Disclaimer: I'm only borrowing David Maples' characters and situations for my own deviant purposes. I promise to return them unscarred.
Author's Note: Just couldn't get this vision out of my head.
One shot – both in definition and in drafts. (Unless a companion piece with the opposite POV invades my Muse.)
Reviews are much appreciated.
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Neither Dream Noir Reality
Breath warm in comfort and light in a tease of emotion flitted across her bare flesh, measured and slow and voicing thoughts best left unspoken. A ragged sigh caught abruptly in its silent escape, and heavily-lidded eyes convulsed shut, body tensed, a desperate effort to contain the explosion of formless sensations when his breath brushed her… right… there.
Pale visions formed in her mind's eye, a washed-out version of what she knew his eyes could see, even in the half-light of dry lightening and dying embers. How weak and raw was the tender pink flesh over which his firm, gentle lips now hovered, now caressed, now kissed.
Inhalation sharply caught. Held. Eased out. Arms curled tensely about the pillow above her head lessened their unconscious hold.
She blushed hot in shame. That jagged, unsightly reminder of vulnerability and reality. A stark tribute in scar tissue, fissures of muscle and sinew. Not as invincible as she'd have everyone believe, was she? This puckered healing admitted mortality, a word she'd never utter upon herself, much less share its ugly truth to another. Not to someone who knew her.
And he did know her. Far, far too well.
And she needed him tonight, his healing. Needed that connection she'd not have to explain.
Hands large and bold and commanding held her in place with but an imitation of grip, trailing reverently down her sides in time. Their pulse permeated gooseflesh. Slightly calloused were the long thumbs methodically grazing ribs bared in relief with each shallow breath she forced. His air of unflappable machismo was belied only by the unsteady shiver of those achingly familiar – intimately familiar – hands.
A darting flick of warm, wet… then tingling cool when he pulled away from the wound, granting the coming storm's breeze through open French doors access in his tongue's departure. Pious lips fell lower. Shivers flashed through her. How was it possible to be this erotic… fully clothed?
Granted, the button-down over her tank top was open midway and down, parted in exposure of her hideous non-secret. And yet, it had been only long, drawn-out moments of ghosted kisses, trailing breath down her belly, radiating heat from iron hands that never quite fully touched her body. As though he were in awe. Almost chaste, innocent. Hardly a ravishment.
And yet…
He knelt between her denim-clad legs; this she knew only by the symmetry of his weight, his hands. Nothing favored, nothing supporting. Yet he never touched her legs, his own jeans not once scraping in fabric rustle against hers. The cobalt blue Oxford that matched his eyes would silhouette in black now, could she find the strength to look once more. Tucked neatly in, its cotton blend never draped across her hyper-sensitive skin.
Like a phantom. Graceful, meticulous. Otherworldly.
Religion had never meant much to her after the age of seven, but the comparison came quickly – only deities could have ever harnessed this complex mixture of power and unfamiliar humility she barely contained now. Now, as the fleeting graze of teeth drew her taut as a bow… then… nothing.
The subsequent feathery brush of downy hair was her only signal he had not evanesced like the spirit he so resembled in the ethereal light. He'd bowed his head, a heavy, deep sigh warming her abdomen. She could almost envision his expression, tight and pained with restraint, a battle fighting inside him in which the honorable and logical would win out. And there would be no more healing this night.
With him, the honorable always did win out.
Damned honor.
Momentarily abandoning this unexpected majikical intoxication, her mind raced immediately to damage control – territory she knew.
Tomorrow. He'd pretend it never happened.
She? She would blame it on the vodka she'd barely touched, (why she'd enlisted his aid in escort to her hotel room). Or the migraine a hot shower had banished before dinner, (why she'd asked him to leave off the lights in lieu of a cooling fire and failing starlight night). Or jet lag she'd slept off the morning before, (why she'd stretched on the down bed to chat lazily with him). Or the post-surgical pain medication she'd forgone today, (why she'd gripped his wrist in darkness, a silent plea to keep his company a while longer).
Each excuse to herself would borrow blame from her shoulders of how it came to be that spoken words of comfort had become wordless reminders of her importance in the hearts of those who loved her. Tiny gestures of deep affection from mid-sternum to navel, a snail's pace of reassurance and acceptance of even her faults, failures, weaknesses. Each reason easily swept away any need for examination of tonight. Some paths of thought should never be traveled. And tomorrow she would choose which excuse conveniently fit best. For how else could she explain away her current state of desperate longing for this powerful therapy of his proximity?
Of Marshall's touch.
"Get some rest, Mary," his low, reined voice suddenly breathed by her ear. Then his weight shifted smoothly off the bed, and she felt rather than heard his retreat.
Alone now. Oddly bereft. And oddly at peace.
And she slept.