"She is still asleep," Tess said to JT as she walked out of the bedroom and into the lounge room of Catherine's apartment. JT was sitting at Cat's computer trying again, in vain, to locate Vincent's cell signal. "I'm really starting to worry JT, it's been three days and she hasn't moved." Tess said.
"Well, apart from all the bruising she suffered, everything else about her is as normal as bacon Tess. There are no broken bones, no swelling, no internal organs are damaged. Tess, maybe… in a day or so, she'll snap out of where ever it is that she has gone and help us with our search for Vincent…"
I lay in bed hearing, but not listening to the conversation between Tess and JT in the next room. I wasn't asleep. I just didn't want to move. If I lay in bed, I drifted in and out of sleep and I dreamed. At the moment my dreams are a better place to live than my reality. Vincent has gone. I don't know where he is, I don't know if he is alright, or even if he is still alive. I'm numb, I can't laugh, I can't cry, I can't fall in a heap and fade away with the day's sunlight like I want to. I just lay here, drifting in and out of sleep. But... sleep means dreams.
I remember the words Vincent said to me on the subway, and over the past few days I have replayed them in my head over and over again. The first time, I thought I actually heard Vincent, and turned to see where he was in the bedroom, his voice was so clear. I remember he said "I don't know what to do now, cause I can't live without you"…. And right here, right now, I feel like every one of the words are so real, that when I replay them in my mind they reverberate through me each time I do because, I don't want to live without him.
Maybe if I can get out of bed, I can help Tess and JT find him…But Vincent isn't here! I can't move without him, I can't breathe without him, he's my air, he's my sunlight, my moonlight: "Dream Cat" I said to myself, "just go back to sleep and dream"…I was just lying there listening to what were normally the tunes of the world, now morphed into piercing noises that I didn't want to listen to. "Dream Cat, Dream Cat" I chanted to myself as I lay there willing myself to drift off to sleep.
I wanted to dream about Vincent and I being free together. There is no Muirfield, no one chasing us down the dark streets or into the tunnels; we were free, living life not fantasies.
And in time…I was slipping into my dreams.
I heard the water running as soon as I entered the apartment. Vincent was in the shower. I took a moment to allow the sound of him being here, in my apartment, to soak through to my soul and to absorb how it felt to know that the man I love, my Vincent, was here with me. I placed my keys, holster, badge and wallet down on the bench and followed the sounds, as quietly as I could, smiling to myself as I did so because it was pointless. Vincent would have heard me walking along the corridor. He would have heard my key enter the lock. He was tuned into my sound. He could probably hear my heartbeat from outside the front door in anticipation of seeing him.
I could hear the shower running. Vincent didn't need the lights on, but I could see a soft glow coming from under the bathroom door. I made my way quietly through the apartment and opened the bathroom door. As I did, I needed a moment to take in the sight before my eyes. Outside, the city lights cast a glow through the window, but it was the glow of the candles lighting Vincent from behind the curtain casting him as a shadow that took my breath away.
The site before me was spectacular. I could see the outline of his body, his rippling muscles and the strength they withheld, his body beautifully toned from time spent with nothing to do but exercise to help while away the hours. I imagined the droplets of water running down every inch of skin, every sinew of muscle and catching here and there on the hair of his arm or on his leg, a droplet of water being trapped there for a moment before continuing its path along his long, glorious, body.
Vincent knew I was there. I heard him inhale when I stepped into the room. When he inhaled like that, it always had my blood turning to liquid heat and my heart skip a beat because, I knew, he was inhaling my scent and each time, he was etching it into his memory so he would know me anywhere.
Vincent was putting on quite a show for me behind the shower curtains, bending over to take the soap in his hand, using it to tease me by soaping his hands then running them over his beautiful body. My mouth watering at the memory of how his skin tastes, my fingertips tingling as they remembered the feel of his skin beneath them.
We didn't speak as I undressed. Inside my mind we were going to spend countless minutes behind the curtain. I imagined my hands, soaped and slick, massaging him, kneading each muscle in his back, moving further down to hold his ass in my hands, then gently coax him into turning, so his back was to me. I wanted to kiss a trail down his spine, all the way to the dimples in the small of his back. God, how I loved those dimples; I wanted to move my hands to his front teasing him as I went. I wanted to run my fingers over his taut stomach, made even tighter by the tickle of my feather light touch over his skin until I reached his erection. It would be long and thick and so hard he would be almost bursting. As I am holding his erection in my hands, I want to kiss around his waist using his erection to steer him, turning him to face me so I could take him into my velvet smooth mouth. I would stroke him with my hands while taking him deep into my mouth, then I would swirl my tongue around his head and suck him deep into my mouth again, as deep as I could, allowing him to feel my throat constrict around him as I drank every drop he had to offer me from his release.
After his release, as I moved up and as the tension in his body eased, I would nip, lick and kiss a trail over his stomach, up over the plains of his chest. I would drink the life affirming water that cascaded over him, resting my mouth at his neck to kiss the tender spot just below his ear lobe until finally, he would take control. He would take my head in his hands and move it so that his mouth was covering mine. He would kiss me with this lips, using his tongue just enough for me to know it's there, before delving in to imitate how he uses his tongue on other parts of my body, slowly kissing me into a kiss induced state of bliss.
But just as I reached out to take hold of the curtain to draw it back and step in with him, Vincent pulled the curtain back himself and snaked me into his arms. He lifted me up off the bathroom floor and placed me under the water with him my back flush against his body. We stood there, skin to skin, my softness against his hardness, water running over us for a few beats of my heart, until he released me. I turned around after he released me, only to see him stepping out from the shower.
"Hey, what are you doing, I was going to join you."
"I know but I uh.…well, I'm not quite ready for you," he said trying to avoid my eyes. Vincent only ever avoided my eyes when he was trying to tell me something that he thought I wouldn't like. With a sigh he said "Okay, I was….um… thinking of you, and how good we are together doing, you know and…well, I sort of self-indulged just before you came into the bathroom. I heard you coming and I couldn't help myself." A slight smile formed on his lips before he looked up, seeing the look of amusement on my face he said "Don't look at me like that. I didn't know you were on your way home. When I stepped into the shower, I was just washing myself, then, I was thinking of you, I always get hard thinking of you, and then I heard you come down the corridor, and so, now, I need a few minutes, if you know what I mean." Vincent stood there looking at me. I could see the hundred thoughts running around his head. He was so cute trying to explain to me what had happened. He looked at me, turned to go, hesitated, turned back in his indecision about what to do.
"Go," I said with a knowing smile on my face, "I'll be out in a minute." He left, leaving me standing under the stream of water, smiling. I wasn't angry that Vincent had left me alone in the shower, even if he did shatter my thoughts from moments before into a million pieces, I was intrigued really. I wonder what Vincent imagines when he "self-indulges" as he calls it. I know what my fantasies of him are, but... I should ask him I thought as I hurried through my shower.
Within minutes I was clean and dry and walking into the bedroom only to find Vincent waiting for me, the covers of the bed thrown back, gloriously naked, inviting me to jump in beside him. "But it's still early. Don't you want to eat first?" I asked. "Mmm, I am hungry, but food is not what I want to eat right now so come here and let me feast on you." A shudder raced through my body as the images flew through my mind of him eating to his hearts' content. I walked over to the bed and asked him "before you get to main course, you're telling me you want an entree Vincent?" His only response was "Mmm" as he pulled me into bed with him.
© Janeen Hayes May 2013
Disclaimer: I do not own Beauty and the Beast, its characters or images. They belong to the CW Network. This is a work of fan fiction.