Disclaimer: I don't own 'em…
"Here, I'll help you with them," Catherine offered.
Like a deer in headlights, I froze. I didn't blink. I just stared blankly at her for a moment with big, brown doe-like eyes.
"Uh, no, that's okay! Really, I can deal with this by myself." I put on my best fake smile and tried to convince her that I didn't need her help.
She wasn't buying it.
"Why do you always have to be so damn hardheaded?"
She grabbed me roughly by my belt loops and pulled me into a shower. My heart rate immediately skyrocketed at both her forwardness and proximity, but especially her bossiness.
"Raise your arms," she commanded.
I closed my eyes and complied. I felt her fingers wander to the hem of my shirt before lightly skirting over my skin as she pulled the sticky, smelly thing over my head.
Oh my god! Catherine just pulled my shirt off and all I have on is my bra. I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter thinking (no, hoping) that if I couldn't see her, she couldn't see me either. I know that's wishful thinking, but it's all I had at that moment.
"You can put your arms down now, Sara." I swear I thought I heard the lilt of laughter in her voice.
I lowered my arms and my eyes flew open as her perfectly manicured fingers slid between my stomach and my waistband. I sucked in so much air so quickly that I started coughing.
"I had no idea you were so shy. My goodness," she moved one hand up to lift my chin, "that is the deepest shade of crimson I have ever seen." She winked at me before moving her hand south again. "Now, let's get you out of these pants, shall we?"
I graduated from Harvard Summa Cum Laude and went on to earn a master's. I can deal with rapists, murderers and adulterers, but you put me in a room this size with Catherine Willows and I go completely stupid. We're talking about the loss of speech. The complete inability to control my body and make decisions for myself. In a word, I'm putty. She can do with me as she wishes.
She undid the first button on my pants and moved to the second…and then the third….and finally the fourth. I had nearly bitten my bottom lip in two to keep from moaning at the sheer eroticism of the moment.
She slid her hands inside my pants and towards my hips in an attempt to pry the leather away from my skin. I felt the earth move. It was either the earth moving or my knees were quivering like some murky primordial goop.
"Sara," she grunted as she tried to tug them downwards, "ya have to help. You can just stand there with that goofy look on your face."
Goofy grin? Dammit, she was smirking when she said. I shook all of the naughty thoughts I could from my head before clearing my throat and speaking in a pitch that was much too high for a calm and collected woman of my age, "What can I do to help?"
She ceased her relentless tugging on the pants and looked up at me, sticking her bottom lip out to direct a stream of air up to blow hair out of her face.
"Were you poured into these pants? I mean, seriously, Sar, how the hell did you get into these things?"
"I wasn't soaking wet when I got into them last night." As the last word left my mouth, I realized how wide open I had left the door for some smart ass comment on her part. She didn't disappoint.
"So, you're saying that you're," she paused for effect, "wet now?"
The look she gave me would have certainly dampened the panties of almost any woman (and probably a few guys, if you know what I mean). And it would have had the same effect on me—had I been wearing any at the time.
"You know good and well that I'm wet! You're the one who let go of the safety line that sent me falling fifteen feet into a dumpster! There was a foot of water in that thing. The man soup we dealt with that time didn't smell as bad as I do now. You're damn lucky that I didn't get hurt." I was coming dangerously close to losing my temper with her and I didn't want to do that. I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths and counted backwards from ten in my head.
When I opened them, Cath was looking at me with cerulean blue eyes that I was certain were going to be my undoing one day. "You're not wearing any underwear, are you?" She had totally changed the subject and threw me off of my mental balance (though it was questionable as to whether or not it had ever really existed).
"Huh?" I ask. My Ivy League education was shining through in that monosyllabic oratorical response.
"I said," she started tugging downward on my pants again, "you're not wearing any underwear. I didn't think I felt any when I first put my hand in your pants."
Before I could respond to her (or grunt something similar to a response), someone was clearing their throat.
Cath left me alone in the shower stall and stepped out into the open. I couldn't tell what was being said and I didn't want to step out into the open in my semi-state of undress, so I just stood there—not breathing.
After what felt like an eternity, Cath came back and had Sofia at her side. They looked at each other and then me. I suddenly wondered if this is how a gazelle feels when it wanders helplessly into the territory of a pride of lions (or in this case, lionesses).
"Sofia here tells me that there's an easy way to get you out of these pants," Cath hitched her thumb in Sofia's direction.
I gulped and brought my arms up to cover myself. Foolishly, I asked, "What's that?"
As they both stepped into the shower with me and each slid their hands into a front and rear of my pants, that obnoxious music from old porn movies began to play in my head.
I closed my eyes and memorized the feel of their hands working in unison as they tugged and pulled and yanked and slid my leather pants downward. I lifted my legs one at a time to allow them to pull the pants off properly. And before I could open my eyes, a cold spray of water thundered down over me.
"In your dreams, Sidle!" Cath said as she pulled Sofia in for a blistering kiss. She turned back to me, an arm slung possessively around Sofia's waist, "I know the look you were giving me. This one here gives it to me all the time."