Disclaimer: I do not own of these characters; they are the property of Shoot the Moon Enterprises and Warner Bros. Television. I acknowledge gratefully the hard work of the creators of the series who brought to life characters we like so much we can't let them go.
Did they or didn't they? I think they did, and sooner than anyone thought. Takes place immediately after "All the World's a Stage". Rated M – be warned before you start.
In which Lee tries to think about baseball.
It had been a perfect evening.
After a somewhat hamfisted invitation out when he'd pointed out she had nothing to do now on Saturday when Tony Martinet's play had opened and closed the same night, Lee hadn't been sure how it would be, taking Amanda out to dinner on a real date. God knew they'd shared a hundred meals before, she'd been his date a dozen times at official functions, hell, they'd even been out acting as a married couple more than half a dozen times, complete with ceremony and honeymoon cruise once, but somehow none of that had prepared him for being out for dinner with Amanda King on a simple date. At first he'd thought it was because he wasn't used to spending time with her when they weren't scanning the room for Russian contacts, or bombs or terrorists. Then he'd thought maybe it was because he was out of practice at being out on a date with a woman who wasn't empty-headed and equally certain where the evening was going to end. Leslie O'Connor had been the exception that proved the rule on that front, but as much as he had genuinely enjoyed her company, even then in his heart of hearts he'd known she was just an echo of what he'd been looking for.
Amanda was something different – smart, funny, unlikely to fall for any of his usual flirtation methods having watched them from the sidelines for three years – and also the most beautiful woman in the room. He'd felt a pang of disappointment the night before when she'd suggested that she drive to his apartment and they could leave from there to the restaurant; it had felt a little bit like she was building in an escape from the evening, or from him. Something of his thoughts must have passed over his face because she had rushed to add "I just don't want Edna Gilstrap telling Mother all about you when she gets home – I want to be able to have you to myself like this for a while before she knows about us."
He'd smiled in the face of her logical thinking. "There's an "us", Amanda?"
She'd run her fingers down his cheek, stopping to brush a thumb over the dimple in his cheek. "Ah sweetheart, there's been an 'us' for a while now" and then she had leaned further over his desk and pressing her lips to his, she had gently run her tongue along his lower lip and then gently nipped it before pulling back and staring into his eyes. "And now, I am going to go home and make sure the boys are packed up to go to Joe's for the weekend and drive Mother to the train to Aunt Lillian's and I will see you tomorrow at 6:30." And with that she had swept out of the Q Bureau, pausing only to smile back at him as she closed the door behind her.
The kiss had been remarkably chaste in the history of kisses Lee had shared with a woman, but the electric shock that had jolted through him from being kissed like that by Amanda had simultaneously frazzled his thought processes and tightened his groin to an extent that made him glad he'd been seated at his desk when she'd kissed him because it had left him with a lot less explaining to do when Billy re-opened that door a few seconds later. Billy had taken one look at him then glanced at Amanda's back disappearing the hallway to the stairs and started to laugh. "What the hell did she say to put that dazed expression on your face, Scarecrow?" Somehow he'd managed to laugh it off as confusion over one of Amanda's typical rambles and Billy had moved on to other topics, topics which successfully got Lee's mind off that kiss and the next evening at least temporarily.
He wasn't completely certain how he had filled the day until she arrived at his apartment that evening. He'd cleaned out the fridge, not that it needed it, since Amanda was over often enough anyway to make sure there were none of his penicillin experiments as she called them. He'd done laundry, he'd tidied the entire apartment and he'd scrubbed the bathroom to within an inch of its life and it was still only mid-afternoon. He'd attempted to distract himself with the new book he'd picked up on the Korean War but even that hadn't kept his mind from straying to her. Finally he'd gone for a run through Rock Creek Park, followed by a long shower which by necessity had become a cold shower as he thought about spending the evening with the Amanda who had kissed him like that the day before.
And so it was that by the time Amanda knocked on the apartment door, Lee had been ready for an hour even after shaving twice and spending a ridiculous amount of time deciding which suit to wear based on what colour she might or might not be wearing. It had begun to drizzle by late afternoon so he'd opened the door to find her smiling shyly at him, hair and lashes sparkling with raindrops and a raincoat that unfortunately hid what she was wearing but was still short enough to let him appreciate her gorgeous legs. For just a moment, he'd been completely tongue-tied but then she had reached up to straighten his tie.
"You know, I think this blue suit of yours is my favorite," she'd smiled and patted the tie into place.
With that one small gesture from her, it was like all his worries about taking this next step in their relationship had vanished. This was familiar, this was comfortable, this was Amanda.
"Do you want to drive or shall I?" he'd asked
"Oh no, you drive. Tonight I just want to be the girl on a date with the handsome guy with the silver convertible" and then she'd grinned. "As long as I don't have to stay in the car."
"I can almost guarantee it", he'd answered laughing and they'd headed out.
Everything had been fine until they got to the restaurant. After confirming their reservation with the hostess, he'd turned to help Amanda off with her coat and as she shrugged it off her shoulders, he'd realized she was wearing The Dress.
The black dress with the pearl buttons and the spaghetti straps.
This dress was the reason he'd had to change the sheets on his bed that morning like a teenage boy after waking up from a particularly vivid erotic dream about getting Amanda out of this dress.
He'd felt like all the oxygen had left the room and then she'd turned and her eyes had been sparkling with some expression he couldn't quite compute and she'd said "Are you ok?"
"Yeah, I've just always really liked you in this dress."
"Oh, I know." Lee felt like her smile had something extra behind it, but then she had turned and followed the maitre d' to their table and he'd followed behind her, admiring that row of pearl buttons along her spine and repeating to himself silently "Think about baseball. Think about baseball. Think about baseball".
Dinner had been extraordinary, despite his nerves. Given how much time they'd spent together in the last three years talking during stakeouts and long drives, it amazed him how much they'd found to discuss that wasn't work related. To his astonishment, it turned out Amanda was reading the same Korean War history he'd been trying to distract himself with that afternoon. She had been just a toddler when her father had been invalided out of the Marine Corps after being wounded there and shipped home to start civilian life. It seemed to Lee like the West women had had more than their fair share of being single mothers, even if Dottie had only had to manage for a few years, unlike Amanda. He'd laughed as she'd described spending her teenage years as the only daughter of an ex-Marine, glad that he hadn't been trying to date her then, but sad that he'd never gotten to meet the man who put such a sparkle into Amanda's eyes when she talked about him. He could see so much of Dottie in her: her eyes, her wit, her laugh, her intuition and heaven knew, those rambles, but he suspected that so much of what made Amanda such an unswervingly loyal friend and gave her hidden strength came from her father.
The hours had passed paradoxically slow and fast at the same time and when he'd asked if she'd like another bottle of wine, she'd shaken her head and said "Probably not a good idea – you'll be driving soon. Besides," she'd gestured to the rest of the room "I think we're shutting the joint down as it is."
He'd looked around and realized they were in fact the last people left in the restaurant and that the staff was quietly tidying up around them. He'd been so intent on Amanda, he'd actually turned off most of his secret agent senses and been unaware of the rest of the room. His disappointment that the evening was rapidly drawing to a close was washed away when Amanda picked up his hand across the table and added "But there's nothing to stop us having a nightcap back at your place."
He'd never been quite certain how everything had happened after that. For a man who prided himself on control, the rest of the night had rapidly escaped his. They'd gone back to his apartment and after throwing his jacket over the back of a chair, he'd gone to pour himself a Scotch and a glass of wine for Amanda, while she had kicked off her shoes and settled into the corner of the couch, back against the arm, one leg hitched up under her and the other pointed out in front of her. Lee paused for a moment as he came back in the room to appreciate that long graceful leg and the slit in the dress that exposed it up to mid-thigh. Funny, despite all his erotic dreams about Amanda in that dress, he'd never noticed that it was slit quite that high. He shook his head, thought about baseball and tried to stroll nonchalantly across the room. She shifted her leg as he sat down on the edge of the sofa, to let him perch just by her knee. He handed Amanda her glass and watched as she took a sip and immediately put it down on the table. He put down his scotch and nervous as a teenager, went to loosen his tie which suddenly felt very tight.
Amanda sat up and leaned forward to grab the tie out of his hands. She pulled him closer and said "Let me get that for you" and then in some sort of weird reverse of her usual tie straightening, she slowly undid it, and then when she had one end in each hand she used it to pull him closer, murmuring "That's what I've really wanted to do for years" before pulling him close enough for another one of those electric kisses. When she dropped the tie ends and grabbed his head to pull him even closer, they both completely lost control.
The kiss become a crazed dueling of tongues and heavy breathing. The feel of her fingers running through his hair and massaging his scalp was sending jolts of electricity down his spine. Somehow he'd undone her hair from the loose up-do she'd arrived in and when her hands moved down to his shirt buttons, his lips had moved across her cheekbone to the soft spot just under her ear. Amanda moaned slightly in his ear as he ran one hand through her hair and nipped gently on her earlobe while his other hand stroked slowly up that exposed leg towards the newly discovered slit in the side of the dress. He groaned when his hand hit the telltale lace edge and garter. Amanda paused from where she'd been licking the pulse point under his chin but didn't stop her fingers from their task of undoing his shirt buttons as she looked up at him questioningly through eyes clouded with desire.
"You're wearing stockings." he managed to growl.
"Mmm hmm." she agreed in a sultry tone before leaning back in to continue nipping at the soft skin around his Adam's apple. "Is that a problem?"
"No problem" he gasped. Her hands had been busier than he'd realized until he felt her fingers tracing their way down the bare skin on his ribs and she had lowered her head to slowly lave her tongue around one nipple while one manicured fingernail worked its way up to gently circle the other.
Without pausing for thought, he slid his arms around her and lifting her slightly, pulled her back with him as he lay back along the sofa. Recapturing her mouth with his, his tongue met hers in a frenzy of kissing, biting and mutual moaning as his hands slid up her back and he began undoing those infernal pearl buttons that has driven him crazy from the first day he'd seen her in this dress. It was somewhere around three-quarters of the way down, when he'd slipped a hand to caress her back that he's made his second discovery.
"You're not wearing a bra?" Even to him, his voice had sounded unnaturally husky.
"You are two for two on your observational skills this evening. Have you ever considered a career as a secret agent?" Amanda had chuckled at him as she continued to drop light kisses along his chin. "What did you think I'd be wearing under a dress with spaghetti straps?"
By this time Lee had pushed those straps off her shoulders and had lowered the dress enough to capture one already hardened nipple between his fingers tips. He lifted his gaze from where he'd been staring at the flushed breast in his hand and grinned at her, "I tried very hard not to think very much about what was going on under this dress since we're only on our first date." He paused and hiked her slightly up his body so that he could reach that nipple with his mouth and licked it slowly before taking between his lips to nibble it gently while Amanda moaned in appreciation. "Have I mentioned how much I love you in this dress?"
"Once or twice" she managed to gasp out while she wriggled to pull his shirt all of the way out his waistband so that she could slide her hands all the way around his back.
Something in the tone she answered in, even layered over with desire, suddenly reminded Lee of the look on her face when, all those months ago, he'd asked her where she'd gotten the dress, intending to find something similar for Leslie. It was like being dashed with cold water and he stiffened perceptibly.
Amanda felt him tighten up and pushed herself up on her hands to look at his face. "Lee?"
Despite the fact that her movement to lean back to look at him had caused her to grind enticingly against him, he managed to growl out "We should stop."
We should what?" Amanda said in a tone of disbelief. "Why in God's name would you stop now?"
He tried to make a joke out of it, as he slipped the straps back onto her shoulders. "I know you Kappa girls don't like to go past first base on the first date."
"This is hardly a regular first date, Lee" She raised one eyebrow at him, questioningly.
No, but you're hardly like any of my regular dates he thought to himself before saying out loud "Well, you're always trying to get me to act like regular people. Maybe this is the time I should behave like one". He tried to emphasize the word 'behave' but Amanda had shifted her weight distractingly across his pelvis again– on purpose, he thought.
Amanda smiled as she traced a finger along his hairline. "Well, I feel like the dating rules have kind of gone out the window considering how many bases we've already gone around already. I thought for sure you'd be trying to steal home by tonight."
"Amanda! We have hardly been around the bases!"
"Really? We hit first base when I'd barely known you two months, Mr Newcombe."
Lee couldn't help grinning at her reference to his short career as a Washington Patriots football player a few years before and the night he'd kissed her for the first time, mostly as a way to maintain his cover but even then, a tiny part of it had been his undeniable attraction to the adorable Mrs. King.
"Fine, I will give you first base. That hardly puts me in a position for a home run."
"Well then, let's discuss second base. How many times have you grabbed me off ledges, or pulled me into alleyways or thrown yourself on top of me during explosions in the last three years?"
"And in what world does that count as second base?" He started to laugh but any movement on his part caused Amanda to shift on top of him. He forced himself to lay still, muttering in his head "Think baseball."
"Oh we're already talking baseball" answered Amanda and his eyes flew open as he realized he'd said that out loud. She gave him a Cheshire cat smile that told him she knew what he'd been thinking and then as he watched, her face took on an expression of fake annoyance. "Do you realize how unfair it is that men always have the best eyelashes? As if your eyes weren't already beautiful enough."
Lee had no answer for this and it was taking all his concentration not to start kissing that pulse point in her neck that was just barely within reach. He decided to just try and keep her talking – how hard could that be? He heard Amanda chuckling above him and he knew he should move to get her off him but he just couldn't bear to, not just yet.
"Anyway," Amanda went on, "You may not have noticed where your hands have landed all the times you've grabbed me, but I have."
Lee knew he shouldn't answer her but he couldn't resist. He raised one eyebrow. "Like it's all my fault. What about that time you grabbed my ass when I was up that ladder at Sacker's hideout?"
"See?" said Amanda in a contented tone, leaning down to place a series of kisses across the raised eyebrow. "Now you're coming around to my way of thinking."
Lee tried very hard not to think about the way her breath was warming his cheek – and her body, the rest of him.
"Ok. Fine, second base maybe. Well, definitely after tonight, but that is hardly rounding the bases and heading home, Amanda". He closed his eyes as her fingers caressed his temples and started running through his hair.
"Third base was pretty good". His eyes flew open to meet her laughing gaze.
"I don't know what you learned in under the high school bleachers, young lady, but we have most definitely NOT been to third base!" He paused for breath and then without thinking added "Although I've certainly had dreams about getting to third base with you in this dress."
"I know; I was there" Amanda's voice was now breathing into his ear again, and it was huskier than it had been even a few seconds before. Her hands had moved down past his shoulders again and she was leaving scorch marks down his chest as she traced the fine swirl of blond hair that disappeared into the waistband of his pants, pants which were becoming more and more uncomfortable as the moments passed.
"You were where?" he managed to gasp out as he grabbed at her hands trying to stop their promenade around his waist.
"Soviet Embassy. New Year's Eve last year. Lots of vodka. Borscht in the wrong place." She was punctuating each sentence with light kisses down his neck and chest and then after a long pause added, "Your old apartment".
Lee's heart stopped. How could she know his dreams always took place in his old apartment? Obviously she had been with him as his date at the party, but then she had gotten a cab home. Hadn't she? Now seriously disturbed, he shimmied up and out from under her. "What are you talking about? I have never gotten to third base with you, Amanda King!"
He could see her lips twitching at his reaction and he could also see the moment she decided to take pity on him. "Well, you really had had a lot of vodka, but let's see if I can't refresh your memory." She stood up and put out a hand to haul him to his feet. "So we were in your old apartment and you were very full of vodka, so I drove you home, ok? And you were also covered in borscht so I helped you get out of your shirt so I could put it in the wash." She pushed his shirt off his shoulders and pulled it down off his arms, tossing it onto the floor. Lee tried to maintain a straight face but knew he'd failed when Amanda reached up to rub her thumbs over the dimples in his cheek.
Then she continued her story. "And you, Mr Stetson, are the very best kind of amiable handsy drunk so while I was getting your cufflinks undone, you were busy nibbling my earlobes and undoing the buttons on my dress until this happened." She stepped closer to him and somehow, like some sort of magic trick, she shrugged her shoulders slightly and the dress slipped down her body and pooled at her feet, leaving her in the circle of his arms wearing nothing but stockings, panties and a garter.
Lee felt like he was paralyzed. This was his dream coming to life but he still couldn't really understand how it was possible that he might have done any of this with Amanda and not be able to remember it. He realized Amanda had started to talk again.
"So you had one hand here." She moved his right arm around to cup her derriere. "And another hand here" She lifted his left hand to her bare breast. "So that's second base. And your head was here". Lee didn't need her to tell him his face had been buried in her hair and his lips had been kissing her just below her right ear – he had dreamt it often enough. He was becoming light headed. They stood like that for at least a minute while he inhaled the scent that was uniquely Amanda's – some kind of potent combination of perfume and pheromones. Finally he managed to croak "I still don't believe I could have been drunk enough to make it to third base and forget."
"Well, that may be my fault because then I did something that is probably the reason you don't remember."
Lee smiled into her hair. "Did you use the Cobra Death grip?"
He felt Amanda's throaty laugh exhaling against his bare shoulder. "Not exactly". Lee stilled at her words and then she went on, "I did this" and his whole body stiffened like he'd been hit with a cattle prod when Amanda's warm hand slid down the open front of his pants and stroked his erection. She smiled up at his stunned expression. "I never said you were the one who got to third base, Big Fella. And come to think of it, this may be when I started calling you that."
His arms tightened around her while a tiny part of his brain tried to figure out when she'd gotten his pants undone but the rest of him was completely distracted by the way she had begun running her hand up and down his length, much as she did in his dreams. "There is no way in hell I would have forgotten this. Why would you think doing that would make me forget anything?"
Amanda leaned back and grinned up at him lasciviously. "Well, my working theory is that between the vodka and the rush of blood from one head to the other"- she tightened her grip pleasurably around him – "that combination may have been what made you choose that exact moment to pass out." She giggled softly. "Talk about a major disappointment."
He closed his eyes and dropped his head to lean his forehead against hers. "Nooooo" he moaned.
"Oh yes." Amanda moved closer into his embrace and chuckled into his chest. "Why do you think I made so certain you didn't have very much to drink tonight?"
They stood there quietly for a moment, but when Amanda shifted her hand again to lightly stroke him, it was like a dam had been broken. With a groan, Lee moved her hand and then picked her up and stalked into the bedroom, throwing her onto the bed, pulling off the rest of his clothes and flinging himself on top of her while Amanda giggled hysterically.
At first just a frenzy of hands, tongues and teeth, Lee finally began working his kisses down her belly to the crease where her legs met her hips. He paused to flip the snaps on the each garter and then slowly rolled the stockings down those impossibly gorgeous legs. He paused at the bottom of the bed, lifting one foot and running his tongue along the arch before taking her toes into his mouth and sucking gently while he massaged the arch he had just tongued. After a few minutes, Amanda was writhing against the pillows making a sound Lee had never heard before. He looked up, laughing. "Are you actually purring?"
"Quite possibly" gasped Amanda "Why have you stopped?"
Ever considerate, Lee devoted new attention to her feet before working his massaging fingers and lips back up her legs. Hooking his fingers into the garter and her panties, he began sliding them down as he began nipping and suckling at the warmth between her legs. The purring sound evolved into a mewling noise that combined with the heady taste of Amanda's arousal sent Lee's senses into a kind of drunken stupor. She groaned as he slipped two fingers into her wet centre and began rubbing the sensitive spongy area just inside while his teeth and lips pulled and suckled at the engorged bud that was the full centre of her universe at that moment. She began to moan his name uncontrollably, a low keening sound that sent the hairs on his neck up in an extremely enjoyable way. As he felt her climax build, he slipped his fingers out and moved quickly up her body, sliding his full length into her slick warmth without a pause. She caught her breath and her eyes flew open to meet his. For a moment he thought he'd hurt her, and gasped out "Are we ok?"
Her beautiful eyes had become impossibly darker with desire and he felt her inner muscles tighten around him as she wrapped her legs around his waist and she answered "Oh God, yes. You see? I told you'd be driving tonight" and she began rocking her body back and forth encouraging him to match the age-old rhythm. Entwining his fingers with hers, Lee began the tortuous slide in and out of her slickness, taking her to the brink of orgasm and then slowing again to let it build once more. Her head began to roll back and forth on the pillow and back arched, her hips began to grind against his pelvic bone.
"Lee please" she moaned and he knew she needed release. Letting one on her hands go, he slipped his hand between them to stroke her swollen flesh while he drove himself as deeply as he could into her body. For all his reputation as a ladies man, Lee had never actually heard a woman scream his name with release the way Amanda did at that moment and it sent him over the edge into his own climax, crying her name as he emptied into her, feeling as if he might actually pass out from the sensory overload. He collapsed into her arms, both of them trembling, both of them still feathering kisses on each other's faces as they tried to calm their raging emotions and equally racing pulses amid the aftershocks still sparking on their nerve endings.
Finally Lee pushed his weight off her, ignoring the small sound of distress she made as she felt his heat leave hers, before he moved to her side and curled her slight frame along his, reaching down to pull the covers up over their rapidly cooling bodies.
As she started to drift to sleep in post-coital exhaustion, Amanda murmured "World Series level home run, Scarecrow"
Lee flinched slightly at the use of his code name "I think I preferred it when you were screaming my name a few minutes ago."
Amanda snuggled closer and yawned. "Well, Lee made me scream his name, but Scarecrow has left me lying in the wet spot".
Roaring with laughter, Lee scooped her up and flipped her to the other side of the bed, without letting her leave the circle of his arms. Amanda smiled up at him with sleepy eyes. "Thank you. I prefer to sleep on my left side."
As Lee watched, she slipped into sleep. Burying his face in her hair, he was only a few seconds behind her, into the arms of Morpheus.