It took a little longer to get this one out, but it also wound up being twice as long as the last two, so I guess that's a fair trade?

I also wanted to have more of the fourth chapter done, so the upside is that I should have the next up in much less time. Yay!

Anyway, I really appreciate all the great feedback and comments you guys have been sending my way. It's great to see that kind of supportive response from a still fledgling fandom. :D It's also great to see some familiar faces are still reading my work, too! You guys all rock.

Anyway, I hope you guys like this new chapter!

$4$

He says, "What you heard is true but I
Can't stop thinking about you tonight."
I said, "I been there too a few times."

3.

The next time, it only happened because of Dr. Wells.

Indirectly, of course. He was trying to build S.T.A.R. Labs' reputation back up again, even though she thought it was a bit of a lost cause at this point. Caitlin wouldn't say that to him, so she put on her nicest cocktail dress and heels and went along with it.

It took less time to go back to pretending things were normal with Barry this time, and she couldn't tell if that was a good or bad sign. She was fairly certain he wanted to talk about it this time, but didn't know how to bring it up without risking upsetting her.

Which was good, because she didn't want him to bring it up.

Apparently, Barry's only suit was the tux from his prom, so he went with Cisco to find something appropriate, which got them both out of her hair for the day at least. When they came back, though, she almost wished he had stuck with the old tux, because seeing him in an actual fitted suit was doing funny things to her head. And lower parts, too.

He wasn't fairing much better at least, if that dark stare he sent her way when she first walked in was anything to go by. She had to repress a smug smile so no one would notice.

Luckily, Barry's best friend, Iris, was in attendance, along with her—his? Their?—dad and that generically handsome boyfriend whose name Caitlin kept forgetting. It didn't help that Cisco kept referring to him as Police Officer Ken at the lab. She couldn't deny that was an accurate nickname as far as Cisco's creativity was concerned.

Iris truly was a stunning young woman, and Caitlin could see why Barry was so taken with her. Even when she was at her best, before she became angry and broken, she never had that kind of inner light, that confidence. Now, of course, was too late for her.

Watching Iris light up a room wasn't easy, but she was too old and far too experienced to let it get to her beyond the initial sting. She couldn't control it, and she wasn't going to try.

Barry kept glancing at Police Officer Ken—Eddie—and she could practically see the self-doubt reflected in his eyes. Eddie was kind of a hard person to compete with on paper, but Barry was fortunate enough to more than just that in reality, though.

Taking pity on her superhero sadsack—and no, she didn't mean that in the possessive sense—she stayed a little closer to him than what might be considered socially acceptable.

He didn't outwardly acknowledge her decision, but he didn't seem to mind, either. Every time Iris adjusted Police Officer—Eddie's—tie, or he pressed a kiss to her cheek, Caitlin could feel Barry lingering close to her side, the fabric of his suit brushing against the bare skin of her back and wreaking havoc on her nervous system.

The night might have been otherwise uneventful, if not for Eddie. Specifically, his decision to ask Joe for Iris' hand in marriage at the party when she went to get a refill. Oh, and he did that in front of Barry.

Joe didn't look pleased to begin with, but Barry didn't stick around to hear the answer. In the end, neither did Caitlin. In that moment, she could have opted to stay out of his business and left him to brood alone.

She didn't do that, of course, because apparently she felt some kind of bizarre urge to comfort him even when it was against her better judgment.

She blamed the orgasms.

She knew he wouldn't be heading for the bar—it's not like they would have anything to drown his sorrows in—but she didn't know this particular hotel well. Barry could have easily used his powers to take off and leave everyone in the dust, but he didn't do that. She was able to follow behind him easily, almost like he knew she was there.

He ducked into a restroom and she came up short. She hadn't anticipated him hiding in the bathroom, which in retrospect was a pretty gaping error on her part. Still, she had resolved to check on him, and she wasn't going to let something as trivial as a bathroom get in her way, so she kept walking and shoved the door open before logic could get in her way.

It was one of those handicapped-accessible/family restrooms, with one big stall as the whole room. Blinking, she stopped short again in the doorway. She had made a tactical error on that one.

Barry had known she was following behind him, because the moment she was in the room, the door was shut and locked. She didn't bother turning around to check—she heard the sound, and even if she wanted to, she couldn't, really, not with Barry suddenly standing inches from her.

Caitlin recognized that pain in his eyes all too well. She saw it every morning when she looked in the mirror. There might have been a different cause for his hurt, but it was there and she knew it to see.

"Hey," he murmured, tipping his head forward until they were inches away.

"Hi," she whispered back, studying his face as she fought the urge to squirm under his steady gaze.

"Are we still doing this thing?" he asked softly, and she could feel her fingers sink into the soft leather of her purse. He looked so solemn, so serious. "Are we—can we still—"

He broke off before he could finish the sentence, the thought, but the intention was there, hanging heavily in the air. It was the first time either of them had attempted to verbally acknowledge it, and she could feel the weight settling in her bones.

Barry had shed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves in the ten seconds it had taken her to walk in, and the look was certainly working for him. Or maybe it was just working for her.

Twice so far she had used him for sex, without thought to his feelings or any other consequences. That definitely made her a not good person, but Barry was the opposite. Too good, really.

He deserved to do a little using for once.

She allowed him a tiny smile, just enough of a curve of lips and a flash of teeth and then he was already closing the distance.

Making out in a hotel bathroom should have been disgusting, but it wasn't, not when he was cradling her jaw with both hands, kissing her so thoroughly that she could feel it down to her toes. Sometimes being used wasn't such a bad thing.

Her back bumped against the door, and she gasped when the cold metal hit her skin. Barry had already taken advantage of the opportunity presented, deepening the kiss until her gasp turned into a whimper.

Her hands were wrapped around his wrists, having already dropped her purse at some point. She felt a little like she could sink to the floor, but she wasn't so oblivious as to actually go through with it.

He broke away for a second, panting. "You look stunning, by the way."

She was flushed from their kissing, but at his earnest comment, she could feel herself blush for real. She let go of one wrist, reaching out to wind her fingers around his tie and yank him closer again. "You don't need to flirt with me, Barry," she replied lightly. "We've already had sex before."

Even though she was mostly joking with him, he frowned. "It's not flirting, it's the truth," he replied simply, his thumb brushing from the slope of her cheek down to the corner of her mouth. "You're stunning."

Caitlin could feel her blush deepen and her skin go prickly. She didn't need him to tell her that she was pretty—she knew she could be attractive when the occasion called for it—and she didn't need him coming in and sending her emotions into overdrive for no reason.

Barry's eyes narrowed, and there was a new determined glint in his eyes that hadn't been there before, quickly replacing the sadness. Caitlin couldn't tell if that boded very well or very bad for her.

He kissed her, with a little more force than she was used to from him. She probably shouldn't have been used to anything when it came to him, but then his teeth dragged along the edge of her lip and she figured she could always worry about that later. Much, much later.

As much as his strange burst of dominance had her head spinning and struggling to keep up, her hands did not suffer from such issues. She made quick work of both his vest and button-down—the little buttons on his shirt were tricky, but no match for her superior muscle memory—but before she could do much more than push the fabric open, Barry was batting her hands away.

"You're never willing to listen to me." He broke away long enough to scold her, no real anger in his voice but that same determination in his eyes.

Pressing her lips together, Caitlin stopped herself from arguing with him, but only barely.

"You don't listen to me, either," she shot back. Well, that lasted long.

Her almost involuntary response seemed to amuse him, if his dangerous smirk was any indication. He leaned in close enough that their noses touched, but he made no move to kiss her again. "This is about you tonight," he replied slowly, carefully enunciating each word. "Not me."

Barry hadn't even said anything particularly scandalous, but her body was reacting as if he did. She felt out of breath, her pulse was stuttering, and she could feel her heartbeat thudding erratically in her ears. What in the hell was he doing to her?

"What if I don't feel like listening?" she asked. Even pinned against a door and more turned on than she ever had a right to be, she still refused to back down from a challenge. So far, challenging Barry hadn't ended too poorly in her favor.

That appeared to be the exact right question to ask. He smirked, and she tried not to laugh along with him. She mostly failed.

"Too bad," he murmured, now close enough that their lips brushed together and sent nervous jolts up and down her spine. She jerked her chin forward, a tad too eager to kiss him back, but he dodged too quickly and she was left looking at nothing but air.

Her brain had trouble keeping up—he was too fast, too damned fast for her lust-addled thoughts—but she felt her—admittedly shorter than normal—skirt get pushed up. She only jerked a little as she glanced down, blinking at Barry, who was now on his knees in front of her.

So that's where he went.

Because she was an idiot and a masochist by nature, the protest tumbled from her lips before she could think twice. "Barry, you don't need to—"

"Caitlin," he countered easily. She could already feel his fingers curling around the edges of her panties. Her stomach flipped. Thank god she'd decided against stockings tonight.

"You're not listening again."

Her protestations died on her lips, caught somewhere between embarrassment and selfishness. She was proud of her sexuality, for the most part—that said, she couldn't say a man had ever offered to do this, in what was basically a public bathroom, without needing to be asked.

It was a fairly unique situation, to say the least.

She could feel his fingers on her hips, which only reminded her of the pulse between her thighs, which was only growing more insistent as he continued staring up at her with that earnest determination in his eyes… Really, it was amazing she had held out this long.

His smile ticked up a little, eyes softening, like he already knew what she was thinking. "Okay?" he asked.

She was about ready to melt into the floor. Chewing on her bottom lip, she nodded once.

She couldn't watch him as he tugged her—lacy, extremely impractical—panties down her legs. Her whole body was shaking, trembling with the effort to stay standing and not just take a tumble in her silly stilettos. At any moment, she was afraid she'd do something truly embarrassing like moan his name for some reason.

She expected more reluctance, more preamble at first. But this was Barry, and for all his smarts, he was very much act-first-think-later with his decisions.

Not always a bad call, in retrospect.

The sudden sensation caught her off guard, and if not for her teeth digging into her bottom lip, her whimper would have been much louder. It might have been loud, actually, but she couldn't seriously be expected to pay such close attention to as unimportant things as volume.

He didn't seem startled by her reaction, or the way her body jerked in surprise as he pressed more insistently against a sensitive bundle of nerves. His left hand simply curled around her hip, anchoring her in place, while his other found her own hand, fingers lacing together reassuringly. They shared that unexpected comfort for a moment, and then his teeth scraped along her skin, lighting up her nerves, and she whimpered loudly.

Caitlin tried not to moan his name too much, but it wasn't easy when he seemed determined to drive her insane. He had no problem shifting her thigh, opening her up without shame to reach exactly the right angle she didn't know she needed. She had knocked her head back against the door at some point, and she didn't realize until the blurry grey and white shapes morphed into ceiling tiles.

His tongue came into play at some point, and he apparently knew just what to do to send her reeling. Not fair, really. Though she was pretty sure it wasn't fair for her to be crushing his hand in response, but he didn't slow down or stop so that's really all that was important.

It felt like her brain was running in too many different places at the same time. She had the random thought that Iris was insane to pick Eddie—Barry didn't even like her all that much, and yet he had her practically crawling out of her skin in a few minutes—hours?—just to prove a point.

Iris definitely made a bad call on that one.

He was doing something—something that she was almost positive involved his powers again, powerful enough to scramble her senses but at a speed that was just slow enough to leave her confused and panting.

She had whimpered his name, once, when he added a little more vibration. Once she did, of course, she couldn't stop—not surprising, she was the one that opened the door in the first place, and she wasn't making any attempts to close it—chanting his name over and over until it was the only word her mouth could form.

Her free hand had wound in his hair—not tight, no, that would be her grip on his hand—and he increased tempo once more. She was pretty sure he was encouraging her, moving her closer to her goal, but in fact it felt like he was trying to kill her. By orgasm.

At least it'd be a hell of a way to go out.

She wasn't sure how long he kept this up—probably not long, she was unbelievably close—but he managed to coax her into a slow, prolonged orgasm that stole her breath away along with what shreds of common sense she had left. It wasn't the most powerful one she'd ever experienced, but it was just strong enough to unwind the knots in her muscles and make her limbs go slack.

Caitlin kept her eyes shut until she was able to get her heartbeat down to a reasonable level—and she almost got there, when she felt Barry's hands on her thighs. Her eyes snapped open, and she watched dazedly as he pulled her panties back into place and rearranged her skirt accordingly. Yet again, it was another jarringly intimate moment that didn't sync up with the no-strings-attached nature of their relationship.

Maybe she should probably definitely talk to him about that. At some point.

Or maybe not.

Cupping the back of his neck, she met him halfway for a thorough, hot kiss that perfectly underlined her intentions. When her free hand went for his belt buckle, she was rebuffed yet again.

Breaking the kiss, she said, "You're setting kind of a strange precedent here, Barry." She eyed him skeptically as she tested his grip on her wrist. What kind of mixed messages was he sending?

His smile was that familiar one, lopsided and a little devious. She wondered if Iris ever saw this smile. If she did, it was definitely never in this context.

"I told you," he responded, releasing her wrist only to begin buttoning up his vest—wait, when did he fix his shirt? "This was always about you."

As irrational as it was, that response raised her hackles once more. Could he not be a selfless hero for one second? He was supposed to be using her for sex, dammit, not making her feel special.

"We should probably get back out there," he said, effectively cutting off her outrage before it could build any further

Without saying anything, she glanced below his belt and then back up at him, pointedly. There was only so much black could hide.

A flush spread across Barry's face, and now it was Caitlin's turn to feel a little smug. She was entirely responsible for his current state of affairs, and that was something no one else could claim in this moment.

"I'll go first," she offered, not bothering to hide her smile. She couldn't really expect to maintain a serious façade in this kind of situation.

When she returned to the group, no one seemed to notice their disappearance—or at least, no one seemed to notice hers. She did spot Detective West giving Barry a suspicious glance when he finally returned, but to her knowledge that was the most of it.

Surprising, really, because Barry's mood had improved dramatically, more or less disregarding any of his earlier annoyance. He avoided Eddie, but otherwise he was the most relaxed he'd been all night. And when he would catch her eye throughout the night, he'd shoot her that smile and her stomach would go back in knots all over again.

It took her longer than she'd like to admit, but finally she got it. He had used her. For his own confidence boost. All it had taken was one hell of an orgasm.

Maybe he wasn't such a hero after all.