. . .
THE WONDER AMY PARADOX
Chapter Three
Grumbling at the night, Sheldon got up and padded to the bathroom, rubbing his eyes. His bathroom schedule did not normally include midnight, and he chided himself for drinking the water and the hot chocolate immediately before falling asleep early. Or maybe it was the storm that had awakened him, for he could hear loud thunder and heavy rain pelting against the side of the building.
Closing the bathroom door was an old habit, from when he and Leonard were roommates, and it continued even now that he had officially taken over Penny's old apartment. When he finished and reopened it, it was the smell that hit him first, as strong and as spicy as his memory, but also fresh and wanting.
Wonder Amy was here.
It was an opaque night, unusually so, the moonlight that normally peaked between the blinds obscured by the heavy storm clouds outside. But it seemed even darker than it normally did when it rained. There was only the faint orange glow of the nightlight in the bathroom that travelled into the bedroom; the light it gave was weak but it was enough that he could just barely make out her silhouette.
She was standing facing him, at the end of the bed, her hands on her hips and her curled hair framing her face. Sheldon allowed his eyes to adjust to the dim and then he swallowed at the absence of the shadow of her skirt. Wonder Amy was naked.
"Sheldon," she said. Not a question.
"Wonder Amy. You came back. You're - you're not wearing your skirt."
"It was wet."
"Oh."
"So was my underwear."
He licked his lips as it occurred to him why the scent was so strong. "I apologize, I'm not sure why it's so dark in here," he said, reaching behind him for the switch to the bathroom light.
"Leave it!" Amy ordered. He dropped his hand. "It's dark because it appears all the lamps in the front of your building have been knocked out."
"By lightning?" Sheldon asked.
"It's a possibility. So are other causes."
A few seconds passed in silence, the air thick with the electricity of the storm in the room, the static rising goose bumps along Sheldon's skin.
"How long does a woman have to stand naked and wet in your bedroom before you kiss her?"
Racing, running, charging, he went to her, grabbing her face between his hands and hungrily kissing her, immediately seeking and receiving entrance for his tongue as she pressed her body against his pajamas, her hands reaching for his biceps, her cold metal bracelets sending a shiver down his spine. Her hair was damp, curling and tickling at his face as he lowered one hand down over her shoulder, down the slippery plain of her back, cupping her dampened bottom until his injured knuckles protested and still he did not let go. She was wet, all of her, everywhere. So very, very wet. Her lips, her skin, her . . .
Wonder Amy reached for his pajama top, ripping it and the undershirt underneath down the middle in one easy motion and pushing them down Sheldon's arms. He didn't bother to shake them off, still exploring the caverns of her mouth, still holding great handfuls of her rear.
Only when her hands reached inside his pajama bottoms, the other-worldly coldness of her bracelets touching him, did he throw his head back with a groan. The chill of the metal should have lessened his arousal, but it had the opposite effect. It took Wonder Amy nothing to lower the pants and Sheldon stepped out of them with ease, finally throwing off his ripped shirts, too.
Before he could reach for her again, she rotated in front of him and she leaned her back against him, the firm and generous curve of her buttocks pressing against his thighs, her arm stretching high above her, pulling his head down so that his face was buried in her hair. Her boot-covered calves shimmied between his. Sheldon wrapped one arm tight around her, spreading his palm over her stomach. "You're not naked. You're wearing your boots," he murmured into her mane.
"I know."
"I can't see you like this."
"I know."
No solution was offered, although she did allow Sheldon to pull her hair away from her neck so that he could bury his nose there, feeling her pulse under the rivet of rain that had formed in the hollow. "Wonder Amy," he said, his voice hoarse with desire.
The lasso was nowhere in sight, and Sheldon relished the opportunity to let his hands roam free over her body as his lips kissed and sucked upon the hot flesh of her neck. There were her broad hips and her soft abdomen, the shiver she gave when his fingertips skirted over her navel, the sinewy strength of her biceps when his hand travelled up them, the soft swell of her breasts, heavy and smooth as he cupped them.
He didn't know where it came from, but once the thought formed he could not send it away. Dr. Fowler's breasts. The curve of them, almost hidden beneath her cardigan and the blouse she wore. Unknowable. And, yet, he'd touched them, even if it was accidental. But they weren't soft . . . Her chest had been hard, rigid, almost as though her bra were made of metal. How odd -
"Sheldon? Why don't you continue?" Wonder's Amy voice pulled him back.
"I - I -" He buried his unspeakable answer in another wet kiss of her shoulder, resuming the squeezing of her breasts, throbbing at the sound of her moan as he pinched her nipples.
"Touch me." Sheldon snaked a hand down her body again, toying with the coarse hair there before slipping his fingers into her cavern, holding her steady as she groaned and bucked into him. His eyes almost rolled back into his head at the feeling there. She was so ready and ripe for him, and he had no difficultly in repeating those actions he knew she enjoyed.
"I can't wait," Wonder Amy gasped as she pulled away from him, throwing herself forward toward his bed, catching herself on her forearms, her bottom above her knees at it caught every bit of light in the room except where it dipped down into the darkness of her - "Sheldon, come!"
He had not needed the order to take the step up behind her, his knees hitting the edge of the bed as he held her hip with one hand and found his way into her with other. Again, a matching sound rumbled out of both of their throats as he sank into her even as he tried to go slow now that he was in control. "Deeper!" Wonder Amy growled and he pushed all the way, throwing his head back at the ecstasy of being consumed whole by her. The only thing better was pulling back and doing it all over again. And again. And again.
They were both panting hard, and the dampness of her skin only amplified the sound of his thighs smacking into her bottom with each thrust. "Oh, Amy," he groaned, suddenly stopping, trying to gather himself, trying to prevent his climax from coming too soon.
"Don't stop! Faster!"
So Sheldon drove on, faster, harder, gripping her hips tightly as he pounded out the frustrations of his day - waking up without her, Leonard and Penny doubting him, the teasing at the lunch table, the disastrous introduction to Dr. Fowler, the grilling by Mrs. Davis, even Leonard's comment about his chances with women - and then it came, this time red like fire, pouring out of him like molten lava and he yelled out "Amy!" before he collapsed against her back.
Resting there, the damp skin of her spine against his cheek, he listened their breathing, the only sounds in the room mixing with the sound of the vicious wind lashing against the building outside. It had been so furious he felt completely void of energy, of strength. This was nothing like last night, this was -
"Touch me! I was close!" Wonder Amy growled beneath him, and Sheldon pushed himself upright again, his legs weak and wobbly.
She didn't move or change position, and Sheldon looked at her prone form. "Like this?" he asked, running his tongue along his dried mouth. "But I can't see you."
"I couldn't see you."
Sheldon shrugged slightly. That was true. He reached out and ran his palm gently down her full bottom, letting his fingers curl slightly around its curve.
"Now!"
Quickly, he stopped his adoration of her and dipped his hand down where she wanted it and she hissed long and loud at his touch. "Is that good?" he asked in puzzlement.
"Yes! Don't stop!"
He rested his free hand on her hip to brace himself as he explored her again, his fingers slipping and sliding in the saturated spaces of her. Wonder Amy moaned deeply and bucked away from him when his thumb made contact with her most sensitive spot. "Hold me tight," she said, "around my waist."
Putting a knee up on the edge of the bed, Sheldon angled over her, wrapping his arm under her waist, gripping the soft flesh of her side. "Is this too hard?"
"No. It's good."
Holding her fast, he tried to draw her pleasure out of her in a deliberate pace and fashion, not wanting to rush it for her. He'd already rushed it once. Again, he heard the reverberations from her throat, exotic and foreign sounds rolling out of it as she strained against his arm in what he assumed was satisfaction.
And yet he wasn't entirely sure. A sudden flash of lightening from the storm outside almost blinded him and he could, in the white-hot light, see her clearly for the first time, her hands clawing at the comforter, her back arching and trying to pull from the yoke of both his arm and his fingers deep inside her, her hair tangled and wild around her head. She looked savage, as though she'd been caught in a trap, caged for this amusement.
Something about it almost turned his stomach and he was just about to drop her, when her roar filled the room at the same time as peal of thunder, an barrage of sound composed of both glutting and anger. Sheldon stayed with her, holding her, letting her ride it out, but, as soon as her last note died, he dropped his arms away from her, falling with most of his body on the bed next to her, everything below his knees hanging off the edge.
Wonder Amy did not stretch and lie down next to him; instead she stayed in her animalistic posture, heaving in the dark of the storm. If it any been anyone else, he would not have understood how they had the strength to hold themselves upright.
Sheldon reached for her hair, touching the entangled locks, softly tugging, trying to pull it away so he could see her face. "Amy?" he ventured softly. "Are you alright? You seemed . . ." He was at a loss to explain it to her.
She pulled away sharply, suddenly standing next to the bed in that way she had. Sheldon had to prop himself up on his elbows to see her, and even then it was only her silhouette against the blackness of night.
"That was most satisfactory." But it was not the tone of the night before. It felt thorny and complex.
Turning, she marched quickly out his bedroom, still naked, to the front room, even darker than the bedroom, and she shut the door behind her with a loud thud.
"Amy?" Sheldon called, sitting up now, but there was whooshing sound in the apartment, the wind inside as opposed to outside, and a flash of light under the door.
Pulling himself up and running, he threw open the door and yelled, "Amy!"
But she was gone.
Sheldon stood, helpless and practically blind in the living room, just past the door, next to the bookcase, waiting for her to return in whatever magical way she had of bypassing his locked apartment door. Surely she'd come back and dry herself with one his fluffy bath towels and cuddle next to him in bed for warmth. She'd take off her tiara and her bracelets, and it would make sense.
But the longer Sheldon stood there, as the storm outside abated and the sky in the living room window lightened, the more convinced he became that she wasn't going to return, that she never intended to stay the night. He shuffled back into the bedroom, almost stumbling over his ripped pajamas on the floor, but he ignored them to crawl back into his bed and pull the covers up over him again.
Last night, she had said that she did not wish to leave. But it was so obvious she wanted to leave tonight, that she was almost scrabbling to get away. Last night, she had been careful, purposeful, making sure he was comfortable with everything she wanted to do. Although it was true he'd willingly enjoyed the pleasure of her body tonight, never once had she asked for his opinion, for his own desires. Even when he tried to throttle his speed for her, even when he wanted to softly adore her body in foreplay, she'd ordered him on, ever faster.
There had been almost no words. While she had not been verbose the night before, either, she'd said something important. She'd shared, however obliquely, a burden with him. She'd revealed something too heavy for even her strong and capable shoulders to constantly carry. He'd seen through the gap in her armor last night, but tonight he'd not even seen her face.
It was not what Sheldon wanted. Sheldon wanted that moment when they gazed at each other, flushed and whole, and something with more power than even the woman wrapped about him passed between them. They had been joined by some cosmic force, something greater than their physical joining, something greater than anything Sheldon had ever known.
He had kissed her forehead not out of lust or even thankfulness for what she'd done with him, but rather as a consecration of that higher plane they had shared. The kiss on her forehead was supposed to be promise of a beginning. Sheldon felt complete and cherished and he wanted her to feel that way, too.
Tonight, though, in the dark and the abating storm, he felt only raw and used.
With a growl, he sat up in bed. He was going to sleep on the couch in the living room. He couldn't sleep or turn his memories off where he was. Wonder Amy's smell was suspended everywhere in the room.
To be continued . . .
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