Under Covers Champion, Chapter 2
"Why Maura Isles, I do believe you are trying to sweep me off my feet," Jane slurred in a none-too-accurate Scarlet O'Hara. She stumbled and leaned precariously against Maura.
Maura sighed. Jane's ataxia was inconvenient and slightly irritating. She should have put a cap – pun intended – on Jane's alcohol intake hours ago, but she had been having such an uncharacteristically good time watching the woman proposition the bar patrons. Jane was happy. Knowing what Jane felt, unequivocally and without question, made Maura happy.
And now Jane, though happy, was shivering against her in the Boston night. Maura hesitated, weighing the merits of walking Jane to the car, or driving the car to Jane; the odds of successfully escorting Jane without one or both of them getting hurt were phenomenally low, but in the time that it would take her to get to the car and back, Jane could spend another three hundred dollars on "Don't Mess With Texas!" memorabilia. Maura had no idea what such fan fare was doing at an Exxon station in Boston, but she sometimes found that it was best to ignore details such as this and focus on the major tasks at hand. Such as how to convince Jane to put her shirt back on.
"Jane, come on, hold your arms out," Maura prodded.
Jane did not comply. Instead, she wrapped a gangly arm around Maura's shoulders and pressed her mostly-naked upper half flush against Maura's right side. In her most lighthearted husk, she said, "I like this shirt on you, Doc! Why do you keep trying to give it back to me? You're absolutely scrumptious in it!"
Why was Jane grinning at her like that? Scrumptious? Jane was never going to believe this in the morning. Suddenly the hand that had been conspicuously creeping down her back ripped away, along with the rest of Jane. The detective walked with surprising speed and precision to the black Audi across the lot, pulled the orange monstrosity over her head – Maura observed with no small amount of glee that it barely covered Jane's rib cage – and threw herself into the car.
Well, the major tasks were complete. What were all of the "Don't Mess With Texas!" shirts, mugs, caps, and Big Gulp cups doing in Boston?
Jane rolled down the passenger window and gracelessly stuck half her body out. She gestured wildly with both arms and called, "Maura! What are you doing? Come on! I want pizza." Apparently satisfied when Maura began to move her way, Jane sucked her body back in through the window, hitting her head on the way back in. Thank God for the analgesic effects of alcohol.
Maura dutifully ordered, paid for, and returned to the car with the pizza that Jane demanded. The idea of extra olives made her a bit queasy, but Jane had been true to her word when she be resolved that the four cheese and kalamata blend would be right up Maura's alley. Also up Maura's alley was the expanse of bare leg draped out the – no, no. Jane was Maura's friend. She couldn't allow Jane to continue to discard clothing as if she were allergic to it.
She knew for certain that Jane was not allergic to poly cotton blends. She had run the tests herself.
Maura rounded the car and slid into the driver's seat. She set the pizza box on top of Jane's crumpled slacks on the dash. "Jane, why have you removed your pants?"
Jane squinted at Maura intently, her dark eyebrows knit together in deep concentration. Maura had no idea what she could possibly be scrutinizing. Jane wasn't hyperopic. Jane stared through her long eyelashes for what felt like hours before sitting back and declaring, "You're very beautiful, you know?"
Then, as if the declaration was nothing more than a comment on the weather, Jane snagged a piece of pizza and tucked in. After polishing off her first piece, she reached back into the box, but pulled her hand up short: Maura watched in befuddlement as Jane picked up the little white pizza table, examined it in the dome light, then whispered conspiratorially, "I gotta keep this for later. Never know when you might need one." She lifted the pizza box and shoved the item deep into her slacks.
It was all too much for Maura Isles. What was Jane thinking? What was she feeling? Not knowing how else to respond to a barely-clad Jane Rizzoli picking olives off of the pizza and popping them into her mouth with hedonistic moans, Maura put the key into the ignition and turned onto Tremont.
Things continued to spiral out of control from there. Bored with the pizza, Jane returned to her previous fascination and began to tick off on her fingers all of the things that she found "scrumptious" about Maura. The most noteworthy on the list, in Maura's opinion, were as follows: Jane loved Maura's nose for its "sculpted, Romanesque quality;" she loved her large eyes that tried so hard to see the world around her and failed so obviously; she especially loved the full-blown smiles that Maura gave so infrequently, most notably those that resulted from a compliment that Jane had given.
When Jane turned her attention to anatomy south of Maura's neck, the doctor blushed and stopped her with a polite finger to Jane's still-moving lips. "Enough, Jane. Thank you. That is very flattering, but enough for -"
Maura stopped talking when her index finger disappeared between perfect lips. Later, she praised her luck that it had been late enough that the thoroughfare was mostly devoid of other traffic. Her attention was undeniably fixed on the woman next to her. She stared at Jane's lips, her own mouth forming a surprised 'O.'
Was Jane attracted to her? All of this – the compliments, the overindulgent touching, the innuendo that sailed strait over Maura's blonde curls until she had a moment to sort through the implications – was Jane telling her something? Maura was terrible at things like this. It was just so difficult sorting through all of this with Jane sitting there like that, small black panties and orange mid-drift tee leaving very little to the imagination. Perhaps she would test the waters a bit. She would wait for Jane to give a clear indication, something that even she couldn't misinterpret, then she would make a move.
So, as Jane swirled her tongue around the digit one last time before removing it from her mouth and kissing it, Maura decided to allow the infraction in her otherwise platonic relationship with the detective.
"I sleep with chicks," Jane said, still casually unaware of the Hiroshima-sized havoc she was wreaking on Maura's underdeveloped interpersonal skills. "I just thought you should know."
"Oh," Maura said. Was that enough of a signpost for Maura? She had to be sure. She feared her voice hadn't come off as steady as she hoped. She searched for a fact to compensate. Facts always filled the void. Maura could do facts. She seized upon a statistic, sure that it would enthrall Jane and rescue her from the finger blunder. "Did you know that 83 percent of women who sleep with other women report sexual satisfaction?"
Jane groaned and placed a hand over her eyes.
Maura frowned and rifled through her mental catalogue of appropriate social reactions. Statistics weren't what Jane wanted. What did Jane want? This was exceedingly difficult. No wonder she never did this with other people. Conversation was overrated.
"I, uh…" Maura began, then shook her head. She tried again. "Female rats exhibit homosexual behavior in… I mean, lesbianism is an animal instinct in many species. I… Jane, I don't know what to say."
Jane's face yielded a small smile. She turned fully in her seat so that her knee rested against Maura's leg. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," she said solemnly.
"Tell me what it's like," Maura said. She knew that she was treading dangerous waters. The wise thing to do would be to change the subject entirely, but Jane had brought it up, and now Maura's curiosity was eating away at her.
"Soft," Jane whispered so fast, Maura was unsure whether she was answering the question or making a private observation. "It's soft." She gently placed a hand on Maura's shoulder. "It certainly isn't anything like being with a man. With a man, it's all about power, and pushing, and proving something. With a woman, it's still about power – an exchange of power. Nothing to prove. Just softness and light and heat and wet…"
Maura chanced a quick glance at Jane. Dark brown eyes stared back at her. The hand on her shoulder shifted up to her hair and wound into the curls there. Maura's breath caught and she almost missed the turn onto her street. Was this the sign?
"You should try it sometime. With a woman, I mean."
There it was. Even Maura couldn't misinterpret that, could she?
"I'll keep that in mind, Jane," Maura said breathlessly. She had never been more grateful to see her driveway. She fumbled with the garage door opener once, twice, then hit the button and pulled in carefully. Jane's fingers were dancing up and down the back of her neck. Maura carefully applied the brakes, put the car into par, turned the key to kill the engine but leave the auxiliary components running, and grabbed a fist full of Jane's wild, dark hair.
She pulled the other woman's face to hers, cognizant of the hitch in Jane's respiration, the tightening of the fingers behind her neck. Maura had never been so frightened in her entire life. Jane's breath washed over her face, a question in every exhalation, questions that Maura wasn't sure she had answers for and even if she did, she was not sure she would answer them willingly. The nearness allowed Maura to see the rapid dilation of Jane's pupils. The physiological evidence suggested that Jane was in a state of arousal.
Still, the body's faculties could shine through inebriation, and Maura knew Jane would never have acted as she had that evening had she been sober. Her inhibitions seemed to have packed up and deserted her altogether. Would Jane remember this in the morning? If Maura kissed her now, would she be able to stop? What would Jane think of her – that she had taken liberties with an incapacitated woman, or that she had acted on true feelings and desires that had heretofore remained a secret from Maura herself? Jane's friendship was invaluable to her: Maura, having never been able to cultivate a relationship before, found herself reveling in all that was Jane. She worked hard to understand Jane, and though she usually failed utterly, Jane kept coming back. She couldn't bear it if she ruined all of that just to satisfy a night of tension and impulse. Humans, unlike animals, were able to negotiate their sexual desires.
But then Jane's tongue snaked out between her lips to wet them, and Dr. Maura Isles gave up the negotiation and pressed her lips to Jane's.