The Kitchen
"Jane!" Maura swatted the other woman's hand away from where it had been moving to tug at the strings of her apron.
"What?" Jane cried in mock-defensiveness. "I wasn't even doing anything!"
"I have to finish dipping this biscotti," Maura chided. "My mother—both of my mothers—will be here-"
"—in two days," Jane finished. "And technically I'd say all three of your mothers will be here," she said, darting around Maura to swipe her finger in the warm chocolate melting on the stove.
"Technically," Maura said, swatting at Jane's hand again, "Angela is not my mother."
"She lives in your house. She folds your laundry. She nags you about putting old socks filled with beans next to the doorjambs to keep out drafts. At this point she's more your mother than mine, so thank you for that." Jane went for another taste of chocolate, and Maura grabbed her wrist.
"Jane," she murmured in the voice that always made the hair on the back of Jane's neck stand up.
"Yes, Maura," Jane whispered.
Maura wiped her hands on a dishtowel and placed them on Jane's hips, sliding up close to her. Jane swallowed hard. "You are in my way."
"You, uh, got some chocolate on your face," Jane said, trying to pretend her mouth wasn't suddenly painfully dry.
"Not possible," Maura said sweetly. "I'm very tidy in the kitchen."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah."
Jane raised her eyebrow, shifting her hips beneath Maura's hands. She leaned in close, watched Maura's eyes slide closed. Taking advantage of the moment, she quickly stuck her finger in the chocolate pot and daubed it on Maura's cheek. "Told you."
"Jane!"
"Here, let me," Jane said, cupping Maura's face in her hands and leaning in, pausing just slightly before licking the spot of chocolate away. Maura sighed softly, her hands tensing at Jane's waist.
"Jane," she murmured again in that same velvety voice.
"Yes, Maura," Jane whispered.
"You licked my face."
"Only 'cause it had chocolate on it," Jane said defensively.
"There was only chocolate on my face because you put there," Maura shot back, trying to stifle her grin.
Jane shrugged. "Tastes better this way," she said, lightly pressing her lips to the spot.
Maura couldn't suppress her smile any longer. "Babe, I've got to get this done. Now do you want to help, or do you want to watch TV and not distract me?"
Jane pretended to think for a moment. "I want . . . to watch TV."
"Okay," Maura said. "There's beer in the fridge, and a ballgame in ten minutes."
Jane ducked in and planted a firm kiss on Maura's other cheek. "You're perfect."
"No," Maura replied, trying not to blush. "I'm a perfectionist. There's a slight but crucial difference."
"Whatever," Jane said, heading for the refrigerator. "You're perfect."
"And you," Maura said, retying the strings of her apron, "are distracting."
Jane shrugged again as she moved back across the kitchen. Long bones, she mouthed, delivering a light smack to Maura's rear and a tug on the apron strings. She chuckled at Maura's exasperated sigh, and settled on the couch.
After a monumentally dull first three innings, Jane peeked behind her to check if Maura was still attending to her preparations. She watched for a moment to make sure Maura wasn't paying attention to what she was doing, then slipped quietly off the couch and out of the room.
Maura, who always paid attention to what Jane was doing, sighed and shook her head, smiling. She suspected a deliberate distraction was imminent, and quickly finished wiping down the countertops. She had moved on to straightening out the racks of perfectly uniform biscotti when she sensed a presence behind her.
"Do I look like I'm done?" She flicked the dishtowel in the direction of Jane's ribs, but the other woman didn't say anything. Instead, she leaned in, pressing the top of her body against Maura, sliding her hands down her waist and over her hips. Jane smiled as she felt Maura shiver almost imperceptibly beneath her fingers. "I'm . . . very busy," Maura breathed, trying to twist around and face Jane, who tightened her grip on Maura's hips, working her thumbs at the small of Maura's back. "I've got a lot left to-"
"Don't turn around," Jane whispered, her voice dark and rich. "I don't want to ruin the surprise."
"What surprise?" Maura tried to sound impatient, interrupted, immune to Jane's touch, but could feel herself melting as Jane released her, placing one hand on her back briefly as a reminder to stay where she was. Maura bit her lip in anticipation, and her breath caught slightly in her throat when a thin black band appeared in front of her eyes. She focused hard on not swooning into Jane as the blindfold was arranged and tied firmly at the back of her head.
"This certainly is a surprise," she murmured, wriggling against Jane's body. She shifted her hips as Jane's hands slid back over them, and gasped lightly when she felt Jane's thumbs hooking the hem of her skirt up. She briefly wished she'd checked to make sure the doors were locked and the blinds closed, but stopped caring when she felt the soft touch of cool air on her exposed thighs.
"This . . . is also a surprise," Jane said, half-admiringly. "Why Dr. Isles, no drawers, I'm positively scandalized."
"In this skirt?" Maura couldn't help the incredulity in her voice. "Jane, visible panty lines—"
"Ugh, I hate that word," Jane cut in.
"So there's a host of reasons it's best I'm not wearing any, then." Maura reached behind her, wanted to touch Jane's body, to make her feel the same delicious sensations Jane was making her feel, but Jane caught her hand and guided it gently back to the edge of the counter. "No moving" Jane whispered.
"Okay," Maura whispered back. She gripped the edge of the counter rhythmically, flexing and contracting to match the pulse rushing through her body. Jane's hands were fluttering lightly over her skin, teasing her, Maura was holding on to the counter for dear life as she sensed Jane doing . . . something . . . behind her, something that didn't involve touching her, something that involved zippers and the soft rustle of cloth. Something that involved a sudden particular pressure, distinctly non-biological. "Oh!" she gasped, loudly enough to make Jane pause for a moment. "Don't stop," Maura said, her voice caught between a whisper and a moan.
"I haven't even started yet," Jane rumbled, her mouth so close to Maura's ear she could feel Jane's lips faintly brushing across her sensitized skin, making her knees nearly give out. Jane wrapped her arm around Maura's waist, holding her upright against the counter, crushing against her.
"Wait," Maura breathed.
"What?" Jane tensed, afraid she'd done something wrong.
"Is that the new one?"
"What?"
"The new . . . you know." Jane could feel Maura's blush, which she found infinitely amusing.
"Yes, it is the new you know," she replied, not trying to hide her snicker. "Walking in here from your bedroom was an adventure, let me tell you."
"Oh good," Maura said, her voice suddenly bright and excited. "I've been wanting to try it! I mean, you read the reviews but it's not the sort of thing you can really know for sure about until you've—"
"Maura." Jane's exasperation was tinged with adoration, but she still rolled her eyes. "Do you think we can save the product review for after we've . . . you know . . ." she drifted off meaningfully, trailing the tips of her fingers up the inside of Maura's thigh.
"Fucked?" Maura's voice shifted abruptly into a liquid, throaty growl, the kind that made Jane unable to focus on anything except the sensation of Maura pushing back into her, the heat of her body, the way she swiveled her hips, groaned and sighed faintly but didn't move, not really, the way she waited for Jane to—
"Fuck me, Jane," Maura said, the words low, feral, vibrating with desire. Then, half a second later, she seemed to catch herself. "Please," she whispered.
Jane wasn't sure how she managed to stay upright. "You are perfect," she breathed, her mouth settled next to Maura's ear, one hand brushing the soft golden hair away from her smooth neck, traveling down to the ridge of her collarbone, traversing the short distance to the swell of her breast. Maura sighed and trembled. Jane paused a moment longer, relishing Maura's barely-restrained impatience. Her hand drifted slowly over Maura's breast, cupping it briefly, before continuing downward, splaying her fingers across the span of Maura's stomach, closing her eyes to take in the tactile wonder of the thin slip of silk separating her skin from Maura's, how it amplified the heat of Maura's body.
Maura, who was whimpering in her arms, a sound both helpless and hungry, Maura, who was squeezing the countertop so hard Jane could swear she heard it cracking. Maura, who was—
"Please, Jane," she said again, almost crooned, pushed back a little more insistently against her.
"Please what, Maura?" Jane wasn't sure how she felt about asking Maura to beg, it seemed a little unlike both of them, somehow, but the way Maura was asking, the sound of her voice, was making Jane's heart beat faster and harder than anything she'd experienced, short of shooting herself in the gut.
"Please . . . please . . ." Maura was having trouble making whole words, the way Jane's hands were moving over her body, knowing that any moment Jane would thrust forward and—
Jane nuzzled Maura's neck, lifting her free hand, the one not latched around Maura's waist, to stroke her hair. "Please what, Maura?" she whispered roughly, catching a lock in her finger and twisting it just slightly. Maura shivered and jerked forward, crying out involuntarily as Jane increased the tension. "Please what?"
"Fuck me, Jane." Maura's breath was ragged, the ache in her voice sending ripples up and down Jane's whole body. "Please."
"I could do that," Jane murmured directly into Maura's ear, still twisting the lock of hair in her fingers. Maura's head tilted back, exposing the length of her throat. She bit her lip and whimpered again, arching against Jane, taut as a bowstring.
"So do it," she growled.
Jane had a vague notion that she ought to correct Maura's manners but the way her body was angled, the way her mouth was so near Jane's mouth, the way her hips were working against Jane's hips, the way her heartbeat was making her whole body tremble visibly, Jane felt such deference to propriety was hardly necessary. Slowly, carefully, she shifted her hips, not wanting to let Maura go, keeping her pressed tightly between her own body and the counter, keeping a loose handful of her hair, the way Maura sighed when Jane tugged on it slightly, the way Maura was writhing with an urgency that bordered on desperation—
"Oh God, Jane," Maura cried, her voice catching in a hundred different places. She felt as though her body would burst into flame, Jane pushing into her, Jane holding her tightly, Jane's hot breath on her neck, her cheek, Maura was certain when it was all over they'd find her fingerprints embedded in the granite countertop an inch deep. "Oh Jane, oh, oh . . ."
"Maura," Jane mumbled, or what sounded like her name. She couldn't force coherent sounds from her mouth, only half-words and fevered breath. Her body was moving on its own, without her help, it was moving with Maura's body, they were moving so intensely the biscotti were inching across the counter.
Maura gasped something unintelligible, straining hard against Jane, against the granite. Jane twisted the hand tangled in Maura's hair sharply and the resulting cry, with all its animal lust, was enough to push Jane over the edge. She clung to Maura, her mouth pressed against Maura's throat, tasting the salt of her sweat as she writhed and sighed.
They stood, supported by the complicit countertop, unwilling and unable to disentangle from each other for a long moment. Finally, Jane released Maura's hair, stroking it softly.
"So?"
"I can't-" Maura was still catching her breath—"I can't really have an informed opinion until I've done more field testing."
"Mmm?" Jane murmured, laying a path of soft kisses up and down Maura's neck.
"Rigorous testing," Maura said, reaching up for her blindfold.
"Hey now," Jane broke in, catching Maura's hand and interlacing it with her own fingers. "Nobody said you could take that off."
"But-"
"You don't want to skew your results, Doctor," Jane teased, licking Maura's earlobe. Maura shivered, grinning.
"There are a number of variables to consider, Detective," she said. "This blindfold is just one of many. Location, duration, intensity, all these things must be taken into account."
"They will be," Jane replied. "I'm nothing if not a thorough investigator."
"And what does that make me?" Maura huffed, finally turning around to face her, blindfold still in place.
"Fascinating," Jane said, glad Maura couldn't see her blushing. "Come on, Doc. We've got that review to write, and we'd better get cracking if it's going to be thoroughly researched."
"But the biscotti-"
"—is not going to enjoy this nearly as much as you will. I promise." She kissed Maura lightly, tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear, and led her out of the room.