," He assesses her reaction, dragging his gaze slowly across her face, and she tries not to flinch, "you're not as subtle as you think, you know. Or you under-estimated me."

That's when she knows. That he's been watching her watching him as well. That all those times, all the moments she was committing his body to memory, she was being committed to memory in much the same way. A small electric pulse runs from her neck to the base of her spine.

"So, what was it?" She's noticing all the things she never could when she was in the shadows, and it's got her senses on high alert, because he's almost bent to her shoulder, voice low in her ear. "Easy target? Morbid curiousity? Really. Explain it to me. I want to know."

"Scars." She whispers, low enough that he has to shift to hear her. She half expects him to reel away from her, her guilty admission, to find it just too dark and too strange to bear. He doesn't, she notes, and his expression barely flickers.

He drags a nail up her side, slides the flat of his palm across her back, and traces the ragged skin with one finger, almost absently, as if he'd done it a thousand times before. As if he could trace it in his sleep, and it hits her how closely he's been watching.

Her eyelids flutter shut, welcoming the blackness that flickers across her world, pushing back the images. It's a pique of pleasure and pain. Remembering how she got that ragged scar still hurts more than she's willing to admit, but feeling someone touch it gives her thrills, shivers she's not trying too hard to suppress. Before she knows where she is, her heart rate must be in the hundreds and there's nothing she can do about it.

"You think you're the only one doing the watching?"

She doesn't know where she finds it, but she works up the strength to place both hands on his chest and push back. It gives her enough time to escape from between the wall and his body. She half runs towards the showers, hand fumbling for the catch on her bra as she goes.

The shower hisses as she strips off the jeans and those offending panties, strips away the dampness with them. She casts them aside into the corner of the room, the bra following a moment later from its position halfway down her arm. She's under the hot spray in moments, a hand clasped over her mouth, letting the water pound down between her shoulder blades, over the ragged skin on her back.

She doesn't stop to think about him, about how he'll react to this, if he'll disappear, if he'll follow, if he'll just watch and she's not quite sure what she's hoping for. It was all far too vulnerable; she had to shut that off.

She finds her hand between her legs without really thinking about it, working at an ache she hadn't even really been aware was there. She's getting cramp in her fingers, her other hand splayed across the tiled surface, holding her up, breath beginning to come in gasps.

Then there are hands at her waist, fingers curling over the point of her hipbones, strong, flexing her back so she's upright. She submits, finding the line of her back pressed against the solid, still clothed, length of someone else's body. A hand slides over hers between her legs, fingers pushing between her own, taking over the rhythmic motion until her hand becomes redundant and drops aside.

"You think you get away that easy," his breath brushes the side of her neck, "you can do that anytime. I know you do."

She guesses it's not a huge leap, given their previous conversation, given he knows her voyeuristic tendencies, given that he knows how long it's been since she got laid. Given that just his proximity had been enough to set her off.

"You want to know a secret?" His voice is a whisper, his free hand travelling up and down the lines of her ribcage. "I do too."

His admission is a surprise. Not an unwelcome surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. Her back arches, forcing his hand to still and hold her steady. She can feel his jaw against her shoulder, mouth just behind her ear, holding her captive.

"So, how many times, Riley? How many times have you already come for me?"

"Please…" she forces the word out, not sure if it's the start of a sentence, or the whole sentence, or whether she's begging or asking, but she knows her knees are about to give way and she's a mixture of angry and turned on and hopelessly frightened. She's frightened of the answer, because she has, she's already called his name with her fingers inside her and a thumb pressed to her centre. She doesn't know how he knows that, how he could possibly know to taunt her with that, but he just does. And it works.

His second hand is around her ribcage, thumb brushing against the swell of her right breast, and she's very aware of her nakedness, her complete vulnerability, and the fact that the shower is still running. Her breath is coming in pants now, shamelessly pressing herself back, his wet clothing uncomfortable against her bare skin.

"…is it better this way? Huh?"

Determined to regain some control, she pushes both hands back, digs her fingernails into the wet denim on his thighs. She's been pressed tight against him for long minutes now, so she knows he's turned on too. She can feel it. And good as his fingers are, she's beginning to wonder what he can do with other parts of his anatomy.

His hand slips from between her legs, and he uses both hands on her hips to pivot her against him. Her whole lower body aches, and a whine rises in her throat, which she is glad he cuts off with his mouth on her own. She's glad he's finally kissed her. It's not like she's never had a guy make her come without kissing her before, but that's not exactly how she wanted this to go.

She tightens her fingers in the hem on his t-shirt, working them between the material and his skin, frustrated by the barrier. He dips his head to nip along her jawline. She dips her fingers below the waistband on his jeans and feels him bite down, harder than he probably intended, in response. She works her fingers around to the front of his body, struggling for purchase against the metal button of the jeans.

He groans, a sound low in his throat, when she finally slides her hand down the front. It may have been a long time, she thinks, but this you don't forget. She slides the flat of her palm down his length, circles a thumb around the head, able to feel the catch in his breath and enjoying the shift in power. Not moving her hand, she steps back, pulling him with her.

"Inside," she whispers, the ache in her groin pressing against her skin and threatening to explode outwards, "now."

He needs no second invitation, pushing his pants around his ankles, and digging his fingertips into her upper thigh. She slides her legs apart, and hooks one over his hip, and then he's in her, hips bucking into hers, body holding hers to the tiled wall.

The moan escapes her without thought, a sound she'd never have imagined herself capable of, needy and wanton. She isn't scared, she isn't desperate, she just wants. This. Him. This incredible friction between them that's more than capable of driving her half crazy.

She's being fucked. And she likes it.

She grits her teeth, fingernails clawing at whatever they can get a grip on, her mind repeating the same mantra.

IHe is not going to make me come, he is not…/I

No man ever did, not the first time, not…but she knows it's a lost cause. It's hopeless, because she's dangerously close to the edge of a familiar cliff. Because he's already done it, more times than she'd care to remember, and the only difference this time is that it's painfully, physically real. He is actually inside her, and she doesn't have to pretend to know what that feels like anymore.

Oh fuck.

She bites the expletive back, teeth dug into the flesh above his collarbone, and feels her body give her away. It spreads out from the pit of her stomach, through her muscles in waves, and leaves her feeling strange and powerless.

His breath is coming shorter, in staccato gasps, and just as she's recovering her senses, he tenses through his spine and throws his head back. He comes quietly, but with startling force, while she rides out the aftershocks of her own orgasm.

The water still beats down, drowning out the heavy, laboured breathing, hiding their activities from the outside world.

o-O-o-O-o-O

She doesn't have to watch anymore, but she does. She can't help herself. They watch, want, wait for their moments to take each other by surprise.

She's always had a vivid imagination. She's glad to discover she's not the only one.