When the lovely Firebird9 showed me her new fic "Behind Locked Doors", I guiltily admitted to her that I'd started, but never finished, a Christmas fic back in December when "Murder Under the Mistletoe" aired. At her urging, it's finally been finished. I hope you enjoy reading it.
For this fic, assume there's a pre-existing relationship between Phryne and Jack.
Damn it.
Jack swung his legs out of bed and felt about on the freezing cold floor for his slippers. He slipped his jumper back on over his pyjamas and lit the candle he'd left on the bedside table.
He'd tried sleeping – really he had. But lying in his cold, solitary bed while his lover lay just down the hall meant his thoughts were racing about more than just the mysterious murders. Every time Jack came close to dropping off the sleep a new thought would wake him: clues he might have overlooked; whether the snow would keep them cut-off from the rest of the world for more than a day or two; what the murderer's motive might be; the look on Phryne's face when Jack had turned up unbidden that morning to help in a time of need.
With his gun in one hand and the candle in the other, Jack fumbled open the lock of his bedroom door and drifted noiselessly down the hall. The house was silent in sleep and it seemed that there would be no murders tonight.
With a last glance down the empty hall, Jack used the barrel of his gun to knock softly on Phryne's door.
"Phryne, it's me."
The room beyond the door was quiet and Jack wondered if perhaps Phryne had managed to sleep as he had not. But then there was the sound of the lock being turned and the door opened to show Phryne's happy face.
"I wasn't sure if you'd visit tonight," she admitted, pulling him into the room and relocking the door behind him as Jack put his gun and candlestick down on a nearby writing desk.
"I wasn't sure if I would either, but I couldn't help myself. I never can keep away from you." Jack found himself being bundled towards the bed as Phryne's cold hands ran under his jumper and shirt to trace the muscles of his abdomen and back.
"I'm glad. So glad, actually, that you're here. When I saw you and Hugh standing in the snow and I realised that you'd come all this way in such terrible weather simply to help…" Phryne pulled Jack's head down for a passionate kiss. "…Well. I am very pleased that I'm getting the chance now to show you my...gratitude."
Jack grinned at Phryne as she pushed him down to sit in the middle of the bed. "I do rather enjoy it when you decide to thank me for something."
"Mmmm, and I do rather enjoy thanking you," Phryne smiled back saucily, crawling onto the bed and straddling him. Her nightgown and dressing gown kept her from shivering too much in the cool room as she carefully pulled Jack's pyjamas bottoms down his legs as he lifted his hips. The lacklustre fire burning in the grate threw shadows and light across the pale skin of Phryne's thighs as she lifted the hem of her nightie. When Jack, still sitting up, wrapped his arms around his lover to breathe in her scent, she ran her fingers down his wool-covered chest.
"I've been itching to touch you since the moment I saw you in this jumper," Phryne mused, bending her head to rub her cheek against the soft wool. "It is remarkably…indescribably…arousing."
"I hope you don't have that reaction to all men in jumpers," Jack joked, running his hand over Phryne's breast through the layers of fabric she wore.
She shot him a seductive glance through her lowered lashes, but shook her head and kissed him again as she raised her hips and shifted forward to sink down onto her lover.
"Only you," she smiled as she sank onto Jack's lap. "Only ever you."
Despite the cold, it didn't take long for a light sheen of sweat to break out on Jack's skin. He moved in time with Phryne – movement and countermovement; treble and bass – until with his fingers digging into Phryne's hip and his mouth pressed to hers, Jack gasped and stilled as orgasm overtook him.
When his body was under his control again, Jack flipped Phryne onto her back and lowered his head to lick and suck until she, too, arched and moaned in orgasm.
They lay together for unknown minutes afterwards, their limbs entwined beneath a pile of tartan blankets.
"I'm going to have to go back to my room, you know." The rumble of Jack's voice as his lips moved against her hair made Phryne smile, even as his words made her cling tighter.
"But it's cold and you're warm," she grumbled, burying her face against his jumper-clad chest and ignoring his laughter.
"Sweetheart, the last thing we need is to miss clues or put ourselves or others in danger because we're too tired to think straight. Get a few hours' rest, I'll do the same, and before you know it we'll have solved the case."
"Always the voice of reason," Phryne groused, but she offered Jack a smile as he extracted himself from the bed and retrieved his slippers, slipped his gun into the waistband of his pyjama pants and picked up the flickering candle stub as Phryne followed him to the door.
With a last, slow kiss, Jack pulled away from Phryne and stepped into the hall. "Goodnight, love."
"Goodnight, sweetheart." Phryne watched Jack's safe progress back to his room before relocking her door and burrowing beneath the bed blankets.
Surrounded by the scent of Jack Robinson, the echo of his touch finally lulled Phryne into sleep.