One Last Time
First Time
The warm water washed over him in a soporific wave. Quinn closed his eyes, breathed out slowly and forced his taunt muscles to relax as he leaned his head forward onto the shower wall. The effect was instantaneous as an overpowering rush of exhaustion hit him, causing his legs to quake and shiver. He had managed to grab a quick shower and a shave before he boarded his homeward flight but this was the first time he had felt safe enough to relax, to allow the water to soothe him, to ignore the numbingly horrible memories of Syria that he had so recently lived and to think of nothing; to simply breathe and be still.
The sound of the shower over rode all the noises coming from the rest of the room, so he did not hear the door open quietly. His frazzled senses were so shot that they did not perceive that another being had entered the room. He only became aware when the hand touched his shoulder.
His eyes instantly snapped opened as his highly trained alarm response kicked into action, adrenaline suddenly spewed through his system chasing away the tiredness that had so recently reigned. But his attacker was prepared for his response, squeezing his shoulder painfully as they spun him around. He grunted, raised his right arm to strike out and stopped as a moist mouth planted itself on his lips, a tongue probed masterfully into his mouth and a head of blonde hair, now wet from the shower, was below him as hands reached up to draw him down towards her.
He managed to extricate his mouth long enough to mutter, "What the fuck?"
She hesitated before spitting back, "I am so fucking angry with you!" And then the tongue was there again, forcing all words away and demanding his full attention which he gave as the rush of lust starting in the depths of his bowels quivered and rolled upwards.
She certainly had the upper hand following her surprise tactic but he was not going to let that last any longer. He grabbed her lithe, wet body, and pulled her upwards so her feet left the floor. She went with the move, wrapping her sleek legs around his torso and continuing to devour his mouth. He staggered, trembling legs momentarily overcome by her added weight and then regaining his balance, he carried her through to the bedroom, where he threw her to the bed.
She looked up at him, her mouth twisted into a challenging, confident smile that dripped lust and desire. He hesitated, his overwrought mind trying desperately to catch up with his rapidly arousing body. This wasn't happening; how could it be? He must be dreaming, he must still be outside Aleppo, hadn't he had this dream or a similar one so many times before? But it felt so real. He could sense the hot anger of wanting oozing from her sleek wet body. She was wound so tight, her passion multiplied by a deep rage that flashed in her eyes; daring him to do it and he knew that he hadn't the strength to fight the compulsion in her urging. Her anger was contagious feeding on all of his frustration and sadness. So, with a groan that was forced from the deepest part of his being, he fell upon her like a ferocious beast, devoid of all humanity. He slid into her wet heat, feeling as if he were being encased by fire. Suddenly nothing else mattered, nothing else was real except for her slim body moving beneath him and her husky voice urging him on, promising him an end to his misery, a release from his overwhelming frustration, and the opportunity to feel something other than emptiness and sorrow. He yearned for the forgiveness he wanted her to offer, for that release, for those few seconds when the pain and fear and self-loathing would disappear, consumed by the inferno that now enfolded him. The blood roared through his ears and nothing else existed, the room disappeared; there was only her. The world centred on her enticing body below him. There was no human tenderness, no sharing, no softness. They were both lost, drowning in a sea of sensation and she threw her head back and groaned with the wonder of it. The sound pushed him on to a climax that promised to be as brutal as any he had ever known. Tired, strained muscles were suddenly empowered once more, as he slammed into her with no restraint, thrusting furiously as she held him against her and breathed hot words of challenge in his ear until at last his orgasm rushed over and through him with shattering force. It was a divine agony, as below him she tensed, taunt as a bow string, her muscles clamping down on to him and then she relaxed and released with a deep guttural growl as he shot his hot seed far into her flaming depths.
He stared down at her for a moment, his blue eyes wild and glazed, a small part of him horrified at his actions while the rest of him shivered with sheer bliss at the physical experience. She reached up to caress his cheek, drawing her fingertips lightly across his face, tracing the hard line of his cheek bone.
Breathing heavily as he pushed her hand away, his body still shuddering from the aftershocks, Quinn rolled off her and lay staring up at the ceiling, waiting for it all to dissolve away, to become the velvet black night sky of the desert as he woke up alone yet again. But it did not. Instead the exhaustion rolled through him once more and with it came something else, a feeling that the extraordinarily intense physical experience was not enough; the moment though exquisite in its instance, was gone, lost forever. He craved something more, something that would last forever.
Carrie sighed. "I needed that, could do with a fucking cigarette now," she said acidly.
Quinn snorted. "A little clichéd, don't you think?" he muttered, surprised that his voice sounded so unaffected by any of what had just happened.
She turned to look at him, her golden hair splayed out on the bed, her eyes still hooded with the dregs of her lust. "Fuck you, Quinn!"
"You just did." He stood up, trying to look nonchalant but failing as he moved sluggishly back to the bathroom where the shower was still running.
She raised her head from the bed to regard him. "I've been waiting for you to talk to me."
He managed to bark out an incredulous laugh but it cost him. "I didn't think there was anything to say. You gave me your answer. I moved on."
She was sitting up now, pulling a dampened sheet about herself, glancing to the untidy pile of clothes she had left in the corner. "Moved backwards you mean. Did you think I wouldn't find out you were back from Syria?" she continued, running her hand through her wet hair and shaking her head.
"I didn't think you'd care," he replied wondering if it sounded as bitter as it felt.
Carrie stared at him for a long time, her eyes unreadable. "That's not fair. It doesn't make it any easier, you know, the fact that I was right about it." Her eyes searched his but he was in full defensive mode now, remembering he had opened up to her once, showed her his heart and not surprisingly on seeing his weakness, she had rejected it. Now he knew he would never find the courage to do it again and so there was nothing he could find to say. When she realised he wasn't going to give a response, she continued, "For three months I have been trying to get over it all, trying to bond with Frannie, going through the Congressional Hearings, getting over my mother again and Saul..." She stopped, took a deep breath before continuing, "And you know what? All I can think about is those things, those things you said to me after the funeral, I can't get them out of my head." Her stare was unblinking. "Did you mean them?"
He stared holding the intensity in her eyes. "Don't you know?" he asked.
"I thought I did. It sure seemed genuine at the time. But then you went off on another assignment... to fucking Syria. You chose that instead of me."
"Is that really what you think?" he snapped. "I asked you, you said no. There was no point in fucking staying."
"I never said no but no is obviously what you heard or chose to hear." She shook her head. "I said 'give me more time'. Everything went to fuck, in Pakistan, back here with my dad and all. I needed you and you weren't there for me, Quinn, you left me for an operation after everything you had said. I can't get over that, it hurt so much, you'd had my back for so long and I had let myself think that maybe we could, that we might... But you let me down when I really needed you... there is always one last mission with you, you say you will but you will never get out. Why would you for me?" Carrie took a deep gulp, shook her head and stared at him with wild wet eyes. "Shit, I am not good at this, but fuck you, Quinn, I was going to say yes!"
"Yes?" He hesitated then shook his head in disbelief. He hadn't expected this revelation and he couldn't believe it. He had spent every possible hour during his last mission convincing himself that he had done the right thing in leaving, that he could never have been good enough for her. "But I knew you couldn't choose me. Why would you do that? Shit," he muttered. The dread that had been building in him suddenly clutched at his innards hard. He knew he couldn't deal with this; he was strung out from yet another soul destroying mission, he had to get his head around what had happened and yet he could also sense her need to deal with it now. He understood that she had spent the last three months agonising over so much. God it must be tearing her apart. His stomach lurched at what he had put her through and he knew he could not keep hurting her.
Carrie snorted. "And now you're back down your own personal fucking rabbit hole. And you're not going to stop are you? You are going to keep doing it until... until..." She gulped. "How I wish we could get out. I wish I could believe it could be like you said, that we could do it together like two fucked up junkies going cold turkey."
"Fucked up, I guess that's what I am," he responded sadly.
"Do you still think we could, I mean really?" The anger was burnt out and she stared at him with an almost simple wide eyed innocence.
And there it was, the question he had known was coming. Oh, how he wanted to answer it with the wild hope that momentarily rushed through him, the same sweet optimism that had made him really believe, when they had stood bedside his truck on that dreamy night, that anything was possible for them as long as they were together. But how quickly he knew he never could.
"Quinn?" she pressed.
He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, Carrie." She looked confused, hurt even, as he continued, "You need to find somebody who is right for you, somebody who can give you everything you want. That is not me; I fuck you up."
"But I thought..."
"I can't do it," he said sadly. He moved back to her, bending to give her a soft quick kiss on the cheek and then turned to walk away back to the bathroom, as the snake of despair slithered in his bowels.
She reached out to grasp his slippery wet arm. "Wait. Can't you see you're doing it again, Quinn," she said. "Running back to the fucking mission. Running away!"
He gulped. "May be that's all I can ever do," he said shrugging off her hand.
"How many 'one last times' are there going to be, Quinn?" Her voice had an edge of hysteria to it as her frustrated anger blazed back. He hesitated and stiffened but he did not turn back to her. "Fuck you!" Carrie hissed.
And then her attention shifted from him to the clock on the table. "Fuck!" she breathed. "Is that the time? I got to get Frannie!" She was out of the bed and in her clothes within seconds. Picking up her bag she turned back to him, her face creasing into a concerned look. "Since you are so hell-bent on not staying around, there's another mission lined up for you in Russia but know this, I'll be in the Ops Room, I'll have your back, and don't think I won't be doing everything in my power to get you home safely because, even after all this, I fucking still can't lose you, Quinn!"
He glanced down unable to find the courage to face her and when he finally did she was gone. Only her voice lingering on the air, "See you at work!" As the door closed with a resounding and very final bang.
Quinn drew in a long, deep breath and slowly shook his head as he tried to remember just how he had got himself into this situation. He slumped to lean on the door frame and then sighed all of the air back out of his lungs again. She hadn't wanted the life he had offered; it was stupid of him to have ever thought she would, that she would give up the CIA for him when she was so addicted to the job.
"Love you too, Carrie," he muttered sadly. How long had he dreamed of this day? How long had he wanted to fuck Carrie Mathieson? How many nights had been punctuated with this overwhelming need to take her in his arms, to save her from all the shit that the world threw at her? How long had he dreamed that he could make her happy? And now he had fucked her; he had the smell of her on his skin, the taste of her on his lips, he had heard the hitch in her breathing leading up to the ecstatic groan when he had made her come hard...
...and yet, as ever, he had fucked it up.
Consciously pooling all of his emotion into a small compartment deep within his mind and slamming the lid tightly shut, closing off even the merest memory of its existence, he turned back to the shower to wash away every trace of her, the only woman he had ever met who had the power to save him.
