The Desire Quagmire
Summary: AU, starting mid–The Adhesive Duck Deficiency. The shift in Penny and Sheldon's paradoxical friendship begins in Sheldon's hand(s).
…..
It was a strange, suddenly foreign sense of loyalty to Leonard that made her ask Sheldon to let go.
There was nothing sensual, nothing lusty or sexy about his accidental groping of her breast. But as soon as his hands, large and surprisingly nimble, touched he bare skin, she felt every nerve ending fire up with a desire that felt so strange.
Her arm was hanging out of its socket, creating waves of pain that hit every few seconds and causing her to grit her teeth and snap at the hapless man in front of her, a man who had little experience with humans in general, let alone a naked woman in pain.
And yet he was so gentle as he dressed her, his eyes closed as he searched with his fingers. She hissed with pain as his fingertips grazed her hurt shoulder, and she saw him wince with concern and shame, sorry that he had hurt her. His hands moved further down her arm, searching for her hand so he could slip the painful appendage through the sleeve.
And instead, he grabbed her breast.
He paused.
She heard his sharp intake of breath in his shock, and his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. He screw his eyelids together, determined not to look even as his hand continued to rest on his best friend's girlfriend's chest.
She wished her voice was less accusatory.
"Is that my arm?"
He wished his voice quivered less, nervousness and embarrassment and an alien feeling of adolescent lust causing the tremble.
"It doesn't feel like an arm."
She wished, fleetingly, for less than a second, that he would never stop.
"Then maybe you should let it go."
He would lose REM cycles wishing he hadn't.