Rematch
This is just a short one shot that I forgot I had written. It takes place just after the episode where Connie and Jacob arm wrestle. In this, Jacob finds Connie in her office before she goes home. It is just supposed to be a snapshot...a brief moment in time. Please feel free to review xxx
"I think I'm well within my rights to demand a rematch."
"And I think I'm well within my rights to decline."
Jacob folded his arms and looked at her with laughing eyes.
"I won. Fair and square."
"I hardly think..."
Connie arched an eyebrow, letting her words fade before she had even uttered them.
"Fine...fine. Have it your way."
He winked at her and she shook her head – a movement that would have been missed had he blinked. She exhaled, touching her tongue to her teeth and smiling slightly.
"This time no cheating."
"Cheating?! That was merely distraction..."
"Really?."
"Oh come on Jacob, I think you and I both I have no chance of winning against you."
She glanced to his chest...his arms, how the muscles pulled tight and flexed at the merest of movements.
"Are you giving in even before you've tried...that's not the Connie Beauchamp I know."
"And the Jacob I know would..."
"If you knew me as well as you think you do you'd know that you alone are distraction enough..."
He bit his lip against his words, watched her eye line trail away from him and across the room, settling on nothing in particular.
"Jacob..."
He looked at her, flexing his jaw as though whatever he wanted to say were there right on the tip of his tongue. He let his arm fall back down against the desk top.
"What?"
He asked, and she sighed, glancing away.
"What?!"
He asked again, and he stood up, the chair grating against the floor. She looked up at him as he moved slowly over to her.
"Are we ever going to talk about this, or are we just going to keep dancing around it...? I've never been a very good dancer..."
He spoke so softly, his breath just catching her hair. Suddenly she didn't trust herself at all. How was it possible to be afraid and in love...she wondered. The two things did not go together. How was it possible to be afraid, when this thing between the two of them grew stronger every day? Was it love, she wondered vaguely, or was it just something more fleeting?
An inarticulate anxiety, a desire to know, know anything, for certain jammed itself in her throat so for a moment she felt she could hardly breathe.
"I um, I..."
She cleared her throat. She let her eyes close and raised a hand to her forehead, pushing her fingers into the bridge of her nose between her eyes. She knew neither what to think, feel, or say, the only thing she knew for certain was that it was here again. The static between them. That crackling in the air that always happened whenever the two of them were within a foot of each other. It had always been there - just enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck rise, but now it was enough that she couldn't help but be a little afraid for her life, as though if his hand brushed hers, one or both of them would be instantly electrocuted.
"Connie..."
He touched his fingers to her forearm and the skin there felt separately alive, as though his touch alone had burned her.
"Come here."
He turned his hand over, offering her his palm, and she found herself holding her breath, how could she accept when she wasn't sure what he was offering?
He uncurled his fingers, his hand was so large before her. She swallowed as she placed her hand in his, she could almost feel the buzz of electricity. How warm and smooth his skin was compared to the coolness of her own smaller hand. He wrapped his fingers about hers and drew her to him slowly, slowly, as though he were worried that any quicker movements might spook her.
"You know I'm as powerless to this as you are..."
She frowned as he spoke.
"To stop this."
He added, and as he spoke he let go of her hand and slowly, slowly wrapped his arms about her, pulling her closer so that he could interlink his fingers against the base of her spine. She opened her mouth to speak but closed it again, all too aware that she hadn't spoken, she hadn't said a word, and yet here she was, in his arms, with her own hands balled between their chests, a tight knot just keeping them from a touch that she knew neither of them would be able to go back from. She was holding back...even now, even at the very last moment.
"Jacob, I don't know what this is...between us..."
He raised a hand to smooth the hair from her cheek and she stiffened, she felt her breath catch as his fingers touched her cheek, her jaw, and her eyelids fluttered closed as his fingertips grazed her neck.
"I think you do..."
He murmured, pushing his fingers beneath the fabric of her shirt, just touching her shoulder beneath the cotton.
"I think you just want me to say it...so that you can be sure that what I'm feeling is the same as what you're feeling."
She let her head roll back slightly as he brushed the back of her neck, splaying his fingers against her skin.
"But no matter the distance my attraction to you remains constant. You could be at the ends of the earth and still I would feel pulled toward you. There is something about you and I that matches...I think you know that. When times are dark I will be the one to lift you back into the light, when times are bright I will rejoice with you. So though it is your eyes, your skin, your face that I look upon, know that the attraction runs deep to my core. I don't do superficial, I never did..."