A "Cat's Paw" is a breeze that creates ripples on the surface of a liquid. As this is directly before the beginning of Ripple Effect (9.13) I thought it appropriate.

The briefing room was tense. "Bottom line it for me, people. Will you be coming back from this one?" As much as General O'Niell wished he could pass this mission on to someone else, he knew this team was the only one with any hope of pulling it off.

"Well it'd be pretty stupid to go ahead with it if we weren't." Mitchell got an icy glare. "Sir."

"I think that's his fucking point, Cam." Daniel rolled his eyes.

Sam was getting annoyed with all of them. "I'm roughly 70% sure we'll be able to accomplish the mission and make it back here with the ZPM, Sir."

O'Niell still didn't look happy. "High enough?"

She gave a curt nod. "High enough, Sir."

The general let out a deep breath. "Ok. Good. Go gear up SG-1, you leave in 30." All present pushed their chairs back and rose from the table, the serious mood still very much around. "Colonel Carter," She turned to face him, "My office for a moment." She met his gaze with only a little question and nodded curtly.

He followed her in and closed both the door and the blinds. Carter stood in front of his desk, locking her eyes with his as he invaded her space. "30% Still seems a pretty high chance of you not coming back."

She quirked a fine brow. "Sir, if you were going to question the validity of the mission, shouldn't you have done so during the briefing?"

"Cut the crap Carter." His voice was harsh, but she saw the worry behind his hard brown eyes.

Her face softened and she placed a hand on his chest and closed the space between them even more. "I'll be coming back, General. All we have to do is think like them." A smirk spread across her pink lips. "Besides, you always say there's no problem I can't figure out. Just think of what two of me can do together." Her voice dropped and her eyes burned into his as she let the tension build for a moment before claiming his mouth with her own in a hot, hard, promising kiss. As she pulled away, she bit his lip to prolong the contact. Their eyes still held, his harshness now tempered with heat.

"Drop 'em, Carter."

Her brow creased in confusion. "Sir?"

He took a step back. "Your pants, Colonel." His voice held the command of his rank. "Drop 'em." He saw her pupils dilate as she understood his meaning. Without looking away, she immediately began to undo her belt and popped the fly on her pants, shoving them quickly over her hips and down her legs. Jack lifted one hand and trailed his fingers over the smooth skin of her waist, causing her breath to hitch, before physically turning her to face his desk. He took both of her wrists in one hand behind her back and pushed her to lean forward with the other on the back of her neck until her top half was resting on the dark wood. She shifted, trying to get more comfortable.

"Jack…" It came as a sigh.

Jack's grip on her wrists jerked and became uncomfortable. He leaned low over her prone figure. "What was that, Colonel?" He growled.

She tensed momentarily before she relaxed, submitting beneath him. "Sorry, Sir."

"That's more like it." He rumbled into her ear. "Don't move." He lifted himself up and she heard the rustle of him shoving his own pants down to his ankles. She tried to keep her breathing steady as his hands returned to her bare flesh, tracing the swell of her ass and up her spine. She couldn't help the sound she made when his hard member suddenly pressed into the space between her cheeks however. Slowly, he stroked himself against her, pressing firmly. She hummed, the anticipation of feeling him inside her building, and pressed back against him before he used a hand on her lower spine to pin her to the table, the instruction clear: don't move. "Tell me, Carter," he said almost casually, "do you want this?" He gave another quick thrust.

"God yes." She nearly moaned.

He stilled and pulled away slightly. "Excuse me?"

Realizing her mistake, she was quick to rectify it. "Yes, Sir."

He leaned back into her, his hands going to either side of her ass. "Better. Don't let it happen again, Colonel."

"Yes, Sir." She bit her lip. God, how much was he going to tease her?

Kneading her round cheeks, he separated them enough to fit his length between them, then squeezing them back together around himself. He gave a few shallow thrusts and noticed the change in his 2IC's breathing. "Now, tell me exactly what you want me to do to you."

Sam pressed her forehead into the wood of the desk and whimpered. She wanted to move, she wanted him to be thrusting into her tight pussy, not simulating sex with entirely the wrong body part. Fuck if it wasn't turning her on though. "Sir, please…"

He thrust a little harder. "Please what, Carter?"

She clenched her hands, still obeying the order not to move them from behind herself. "I want you to fuck me, Sir. I want you pounding into me until I scream. I want you to fuck me so hard, that I work that much faster to get this mission over with so I can come back for you to do it again." His grunt and particularly hard thrust into her asscheeks filled her with pride. Fuck you, O'Niell. You're not the only one who can put the other one on edge.

He kicked her feet as far apart as they would go, constrained by the black fabric of her BDU pants. His hands trailed up to her waist as he leaned over her, putting his mouth right next to her ear. "Are you wet for me, Carter?" He trailed one hand down her front, past the blonde curls to drag one finger across her soaking entrance. "Are you ready for me to fuck you until you're screaming?"

She jerked back, whimpering again, this time unintentionally adding a whining quality to it, breathing hard. "Always," it came out as a breath.

Jack overlooked the lapse of their little game and gave her an affectionate kiss on the back of her shoulder. "'Always' huh? Must get rather uncomfortable in the field for you, Colonel," he teased.

She gave a breathy laugh. "Only when I go commando, Sir."

Jack gave an exaggerated, self-suffering groan as he pressed his forehead against her shoulder blade. "You're evil, Carter." He knew perfectly well there were days she did, in fact, go without underwear.

"Learned from the best, Sir." She nudged backward again, trying to get him back on track.

He kissed the spot where his head had rested. "Patience, Carter." Before she could give another snarky response, he levered himself up and adjusted himself so that the head of his penis slid across her dripping opening. She gasped and moaned as it rubbed teasingly and wholly unsatisfyingly over her clit.

"Sir," she bit out, her legs trying to widen instinctually, but finding themselves too bound to do so, "I'd have all the patience in the world if I didn't have to be through the gate in less than half an hour."

Jack gave a short growl and quickly used a hand to position himself before thrusting into her all at once making her call out in surprise. "Who is your commanding officer?" he demanded.

Sam gasped for air as her body adjusted to the familiar intrusion. "You are, Sir."

He pulled almost all the way out and slammed in again, eliciting a deep moan from the woman beneath him. "And who decides when you go through the gate?"

She clenched her eyes and jaw shut as he rammed in again. "You do, S-ohhh."

He kept up the hard, steady pace as he continued to ask her questions, having to tighten his own jaw at the sensations her slick passage was creating in him. "Whose orders do you obey?"

"Y-Yours ngh ahh oh God-" God she loved this man. The way he moved in her, the things he was able to make her feel. Every god-fucking time. She bent her knees to be able to widen them, stretching the muscles of her pelvis as much as she could, allowing for the feelings to deepen.

He grabbed her hips harshly, straightening his upper body and bending his knees to thrust straight up into Sam's body, raising both the pitch and volume of her whimpers and moans. "You will come back from this mission, Colonel," he panted, "Anything else is unacceptable. Do you understand?"

Somewhere beneath the fog of pleasure, Sam recognized that this was as close to begging as the General ever got. But with the assault on her senses she was only able to respond with a whispered "Y-Yes, Sir…"

Jack grabbed a fistfull of Sam's blonde locks and snapped his hips even harder, making the items on his desk rattle. "Not good enough, Colonel. Do you understand that I will not accept any other outcome than you returning from this mission in alive and well?"

The grip he had on her hair and the angle at which it put her neck pulled her out of the fog enough to get what he was saying. He was worried for her. Scared even. She would follow his order. She would do everything she could to get back to him. The tightening inside her belly and a particularly brutal thrust from Jack made her response even more emphatic than she'd intended. "YES, SIR-AH!"

"Fuck-" Jack started to lose his tight control on his movements as his pleasure started ratcheting up towards completion. He let go of Carter's hair and rested his hand on the back of her long neck.

Sam could feel the change in his movements and knew he was starting to get close. An irrational panic began to build up inside her. "J-Jack, I'm not...I need- ah… I need more."

"Tell me what you need, Carter." Screw the game, this was about desperation.

"Your fingers…" she was panting hard, "on my clit," pant, "hard, fast." she moaned as his angle changed again so he could comply.

"Anything you need, Sam," he promised as his long fingers slid into her juices, searching for the little bundle of nerves. He fumbled a moment before he found his target, locking on, pressing hard, and rubbing in tight circles. "Always." Her cries became continuous and they fueled his own tightening coil of arousal. With every erratic thrust, her voice strained louder until he heard that choked scream that preemted her completion. "That's my girl," he crooned, grunting in his effort to hold off for her, "Come for me, Sam." Whether she heard him or not was unsure, but she did come. And hard, screaming her release like he knew she would. He turned his focus entirely on himself, her inner muscles clenching him, milking him for all he was worth. He allowed his control to slip away entirely and with only a few more pumps, he was crashing on his own wave right behind her. He didn't care if anyone heard them. They knew better than to say anything about it.

They came down slowly, but both knew they couldn't linger. Jack groaned as he pushed himself to full standing position, sliding out of Sam with a slick sound. Sam took a moment longer and hummed in satisfaction as Jack helped her up, massaging her sore arms. She leaned against him and breathed in his scent, now mixed with that of sex. His lips grazed her cheek and forehead. She lifted a hand and ran it up and down his chest. "I'm coming back, Jack. Give it a month, maybe a month and a half. But we'll be back - with the ZPM."

Jack lifted her chin and tried to put everything he was feeling into his eyes as he looked into hers. And then he kissed her in a way that entirely different than how they were showing their affection just a couple of minutes before. It was slow and sweet, though not without a couple of nips for good measure. Sam smiled at him as she backed up a step and bent down to snag her pants to right herself. Once she had her belt buckled again, Jack followed behind her to the door, reaching around her to open it. Both stopped short when they noticed Cam leaning up against the railing by the stairs in full tac gear, looking like he'd been there awhile. Guess they'd taken more time than they thought. None of the three had the grace to look ashamed. Jack smacked Sam on the ass to get her moving. "Gear up, Carter. Gate room in 10."

She smirked at him over her shoulder. "Yes, Sir," she replied jauntily. She met Cam's eyes as she passed with her head high. Wasn't like he didn't know what she and the General got up to at home...and occasionally on base. As Sam made her way down the stairs, Jack's gaze locked with Cam's. The message was clear.

Come back without her and I'll shoot you. Cam knew enough about to General to know it wasn't an idle threat, either.