Plot Summary: Taylor's idea of a romantic getaway comes with a twist, and a game.
Author's Notes: Inspired by Mercsilla's prompt (Wash/Taylor - Catch) over at the terranovafanfic LJ Community, and it spiralled from there! Thanks to Inu-midoriko for the beta.
Wash would usually consider being led blindfolded to a surprise location a romantic gesture, but there was one problem. "Nathaniel, you do know that the blindfolder is usually expected to hold the hand of or otherwise guide the lucky woman in some way, right?
Her answer was a chuckle, and a crunch of pebbles off to her right. She turned in that direction and started moving carefully forward, prodding the ground for obstacles. The jungle floor was becoming rockier and if she wasn't mistaken, squidgier in places. "I cannot believe you're administering a survival exercise on our date."
"I just want you to appreciate the beauty of the place with all your senses, Wash," he said, and she could hear his smirk. "Where are we?"
"Twelve clicks into Don't Have A Clue valley, sir." She toed the ground around her feet. Definitely squidgy. "Somewhere near water. If I slip in this moss and fall on my ass, you're not getting any piece of it this afternoon. Just so we're clear."
"Don't be such a grouch. It'll be worth it. And since you guessed right about the water, here's your first reward." She heard the rustle of his clothing and felt his body heat a moment later, breath ghosting over her lips. She reached out to touch him but he ducked under her hands and dropped to his knees. She felt his fingers working at her bootlaces. "What do you think you're do - hey!"
He lifted her foot up to pull her boot off and she grabbed for his shoulders to maintain balance. One of his hands slid up her calf to steady her - then a little further for good measure. He squeezed her thigh before tugging off her sock and moving on to her other boot. Behind the blindfold, she rolled her eyes. "Hands, mister. I haven't decided if I like this surprise that much yet."
She felt his lips press against the inner skin of her other thigh and bit back a smile. "Lips count too."
"Well you are just no fun today." Taylor lowered her foot to the ground and caught her by the waist to pull himself up, fingers brushing against bare skin as her tank rode up. "That was strictly for leverage," he informed her as she raised an eyebrow at him.
"Mm hmm." Now barefoot, she wriggled her toes against the ground and found dry, slate rock crusted with damp algae. "Are we near some falls?"
"You'll see. Now keep moving." She heard the scrape of his boots moving off ahead, and followed gingerly.
The ground was warm, and relatively free of sharp edges, though she did wince once or twice when she trod on a few larger stones. She felt like a little kid, recklessly climbing around the rock pools barefoot - at least before their beach had been closed off due to chemical pollution. She didn't think they were near the sea, but her nose could definitely detect water now, and something else she couldn't put her finger on.
The puzzle was actually starting to get fun. Not that she was going to admit that, of course.
She was just edging around a large boulder when she felt Taylor moving to block her. Stopping without touching him - ha - she waited for his move.
"Where are we?" he asked again.
Wash paused, smelling the air and feeling the ground with the pads of her feet. Still the same. She still couldn't place the smell. But then her ears picked up something - moving water, but not fast enough to be a river or heavy enough to be a big fall. Maybe a stream, or...
"A pool," she guessed. "No, a spring. Nearby, but below us."
"Not bad," Taylor murmured, and she shivered. She hadn't felt him move behind her. He brushed his lips over the back of her neck and eased down the straps of her backpack, letting it fall to the ground. Then his arms encircled her waist and drew him back against her.
"You're not wearing your shirt," she said breathlessly, as his mouth pressed more firmly and she felt the touch of his tongue.
"Nope." He nipped gently at the crook of her neck, and then pulled her tank up over her head in one smooth motion without giving her a chance to resist. "Neither are you."
"Was that reward for me, or for you?" she asked. Trying to inject sarcasm into her words was difficult when his rough hands were back to roaming over her bare skin and he resumed his attention to her neck. "Can I take the blindfold off now?"
"That comes last," he told her in a mock-chiding tone. "Obviously."
"Oh, obviously. Don't I at least get an extra reward for knowing your shirt was gone?"
"I didn't ask you what I was wearing." He gave her jaw a lingering kiss and then stepped back, giving her a playful shove forward. "Onward, lieutenant."
Wash hesitated. "You're not going ahead?"
Amused. "Just keep going straight. I'll be right behind you."
Sensing a trick, Wash proceeded with extreme caution, testing every step before taking it. The ground was becoming riddled with cracks, and the sparse grass even sparser, drier, whip-like strands catching at her ankles as she passed by. The sound of water became louder, until she could tell she was close to at least one source of the spring - a small fall, trickling more than running. The smell became stronger, and warm air stirred her hair. A break in the canopy perhaps, letting the sun and wind greet her. Except...
Her train of thought was interrupted when suddenly the ground under her forward foot disappeared. She stopped moving immediately, then checked to the right and left to see if it was just a larger crack. It wasn't, so she carefully dipped her foot into the empty air to check if it was a short drop or ledge. Nothing. She hovered at the edge, waiting to see what Taylor had planned next.
For a second, she thought he was going to leave her to figure it out, that she had missed something. Then she felt his hands on her hips, his legs planted either side of hers. She felt his feet brush hers and realised they were now both barefoot.
"Where are we?" he asked, voice rumbling in her ear. She grinned as he nuzzled her hair, and laced her fingers through his.
"On the edge of a cliff. Directly above our destination, I assume." She tightened her grip on his hands and squeezed warningly. "And so help me, if you even think about pushing me in, you're coming with me."
He laughed. "Would I dare?"
She tipped her head back in the direction of his voice and found his lips. "Yes," she retorted, before catching him in a clumsy kiss. This was one thing that still worked damn well while blindfolded. He corrected her angle and she sighed happily, parting her lips under his and bringing a hand up to his jaw to hold him still.
He used his free hand to unbutton her pants and push them down over her hips, drawing her back a step to let her get her feet out. She felt them disappear and broke off the kiss to look uselessly down at the ground, feeling around for them. "Did they just fall into the water down there?"
"Ah." He leaned forward over her shoulder to look somewhere below them. "Sorry about that. I guess you'll have to stay like this until they dry."
"I packed a spare pair."
"I unpacked them to make room for the towels and swim gear." Taylor grunted as she gave him a kick in the shin. "Well, I couldn't tell you where we were going, so I had to switch a few things up when you were done."
Wash smirked. "And you decided I could do without clothes?"
"I usually think you could do without clothes." He grinned against her skin as he kissed her shoulder. "All right. Now you wait here."
"Until?"
"Until I tell you to move." There was a general rustling and scraping as (she assumed) Taylor gathered up their packs, and then his footsteps told her he was moving downwards and to her left. She folded her arms and tapped a finger lightly against her skin, waiting.
After a few minutes she started feeling fidgety and decidedly silly, standing there in her underwear with no clue what was going on. Her skin was starting to prickle with the heat, sweat forming tiny ticklish curls at her hairline. She toed the edge of the precipice again, noting the warmth of the stone and the slight dampness. The rocks must have been filled with fissures, all seeping water. She wondered how deep it went, or if the fissures were any bigger underwater. She'd confessed to Nathaniel how much she'd love to go underwater cave diving, but she had been sure there were no such places nearby. Still, he had a knack for surprising her.
"Still there, Wash?"
"Don't pretend you can't see me." He was below her, his voice raised but clearly not muffled by anything between them. She heard splashing, indicating he was moving through water but not swimming. The noise eventually stopped directly in front of her. "Are we playing blindfolded tag now, sir? Am I supposed to come and catch you?"
"Actually, I'm going to do the catching." Oh, he sounded far too pleased with himself. "Jump, Wash."
Her jaw dropped, and she shook her head, laughing. "I'm not jumping, sir."
"You don't trust me?"
"What happened to the guessing game?"
"You get your last guess when you're down here with me."
She turned her head to the left, where she'd heard him start to descend. "I could find my way down, if I was careful. Or I could just take the blindfold off, since you're too far away to stop me."
"You could, but that wouldn't be any fun."
"I think you're having too much fun."
"Not yet." He dropped his voice an octave, and Wash's stomach did a flip at the suggestiveness of his tone. "You didn't answer me. Don't you trust me?"
She tapped her foot, pretending to contemplate the question while trying to gauge how far down he could be. Not too far - he wasn't shouting, although he didn't sound directly below her - he was a little further out. She'd have to take a run up for a bit of forward momentum. And he sounded like he'd positioned himself dead in front of her. Still, without her eyes she couldn't tell exactly, and if she missed then she risked, not injury, but definitely wounded dignity and probably smacking into the water rather painfully.
"Think any longer on it and you're going to start hurting my feelings."
Oh the other hand, jumping blind into the unknown would be quite an adrenalin rush. Maybe she'd even get the advantage on him when she was down there. "Permission to drown you if you drop me, sir?"
"Permission granted to do whatever the hell you want with me, Wash." More than suggestive, this time.
Well. In that case.
Wash took a deep breath and gauged his nearness as best she could, then counted a few strides back. She heard a little more sloshing as he shifted to match her angle. Took another breath, tensed her muscles and took a running leap towards him.
Her breath left her with a whoosh as she left the ground behind her. For a moment she felt like she left her heart and stomach behind her in midair as she fell through nothing, into nothing, with only the air rushing up past her to let her know which way she was angling her body and no way to know if she had angled it right...
And then strong hands caught her around her waist and she gasped, grabbing onto Nathaniel as they both rocked, her trying to find some way to balance with the wind knocked out of her and him trying to steady himself under her. When he had his feet he lowered her swiftly into the water. She braced herself for the shock of cold water and instead felt an intoxicating warmth surround her.
"Hot spring," she breathed.
"Surprise."
He stilled, expecting her to put her feet down. She instead wrapped her legs around his waist, letting the water support her weight and grinning from the adrenalin thrill currently singing through her body. "My reward for doing that had better be a good one."
"Guessing it was a hot spring? Kind of an easy one now you're in it."
"You made the rules, not me." Wash leaned forward until her nose brushed his. He tipped his face up to guide her to his mouth and she tasted the water on his lips, his chin, his throat. He groaned quietly as she licked the droplets from his skin. She felt his hand slide up through her hair and flick the knot of the blindfold open with a few deft moves.
The fabric slid away and she shook out the tendrils of hair that had been stuck to it, rubbing her nose which now itched. Blinking to adjust to the light, she looked around.
It wasn't full daylight that greeted her - which might have blinded her after so long in darkness - but a soft luminous light, from a sun dappled, jade green pool shaded by rich grey-brown rock walls. The shifting patterns of light rippled across the water in gold and silver, and reflected in blue and purple on the stone surrounding them. The floor was part sand, part slate, and the particles sparkled up through the perfectly clear water. There were a number of natural paths and handholds in the walls for coming up and down, but as far as she could tell there were in a wide part of a shallow canyon, no doubt worn down by the spring over years. It was secluded, well sheltered and stunning, not to mention deliciously warm.
"It's perfect," she told Nathaniel, before winding her arms around his neck and kissing him thoroughly.
He fisted his hand in her hair and slid his other hand up her spine, holding her steady against him as he moved through the water towards the bank. Soon the rough shelf scraped her back and she broke away with a sharp hiss. She wriggled against him warningly, and smirked against his cheek when she felt him hard against her, a clear reason for his haste. She gave his ear a gentle nip in punishment anyway. Nathaniel ran his hand apologetically over the sore spot and used the hand in her hair to coax her head back. She obliged, and moaned when his beard scraped her jaw, the sensation soothed by his lips and tongue.
She let him unwind her legs from his waist and she dropped deeper into the water. The heat was utterly decadent, and she briefly submerged fully. As she rose Nathaniel slicked her hair back with his hands and then caught her at the waist, biceps bulging as he lifted her onto the shelf of the pool edge. She braced her arms on the warm, slick rock, dangled her legs in the water and smiled down at him. He was completely naked. It was a damn good view.
From the way his eyes roamed over her glistening body, her wet hair trailing rivulets of water over her cleavage, her soaked underwear (suddenly she didn't care whether she still had spares of those), he was equally pleased by the scenery.
He hoisted himself up onto the ledge beside her - god, his muscles moving under wet skin like that was just too good - and opened one of the backpacks to pull a towel out. Wash lifted herself up so he could throw it under her. It was standard military issue - black, thin, and rough - but it would keep her from getting a nasty friction burn she'd have to lie about to Elizabeth later.
She unhooked her bra and slid it off, then shimmied out of her underwear. Nathaniel caught them and tugged them off her ankles before he pushed her down onto the towel and cupped her breast in one hand, thumb brushing over her taut nipple as he kissed her. She shuddered, arching into his touch. The warm water cooling on her skin brought out goosebumps, heightening every brush of his fingers to a delicious intensity. His other hand was back in her hair, holding her steady to kiss her with bruising force. Wash gripped his jaw with both hands and encouraged him on, parting her lips to let him take more. When he settled his weight over her she groaned in satisfaction, tilting her hips to accommodate him, grinding slowly against his.
She loved this, being pinned beneath the hard ground and the solidness of his body, his tongue sweeping hungrily against hers, neither of them wanting to stop for breath. There was something so very luxurious about having the freedom to do this all day.
Well, she amended hastily as he thrust harder against her and pleasure spiked through her lower body, for as long as either of them could hold out.
Today that wasn't very long. The tension in her body wound to a fever pitch as he moved against her again, and again, harder each time, until she was crying out and writhing under him.
When Nathaniel pulled back she pushed herself up and moved with him as he shifted to the pool's edge and slipped back down into the water. He barely found a foothold before he tugged Wash urgently to him. Lifting her legs over his hips again, she leaned back on her hands, arching her lower body against his. She didn't need any preparation. He shifted, grasped her hips and lifted her off the shelf entirely as he entered her.
Wash dropped her head back with a gasp at the intrusion, heat flooding her in more ways than one. Her thigh muscles trembled as she gripped him for balance, her fingers splayed wide behind her. Her focus narrowed like a laser to the sharp, perfect fullness of him inside her.
He moved slowly at first, rolling his hips into hers, holding her steady with his hands. Wash clenched down on him as he pushed in, let go with a whimper when he withdrew.
"Wash, look at me. Please." She obeyed, biting her lip at him as her eyes strayed to his mouth, his eyes, the muscles flexing in his arms and torso as he moved inside her, the droplets of water on his chest and shoulders...anything to distract her from the urge to squeeze her eyes shut at the pleasure building where they were joined.
"Faster," she begged.
Nathaniel made a harsh noise and leaned forward, bracing his arms on the rock either side of her and increased the pace. Wash hooked her ankles together behind him and used the leverage to meet his fevered thrusts harder. Her arms gave out and she dropped back onto her elbows, brushing his wrists with her fingertips. He leaned closer, ghosting his lips over her jaw, her ear, her lips, then rested his forehead against hers. Slowing with a groan, then speeding up roughly - he was close, they both were. Sliding a hand round to his back, Wash pulled him tight against her and squeezed her inner muscles harder. He faltered, swearing and she grinned, doing it again, bringing them both to the edge of ecstasy and then relinquishing. His eyes met hers and she noted the wicked glint in them before he ground his hips in a circle, hitting the sweet spot inside her perfectly.
"Oh god." Her body thrummed with sensation and she fell onto her back, stretching one arm above her head to grapple for purchase against the rock, the other hand pressing against Nathaniel's spine. He dropped his head to her breastbone and kissed, nipped, scattering love bites over her skin. He withdrew and thrust into her again and when she dug her heels into his lower back, he moved faster, pounding into her without mercy as she approached her peak.
Wash came a split second before he did, or maybe her body spasming around him brought him over the edge. Either way, it was a very good thing they were twelve clicks away from anyone who might hear them. She clenched her fingers in the rock for purchase and rode the wave of blistering pleasure until she was panting and trembling. For a sweet, long moment, she felt like she was back in free fall, waiting for Nathaniel to catch her.
When they came down to earth, Nathaniel grazed her breast with his mouth and pulled himself up on shaky arms, collapsing on the shelf beside her. Wash rolled over to rest against him, running her fingers over his ribcage. She smiled lazily as she felt his heart going a mile a minutes, and kissed him just there. He shifted with a sigh, closing his eyes and she watched him, content for the moment to lay like this though she was dying to go for a real swim in that magnificent pool. They had the whole day off. Plenty of time.
"We should probably try to find your pants at some point," he murmured.
"Oh. Those." Yes, they should. It wouldn't really do for her to wander back into the colony in a bikini, modest as hers was. Although she suspected it wouldn't matter to certain people who knew her and Taylor well enough to guess what they were doing on their day off - they knew what the date was.
Nathaniel opened his eyes and looked down at her. "So. Happy anniversary?"
Wash grinned and kissed his chin. "It's not shaping up badly so far."
He raised his eyebrows. "So far?"
"Well, I did have a few ideas of my own. Do you want to know what I packed instead of your spare clothes?"