Day Three
The morning light woke Gwen. She still had her arms around Jack, and his hand was holding tight to hers. She moved slowly, carefully extricating herself from his grasp, but he woke with a start. "Don't go."
"Neither of us had anything to eat all day yesterday, and god knows how long it's been since you had food," she protested. "I'm hungry. I'm going to make us some breakfast." She touched his cheek again. "Rest a while longer."
Gwen was humming in the kitchen when she heard Jack call to her. "That smells good."
She came into the room with a tray for him. "Breakfast is served. Coffee, toast, and egg." He pulled himself up against the pillows and she put the tray across his lap. The egg shone brightly from its nest in the middle of the toast. "My Mum made egg like this for me when I was sick."
He chuckled and gulped some coffee to avoid any more discussion of the egg, "Good coffee!"
"Don't sound so surprised, it isn't instant. Ianto finally taught me how to make a decent cup." Then she bit her lip. "Sorry, Jack." She sat down on the edge of the bed, tucking one leg under her.
He put down his cup to cover his eyes with both hands, "I'm sorry, Gwen. Guilt is what's killing me."
She took a sip from her own coffee, but didn't speak.
"I don't know where to go from here," he admitted. "I don't know if I can't go on, or if I just don't want to."
"Maybe it will help if we go over to the Hub and see what progress they're making at cleanup?"
"Right now, I don't care if I never see the Hub again," he said vehemently.
"What do you want?" She leaned in to touch his face. "If we can find a way to figure that out, maybe you'll be able to face life."
He leaned closer and reached for her, taking her face in his hands. He brought her closer to him and kissed her tenderly. When he released her, she sat back, shocked.
"Um, what was that for?" she whispered.
"I need you, Gwen," he said.
"But Ianto . . . ?"
"Ianto needed me. I took a lot of my own pleasure in giving him what he wanted, and god, I'm going to miss him. He trusted me, he had faith in me, but you arewhat I need."
"Did Ianto know that? Did you ever let Ianto know that he was your second choice?"
He looked away from her. "I think he must have known, on some level. Ianto was never quite sure why I wanted him. Coming back into all your lives after a year away, I thought I was coming back to you, but you were engaged to Rhys by then. I came to Ianto when we were both vulnerable, and he made a decision of his own."
"Why now, Jack?" she said sadly. "You could have said something then. You had plenty of time. I didn't understand why you wouldn't confront the issue. Why not before I married Rhys? I've made promises. Promises I intend to keep."
"When I told you I died every day of that year, I wasn't speaking figuratively. I hung in chains every day. And the Master found new ways to torment and kill me every day. I screamed my way to death every day, and that was very bad, very bad. But being away from you was the worst of it. When I was able to return to Cardiff, I was looking for peace and redemption, but I just couldn't bring myself to ruin your life."
"Is that why you left us, looking for redemption?"
He didn't answer. "I came back with such a sense of loss. I was thoroughly rejected. . . . I couldn't . . . stay . . . where I was, and without you, it seemed I had no reason to be here either," he said with regret, "After that year of death, I needed to be desired, and Ianto was right in front of me. I'm not proud to admit it was that easy. And I don't want you or anyone to think that he was just a rebound fuck. He was important, not just to the team, but to me."
"I couldn't understand what was going on with you, Jack! You said you came back for me, and you told Ianto you came back for him, but you also said it was for all of us."
"You know I had to say that. But it was you! We'd been flirting since the day we met; you changed my life; and I thought I had changed yours, but you were engaged to Rhys. I thought you had shut those feelings down."
"Shut down? Do you remember me saying, 'I'm getting tired of following you around,' and you said, and you looked me right in the eyes, 'No, you're not. And you never will.' Every time you said, 'Gwen, with me,' did you think I didn't feel it, every day, in every glance, every touch . . . ? Every time you looked right at me, and I thought, this time for sure, he'll say it, now he'll say he knows I feel it too, but you never did!"
"You think that was easy for me?" He pulled away from her, breathing like a drowning man. "I had to respect your choice."
"But if you had only said . . . anything more! Or done something!" she cried. Maybe this was the key she'd sought. Maybe something that only she could do, had always wanted to do, would make a difference for him. She spared a momentary thought for Rhys. He would understand. He had to understand. Maybe he already did.
"Maybe I can make you understand how much I need you," Jack said. He reached for her, just as she reached for him, and this time their kisses were passionate, and both of them were clutching at each other as if it was the only way they could survive. Gwen kissed Jack back with a growing hunger, and put her hands on both sides of his face, exploring his eyelids, the curve of his cheeks, the line of his face. They both became breathless with the realisation of what was about to happen. "Will you give me that chance?" he whispered against her face.
She tore herself from his arms and stood by the side of the bed, facing him, panting. She hesitated for a long minute. She didn't break eye contact with him as she slowly removed her clothes, then slipped back into the bed, pressing her body against his. "Do you understand that I want this as much as you do?"
"No more kisses on the cheek? No more hand holding?" he asked.
Gwen slid a hand under the sheet and trailed her fingers down his belly until she reached his groin. He gasped as she traced around him, cupping his balls gently. She felt his erection start to grow. He lifted a hand to pull the sheet off her, and she put his hand back at his side. "This is for the years of seeing you, wanting you," she said, "and waiting for you to reach for me." Her touch on him was feather light. His breathing grew ragged. She turned to face him and put her lips on his. "For now," she whispered, "right now, I'm yours."
He opened his mouth to her insistent tongue and let her explore until he couldn't hold himself back. She felt his hands slip into her hair as he glued his mouth to hers with lascivious hunger. She released his cock and gave herself to his embrace as he rolled over her in the bed, his knee parting her legs.
He raised himself over her and she felt his erection press against her stomach. She let him use part of his strength to hold himself up, supporting him gently. His kisses dropped to her throat, and then to her breast. His ardent kissing was leaving little red marks on her skin. She turned him gently and straddled his hips. "Relax," she whispered. "After waiting all this time, we don't have to hurry." She arched her back, lifted her hips and, guiding him with her hand, helped him slide into her. She bent forward and held herself off his bruises, while moving her hips in small circles. He looked up at her face in wonder. Her breathing came in short gasps, and she bent her head to kiss him. She lifted herself from him as she heard him start to pant.
"Now," he breathed.
"Together," she said. The explosion was all the sweeter for the delay. She rolled below him, taking his weight on top of her to keep him inside her for a little longer. His lips were hot on her throat, and finally, he rested his head on her shoulder. She felt him slip from her, and moved him gently onto his back, nestling into his side. She let him lift her hand to his lips.
"I love your hands," he said, kissing her palm. A deep breath. "Remember your first shooting lesson?"
"You were grinding your hips into my arse," she giggled. "I thought for sure you would kiss me then, and you didn't."
"I was so close," he countered. "But I do have scruples. Some. Sometimes. Time and place."
Gwen felt his energies ebbing. "Right back," she assured him, slipping from the bed to come back with a wet cloth. She wiped him clean of sweat and come, and dried him before she went to the bathroom and cleaned herself. She slipped back into the bed, and covered them both with the sheet.
Jack was shivering slightly. "Cold?" she asked.
"Aftermath," he said.
She wrapped her arms around him. "It'll be even better next time."
"Couldn't be," he sighed.
"Rest, you," she said, "I'll be here when you wake up."
"I don't sleep," he said, his eyes closing.
"Mm-hmm," she whispered to him.
They woke up an hour or so later. Gwen got out of the bed and pulled on her clothes. She picked up her cup and headed back to the kitchen, but paused in the doorway. "Would you like more toast? I make excellent toast."
"No more toast," he said. "Answers."
"How's the pain? Would you like something?
He shook his head. "I don't have any pain. I need answers, please."
She climbed back into the bed. "Sure, let's talk. But if you need it, Martha left pills and we have two more syringes left of whatever that was. I gave you one of them last night."
He shook his head, "I don't know what that was, but I just had the wildest dreams."
"Did you now?" She tilted her head and looked at him quizzically, "What were they about?"
"That was real?"
"Maybe."
She got off the bed and folded back the covers to look at the wound on his thigh. It was no longer seeping, and the stitches were clean. She replaced the covers and moved to the head of the bed to search in his hair for the bleeding cut. It was closed, and scabbing over. "This is looking much better."
Jack's face was buried between her breasts. "The view from here is pretty nice, too."
She leaned down and kissed him.
"Nice talking," he mumbled against her lips.
She nibbled at his lower lip. She pulled back just far enough to get a deep breath. "You taste of coffee, and maybe a little of toast and marmalade."
He snorted, and then grinned widely, "I don't get it. This just doesn't make sense."
"It never made sense, Jack. If you want to die, I'm damn sure going to try to stop you, whatever it takes." She kissed him again. "We have this little time to do the things we've both craved since we first met. I've always wanted you, and you knew it."
"Yeah, and you're pregnant with Rhys's baby," he said pointedly.
She looked down at her stomach with feigned indifference. "Yeah. Not beginning to show, though. Still early times. We may just be giving little Gwyneth or Edward some memories of his or her own."
He stared at her incredulously and she giggled.
"Didn't you hope I had a salacious side?"
"Come here, then, and show me how salacious you can be," he said, pulling her into his arms.
She wriggled happily and snuggled up against his side, throwing off the covers and exposing their bodies. She was amazed at the difference in how he looked. "I think your bruises are fading a bit. You're kind of greenish and yellow where you used to be purple and red." She ran her fingertips down his sides and over his growing erection. "My," she said, "just look at John Thomas there, he seems to be enjoying this."
"Not fair," Jack protested. "You have clothes on again."
"Undress me, then," she whispered. "Or do I have to do everything myself?"
"You do it," he said, "and I'll watch."
She pulled out of his embrace and knelt on the bed, "No, I think I should give you a nice relaxing massage first. Wouldn't that feel good?" She rummaged around in the bag Martha had left, and came up with some oil. "Hmm, 'Arnica and almond oil: good for bruising and small lacerations.' Perfect. Turn over, please."
"This is just teasing, Gwen."
"Oh, no," she said, "this is clinical. The teasing comes later. Now turn over." She smeared some of the oil on her hands to warm it, and slathered it on his back, moving her hands from the nape of his neck to the back of his arms, and down his back, pressing very gently, and lightening her touch when he groaned softly. She cupped his buttocks in her hands and squeezed firmly before moving down the back of his legs to his feet. She re-oiled her hands and moved slowly up his legs again, finally teasing one small finger up the crack of his arse. He tensed, then laughed out loud.
"Turn over please," she said very calmly, but when he turned to face her, she felt herself blushing. She hid her face as she added more oil to her hands, and spread his knees to reach the tender inner parts of his upper thighs, then re-oiling her hands again, moved to his neck, the little spot between the clavicles, and his Adam's apple. She lifted his arms one by one and smoothed the oil into the hollows of his arms, down his forearms to his hands, rubbing circles over the small bones in his palm. One by one, she smoothed oil into his fingers and fingernails.
She massaged the taut muscles of his chest and lower abdomen, going lower, lower, into his pubic hair, and finally taking his erection firmly in hand. She stroked him, pulling back his foreskin, and took him into her mouth.
Jack groaned and arched against her, and she continued stroking with her hands, while her tongue and teeth teased the tip of his cock. She held his hips, and when she approached his arse again with her finger, he gasped, and pushed her off his penis. He came uncontrollably, spurting hot onto her hands and his own stomach. He was quivering, sweating, and almost rigid. As he relaxed out of his climax, Gwen lay down beside him and held him.
When he turned his head to her and smiled, it was like the sun coming out, she thought, and maybe the first real smile she'd seen from him in weeks. "You are amazing," he breathed. She sat up and pulled him into a sitting position, propping pillows to hold him up.
"I don't know why you'd be so stunned," she said. "I did these very things to you in my dreams every night for months. You seemed to like it then, too."
He reached for her hand. "Did you really dream of me?"
She touched his lips with hers, and laid her head on his shoulder and nodded. "Just like this," she said wickedly, "Naked, oiled, and completely under my control."
He flipped her onto her back and loomed above her. "Not so completely," he protested with a grin. "And now maybe it's up to me to take a bit of control. First," he said, pretending to consider his options. "Naked." He pulled her jersey up from the bottom and up over her head. He unlatched her bra ("thoughtful to have a front opening catch" he said, almost to himself), and dropped shirt and bra off the bed. Her breathing quickened. He turned his attention to her waist. "Hmm, sweatpants, well, that's no challenge at all," and he pulled them off her legs in one smooth movement.
"Now," he said, pausing to look down at her, "ooh, pretty lacy panties. We don't want to tear them. Or do we?" He hooked two fingers into the crotch of her panties and pulled them down slowly, sliding along every inch of her legs, and finally slipping them completely off her; to put them on his head like a hat.
She had to laugh, "You look demented!"
He took her underwear off his head and tossed them aside. "And you look delighted," he said, "and that makes me happy. Now where's that almond oil?" She pointed to the bedside table, and he picked up the bottle, carefully, because his hands were slippery. He straddled her hips and looked down at her. "You're beautiful, you know," his eyes caught hers and they were mesmerized for a moment. "I came back for you, only for you," he said softly.
"I know," she admitted.
"Now. Gwen," he rubbed oil between his hands and started at her shoulders and smoothed his hands over her body with extreme gentleness, but he didn't have her patience. He touched her between her legs. "Ready. I see," he mused. "We'll just see how long you can hold out against my magic fingers and my clever and oh-so-experienced tongue." He was as good as his word. She was so overcome that she wasn't sure when his tongue was replaced by his cock, and she was riding with him inside her, and flying, flying.
