Disclaimer: I don't own anything that can be recognized with ER. Some things may pop up the story that you can't recognize and that might have been something that I've made up.
Author's Notes: Takes place sometime in season 13. Details in season 12 have been changed to fit the story.
This story deals with insomnia, drug addiction, and death all connected to our favorite doctor, Luka Kovac, in some way. If you wish not to see vulgar and in detail scenes, don't read. Contains character death, violence, language, and explicitely sexual scenes. !WARNING!Graphic!WARNING!
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Sam Taggart reached the top of the staircase to the floor that her apartment was on, keys jingling in hand, and she sighed as she sneaked a peek at her watch. She had hoped that she wouldn't make it home as late as she had for the sake argument with her son in the morning for "failure to comply with his rules" and make it home before he was sent to bed by her very compliant boyfriend. At least one of them was compliant.
She sighed as she shoved her key into the lock, the two metals grinding together hard enough to make her believe the key was going to break off in place and she'd be locked outside for the night, and let her eyes slightly roll into the back of her head. The amazing part was that she wasn't as tired as she'd expected to be, and it was almost a blessing considering that she didn't need to be in until noon the next day. Something was definitely on her side.
She pushed the front door open and stepped in as quietly as she could, and she listened to the front door creak a cringe crossing her face as though it would tune the noise from the entire apartment as well as from her own ears. The door was locked, and chained for good measure, and she was surprised to see the lights on in the kitchen and the living room without anyone sitting in the room. It made her give the room a double take, hoping to find her boys still up regardless of what her rules were.
She pulled the bag off of her shoulder and hung it on the hook, silently swearing to herself that the hook would break from the heavy contents packed inside. She couldn't even remember what she had stuffed in there, but she was sure that it was freakishly heavy – weighing down her shoulder and leaving her with sufficient back pains.
She shook her head as she sighed, knowing that walking in 2 hours after her shift was supposed to end wouldn't be a success to see her son – she felt like it had been forever – but part of her had hoped to see her boyfriend. She was slightly disappointed, hoping to wrap her hands around his and pull him to her just for the sake of contact, but it was something that she'd learned to live with. It worried her that she'd grown accustomed to being apart from him so long, but she did her best to simply ignore it.
She flicked off the lights and quietly climbed the stairs up to the bedroom that she shared with her boyfriend, forgetting that she still had her black, velvet coat wrapped around her, and nearly tripped on the last step in the dark. The beam of light splayed through the crack in the dark, and she wondered if he'd left lights on in the bedroom or if the lights were seeping in through the window from the street lights. It took her a long moment to stop and catch her breath, the rush from climbing the stairs still resting heavy on her chest.
She paused in the doorway upon hearing his shallow and rugged breaths, prompting her to lean against the solid green doorframe. She slid her hand across the width of the door, pushing it open to show her the struggling form of her boyfriend asleep in the bed that they shared, and she narrowed her eyes in his direction as she took in the sight of the rather tall man. He suddenly stilled, and she sucked in a deep breath at his slumbering form.
He was beautifully splayed across the bed, his arms tucked beneath him and his fingertips pinching the front of his black sweater, his jeans resting low on his hips as though his belt was shy of doing the job that it was made to do. He finally looked peaceful, faint beads of sweat glistening his forehead – the aftermath of his dream – his feet hanging off of the edge of the mattress with the shoelaces on his boots untied. He obviously hadn't had intentions of falling asleep whenever he lay down.
She smiled slightly, the tug at the corners of her lips playing a twitch as she was silently captivated by this man who had managed to tug at her thin heartstrings a numerous amount of times. She wanted to remember that moment, wishing silently that she had a camera so that she could actually remember that exact picture perfect moment, and she wasn't sure that it would be that simple. She sighed from deep within her, letting her exhaustion be a lingering feeling within her.
She unbuttoned her coat and slid it off of her shoulders until it collided with the floor as she kicked the door closed behind her, ignoring the loud thump that her cell phone made as it crushed into the cushion of the coat. Another sigh elicited from her lips as she advanced further into the room and she reached her hands out, lightly touching the slightly exposed skin of his ankle between the end of his pants and the beginning of his boots. She slid her nails up his legs a bit, pressing her knee into the edge of the mattress between his legs, and she tugged her fingers back down until they met the coolness of the room again. She looked at his face, his eyebrow twitching on his face and then settling again – a slight hint of arousal coursing through his veins even in his sleep.
She tapped her delicate fingertips against his calves, the back of his knees, the back of his thighs, and they brushed over his hips as she seemed to tease the skin at the base of his spine while she smiled slightly at his boxers peeking over the waistband of his jeans. His jeans were so loose around his waist, and she bit her bottom lip as she briefly closed her eyes while she shook her head. She slid her hands further up his body before she masked his arms with her touch.
Straddling him at his waist, she leaned down and lightly brushed her lips across the crook in his neck as she traced the length of his body with her hands. She smiled against his skin as he sucked in a deep breath and stirred beneath her slightly, and he groaned from deep within the back of his throat. The noise eliciting from the back of his throat made her kiss the side of his neck, the slight stubble on his face rough against her lips.
"Baby," she breathed out against his skin, her hands slipping between them and between her legs until she could slide her hands up the back his shirt. Her hands slid up his body, the feel of his skin against her fingertips making her smile as she nuzzled her face into the back of his neck, and she squeezed his hips with her knees. "Let us get you out of these clothes so you can get to bed."
She pressed her hands across the broad space of his back, wishing with everything inside of her that he'd reach out and touch her, too. She wanted him, she had for a long time, but their time just hadn't seemed to coincide with the others. She could get him to hold her, at least until she fell asleep, but that seemed to be the most amount of contact between them.
She never wanted to be the one to touch him first for fear that he'd brush her off or shy away from her touch – he'd been different since he came back from Africa.
He opened his eyes, glad that she was with him – glad that she was touching him – and he turned his head until his cheek pressed into the comforter. Her hips pressed into his, and shifted them slightly beneath her as he attempted to kick of his shoes, hearing them fall hard to the floor. He smiled slightly as he looked at her, loving the feeling of her body against his.
"I can't move," he whispered tiredly, his voice muffled as it collided with the bedding, and he spread his arms wide across the width of the bed. His body trembled as she pulled her hands out of his shirt, his muscles contracting beneath her fingertips, and he sighed from the mixture of emotion pumping through his mind – through his veins. "Help me."
"Turn over," she smiled gently as her voice was just as soft, sitting upright so her chest wasn't pressed against his back. He shifted, shaking his head as he let his eyes drift closed again, but still rolled onto his back with her still straddling his hips. He inhaled a sharp breath feeling her grind against him, suddenly realizing just how long it had been since he'd had her. "You can't be that tired."
"I had a headache earlier. Took a pain pill and fell asleep whenever I came up here," he didn't bother to open his eyes, and he spread out across the bed, ignoring that he didn't have a pillow positioned under his head. The arch of his back lifted slightly off of the bed as he failed to lift himself up, feeling her knees dig harder into the mattress beside his hips as she moved against his waist. "Alex made it to bed?"
She nodded, but he hadn't seen her with his eyes closed, and she pushed her hands against his hips to slide them up his shirt. He opened an eye at her touch, her index fingers tickling at his skin just above the waistband of his boxers, grinning at the smirk spread across her face. He wondered if she realized just how much she was affecting him at the moment – not that it would have been hard since he was craving her.
He slowly lifted his hands to her hips, his fingers sliding across the tops of her thighs, and he slightly let his thumbs draw circles in her hipbones. He chuckled in the back of his throat when she arched her eyebrow, her hands clutching his sweater by the hem of it as she pulled it off over his head. As her hands slid back down his chest, he arched upwards even the slightest bit to produce a smirk across her face.
"I thought that you said you were too tired."
"I thought it would be more fun if you do it," he smiled, squeezing her hips in his fingertips before he let his hands slide back down her thighs. She traced his exposed chest with her eyes, her fingers brushed down his stomach until it met his belt buckle. He pursed his lips together, watching her intently as she seemed to work her magic on the belt around his waist.
He wanted her, he couldn't deny that, but something made it hard for him to make love with her.
He sighed as though he was disinterested and he let his hands drift for just a moment longer on her legs, his eyes drifting closed as she touched his stomach. He inhaled a sharp breath and opened his eyes again, arching upwards as a chill rushed through his body. He seemed aroused, still yet to touch her, and he almost groaned just at the crave of her body resting against his soul.
"My headache's gone."
She sighed as she rolled her eyes, pulling her hand away from him once she'd unbuckled his belt and it clanged together, and let her eyes shift to the ceiling. Looking straight up, she pressed her knees harder into the mattress as she lifted herself off of him and tried not to let her anger show on her face. She clenched her jaw as she pushed off of the mattress beside his head with her hands, and stepped to the floor and away from him.
It was hard for her to sleep next to a mostly naked man that her mind and body, and her soul, were attracted to every night. She felt like she wasn't good enough for him anymore – she felt like he wasn't attracted to her anymore, and that scared her to death. She was in love with a man that didn't, as far as she believed, love her.
"What's the matter?"
"You do this every time, Luka."
"I do what every time?" His face contorted in confusion as he pushed himself up with his elbows, his hand resting awkwardly on his stomach, and he ignored the slight strain in his voice and the fact that his accent seemed a little heavier. He watched her with furrowed eyebrows as she pressed her fingertips into her forehead, his lips slightly parted and his eyes narrowed. "What the hell are you talking about?"
She leaned into her dresser, her fingers throbbing against the rough wood as her body ached to be near him, and she shook her head. She knew that he just didn't get it; she'd never really met a man who had gotten it, but that didn't make it any easier. It was hard on her heart, her body, and her soul whenever he made her feel rejected.
"Luka," she fixed her gaze in his direction, never really letting her eyes settle onto him, and she let out a shaky breath. Her breathing constricted in her throat as she wondered how she was still able to breath at all with him sitting so close and knowing that it just wasn't going to happen. "I can count the number of times we've had sex in the last 4 months on one hand, and it's tearing me apart. I want you so bad that I need to feel you, but I just come home to find you asleep and wake up to find you've left me alone in the bed."
"I just," he sighed as his eyes drifted to the floor, dragging a hand through his hair and giving his head a slight shake, "I don't know what to say."
She sighed as she dragged her own hand through her own hair, biting her bottom lip as she turned to pull clothes out of her dresser. He'd gotten accustomed to letting her touch him, but he just couldn't seem to reach out and touch her from lack of will. She loved him, but she wasn't sure anymore that he still loved her and it was tearing her up inside as she went on ignoring it.
"I'm going to go sleep on the couch," she released a shaky breath as she shut the dresser drawer, kicking her shoes off and reaching to pull her shirt off over her head. Maybe she was attempting to tease him a bit, and she guessed that it worked when she heard him quietly gasp in unison with the bed letting out a squeak from behind her. "Don't bother."
He reached around her and caught her hands to entwine in his own grasp, his rough fingertips brushing across the tops of her knuckles as he pressed her palms into her skin. He could feel her pulling away, but he tightened his grasp on her unwilling to let her get away. He'd let her pass too many times and it left him aching just to be with her.
He didn't know how, but he couldn't think this time – he wouldn't allow himself to think this time. But this time was going to be different, he already knew – the pain pills had taken their effect and nothing could make him go back to that moment…
His fingertips sporadically dragged across her skin, but he didn't make a motion or even a thought to move from the position where they were standing. It was almost as though he felt like there was nothing else to do, nothing better to do, than to stand there and hold her close to his heaving chest. His bare, heaving chest, she corrected.
She didn't dare make a move to test him; he'd actually wrapped his arms around her. She could feel his hot breath trail across her neck and it made the short, invisible hairs on her skin stand on their ends as a shiver coursed through her body until it traveled passed the base of her spine. It didn't help that he was the one touching her and she was already craving him so much, but she wasn't about to be the cause of the touching to stop.
"I…" he released a shaky breath as his fingertips etched over her skin at her waist, teasing the skin above the waistband of her pants, and he subconsciously licked his lips. His breath created a brain altering breeze over his freshly moist lips, a trail being formed from his lips to her skin. "I ache for you."
Her breathing constricted in her chest, making her take in a sharp breath at the sound of his low, sensual voice, and she clutched the top of the dresser tight in her hands. He'd never said that to her – he'd never uttered those words so delicately and so sensually inches away from her skin, and she knew that tonight would be the night. He wouldn't let her leave their bedroom without it.
Those seemed to be the nights when she was fed up of being without him – the nights that he'd be with her. But it already felt different than the last time, and the time before – he seemed to be craving it, too.
He pressed his hips into hers, surprised by the jerk in her body and uncertain of how her body could react so negatively at the touch of his. He could tell that she wanted to turn around and face him – maybe to pierce her dark eyes into his, or maybe it was to get a better look at what she'd been missing – whatever it was didn't matter. And yet, there was all of this he'd so far as failed to touch her with his lips.
He stepped back, biting his bottom lip as she managed to turn and follow his lead, and his knees buckled as he sat on the edge of the bed. He looked straight ahead to see her waistline at his eye level, and he reached his fingers out to ghostly skim over her skin, trembling all the while, as he pushed his hands around her hips. He pulled her into the hot air between his parted legs, making her knees collide with the mattress, and he glanced up at her eyes.
"You don't know what you do to me," he muttered, surprised that he'd managed to spit out some words in English.
"No," she lightly shook her head, "I don't."
She noted that he still hadn't kissed her, anywhere, and she vaguely wondered if he'd even noticed – she wondered if he even noticed that they seemed to have no sexual relationship – that his moist lips hadn't even touched her skin. She looked down at him with slightly furrowed eyebrows, her hands hanging awkwardly in the air without any place to put them. She still awaited him to react to what she said, defend his own movements.
"You don't?" His voice was slightly teasing, a chuckle resting deep into the back of his throat and he pushed out a rather airy breath. His breath floated across her skin just like it was a ghost as he collected the hem of her shirt in one hand and the waistband of her scrubs in the other, exposing her hipbone. "You should know."
His voice vibrated across her exposed flesh, his rough fingertips making faint and gentle brushes across her flesh beneath her clothes, and he slowly pressed his lips against her. He felt her fingers lightly touch the back of his neck, prompting him to lift his eyes up to hers, and he lazily pressed his lips into her skin to make a trail to her naval. He pushed his hands up her sides, his fingertips gliding with ease – all natural – up her shirt to bring the bottom of it up her torso, exposing her tanned and toned abdomen to him.
"Lijepo," he muttered against her skin, failing to realize that he'd gone from speaking English to speaking Croatian. His breath collided angrily with her slightly moist flesh, marks of where his lips had been, and he found it hard not to concentrate on her. "O, kakav lijepi pogled! You know that?"
He hadn't even realized he'd done it again, but he continued to drag his lips across her skin.
His lips on her body created this want, this arousal within her that replaced the old one, and she framed his face in her hands as her eyes drifted closed. She tugged him upward, pulling his lips from her body to kiss him, and he let his fingers press into her skin just below her breastbones as he stood to crush his lips against hers. She seemed so unfamiliar with his touch that she moaned when he crushed his lips to hers, her body shaking against him.
He slid his hands down her backside and lifted her by the back of her thighs, her shirt settling back down rather disappointedly, and felt her wrap her legs around his waist as his fingers fanned out against her skin. He had one thing on his mind, and he'd do almost anything to keep it that way – he had done anything to keep it that way; it's how he'd gotten himself to sleep – he planned on making love to her like he hadn't in a long time.
He kept himself on track and pressed onward, turning towards their bed and pulling his lips from hers to pull her shirt off over her head, listening triumphantly as it echoed when crashing to the floor – they were making a mess of clothes. He pressed one knee into the mattress to ease her down, laying her back as he let himself drink her in and trace her form splayed out before him. He bit his bottom lip rather teasingly, brushing his hands over her thighs.
"Luka," she whispered, her voice quivering in ways that lead him to believe she was afraid to speak, and her hands slid in his to entwine their fingers together. She'd caught his attention, she could tell, she'd caught it in ways that she could barely remember catching it. Oh, they'd had sex since being back together, but never had it felt like this – and they were only at the beginning. "I miss you."
"I'm right here, dragi," he whispered back, brushing his fingers over her knuckles and rubbing circles into the back of her hands. He leaned over her, his silver necklace with a cross for a charm clumping up in a pile in the middle of her chest, and he lazily pressed his lips into hers. "I'm right here."
Pulling her hands over her head, he heard her gasp against his cheek and tighten her legs around his waist as he felt her chest heaving into his. His belt buckle dangled from his waist and pressed into her stomach, his hips grinding into hers as he pushed his upper body up to look at her face. He stopped moving, he stopped everything – the only movement being his chest as he breathed in and out – as he reintroduced himself with the dark eyes looking back at him.
"I'm not going anywhere," he quietly reassured.
Rubbing her arms, he kissed down her body – her throat, her chest, her stomach – until he reached the waistband of her scrub bottoms. His hand stopped on her breast and the other one continued the assault down her body as he let his lips linger on her hipbone. He looped his fingers around the waistband and gave them a slight tug, exposing more of her flesh to him, and he could feel the warmth that her body was producing.
Beads of sweat began to glisten his skin, his muscles aching from being used in ways he hadn't been able to let himself use them, and it began mixing with hers as he slid back up her body. He was caught off guard as she pressed her lips into the crook of his neck, knowing that not only would her lips become moist but she'd also have a salty taste left to linger on them.
Something in him suddenly changed, and he remembered what it felt like to have her during the throes of passion, willing to take her then and there.
"Sam," he breathed, gruffly in the back of his throat, as he slammed his body into hers only to elicit a moan from her lips in the folds of his neck, "I need to have you."
He did it again, slammed his body into hers. She could feel him, all of him, against her as the rough edges of his jeans whipped across her stomach and leaving their mark against her flesh. He was leaving his mark on her instead of making her leave the mark – he was aching, throbbing even.
"No," she groaned lightly, her voice not even forceful as she pressed her hands into his shoulders to flip them over and straddle his waist. It was the waiting – she was tired of the waiting. "It hurts."
She saw the panic invade his face, but ignored it as she slipped her fingers around the buttons of his pants to break him open, the breeze immediately running through him.
"The waiting hurts."
She watched him watch her for just a moment before she slid his pants off of his long legs, letting them drop to the floor, and looked back up at him as he slowly reached out to her. He entwined his fingers with hers, pulling her back up his body as he slid his other hand down her back to do the same to her.
Thrusting into her with ease, he saw nothing but her for the first time in 4 months. He didn't have the usual struggle in his head, he didn't have that fresh memory playing like an overused video tape, he didn't smell that smell that he could only recall from memory; no, instead, he could feel everything in him course through his veins, he saw her like a fresh memory in the making, and he smelled the mixture of his body scent colliding with hers. He knew that he was in trouble.
He found something that worked, and he was able to feel again.
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