Start and Stop


The sun is shining and lighting up her wet pale skin, her dark hair wet between his fingers.

She tastes of salt water and honey and skin and its the best thing he's ever tasted.

Her hands on his skin, pressing against him urging him on.

God she's so beautiful, laying beneath him, looking up at him like this means more than they said it did.

Like she's the only one for him.

Like he's the only one for her.

Her body presses up against him and it doesn't take much to remove her soaked clothing.

Eyes locked on her he pushes in slowly and the soft sound that falls from her is the best thing, this soft gasping little thing as he fills her up.

Dick

His name in her mouth he pulls slowly out watching her move beneath him.

He pushes back in and she presses up against him like she wants nothing more than to feel absolutely all of him.

"Cindy." He moans out and the bed rocks roughly and rips him from the sunny warmth of Macs arms and slams him back into the bed below deck.

He can feel her hand around him, just like the night before and he's positive that she's dead asleep again. That his body had taken matters in hand since he obviously wasn't going to.

The blankets are somewhere on the floor and he can see her hand loosely around him and when he looks at her his lungs freeze and his hips press up against her hand of their own volition.

She's not wearing any...

Why isn't she wearing any...

...underwear.

He bites his lip and with ragged breath moves her hand from him, he instantly regrets it. With her hand free she moves onto her back, his T-shirt up around her waist.

No!

Stop looking. Stop looking.

This is not allowed.

The ship rocks again and he pushes himself up out of the bed, tossing the blanket up onto her.

He has things to check.

She'd never forgive him if he let them sink.

He runs his fingers along the boxes, he'd never forgive himself.

He looks back at the bedroom, Mac has wrapped herself in the blanket and god she looks too pretty.

Its even worse knowing that he could... that she wants him too...

Teeth in his lip he moves to insure that the generator is in good shape.

By the time he pulls himself out of the generator she's in the kitchen, half awake, the jeans he had completely forgotten about wrapped around her legs as she tries to make coffee.

If she remembers where her hand had been and what they had basically done, it doesn't show.

She grabs two cups of coffee and sits down at the table. She pushes a cup out to him and sets her phone between them.

Only three messages today

Parker, her mother and Veronica.

Parker: okay so if you aren't getting married in Paris where the heck are you? And what happened with Max? He came over to pick up his stuff and grumbled about how you were probably cheating on him with that blonde dude. Blonde dudes Dick right? So...did you break up with Max to be with Dick? Send me a message please Veronica's useless

She looks up at him like it was some big secret she didn't want him to know.

He just pours creamer into his coffee and leans back, watching her phone like it will tell him some horrible secret.

Her mother: so I spoke with your father... He said you just needed space and that you were being safe. All kinds of safe right baby? So...I'd like you to call me so we can discuss the flower garden...that sudden frost really did a number on it.

Okay that's confusing. Frost? All kinds of safe? He looks up at her and she's smiling softly into her cup.

"Its code." She tells him.

"Code for what? Keep it wrapped?"

She flushes and it's really a good look on her.

"That part isn't in code...its just embarrassing." She mutters pulling her eyes away from him, "the code is encase I'm in trouble." She smiles softly at her phone and he can't even imagine what that must be like.

Real parenting.

Veronica is next: Okay so I just rented a car to take us out to the house. Please don't do anything until I get there. Hide somewhere on the grounds. It'll probably take Dick the entire time it takes us to get there to even search a fraction of the land. Just remember that I'm here for you. You don't need him.

She looks up at him soberly and he's sure that she's going to ask about the house with the ridiculous amount of land that Veronica is talking about.

"She's wrong." She tells him and her words are quiet and soft and sound somehow heavy.

"About what?" He asks equally soft.

"I do need you." She tells him and his heart fucking stops. Honest to god he thinks he's going to die. Because while that does sound like she wants to have sex with him it also sounds like something else.

Like maybe having sex with her would mean more than what he thought.

Something bigger and deeper and all together more frightening than just the idea of betraying his brother.

He reaches out and his fingers lightly run along her hair. She's smiling up at him and god he wants to kiss her.

Biting his lip he pulls back and goes to grab his phone.

He has no secrets from her, he wants to have no secrets from her and this wide open thing is so much safer than sitting next to her with flashes of his dream in his head.

There is one message.

Not that he's really surprised.

He turns the voicemail on and drops the thing to the table.

Logan: I know you aren't here Dick. Someone forged yours and Macs names on these forms. So I got to say that's pretty damn smart man. Please just let me know where you are and I'll try and throw Veronica off the trail. Call me back man.

"What forms?"

He had really hoped he wouldn't have to tell her about all the stuff he'd gotten Francesca to do so he'd buy that house.

"The marriage forms..."

Wow this sure is a fascinating cup of coffee.

"The what now?" She doesn't sound as angry as he thinks she should since they are a couple of signatures and a justice away from being legally bound instead of just bound by trauma.

"Veronica's a real private eye. She's going to need more to think we'd actually been in the room...so I had someone I know in Paris set it up." He shrugs like it's no big deal.

Honestly the house was kind of a bargain he'd even gotten her to thrown in a Schiele.

"So what's this house..." He looks up at her and she's grinding her back teeth in a way that she thinks he's not going to notice. Yeah right like he wouldn't notice something her mouth was doing.

"It was the price." He tells her simply hoping to leave it at that. What happened to her being proud of him for thinking ahead? Can he have that back please?

"So...you bought a house just so we could fuck around in Mexico for the rest of the week?"

He's surprised she manages to say fucking around without subtext. He nods.

"Why would you do that?" She asks him and its not accusatory she just can't understand why he'd put so much effort into this. Probably because the closest they've come to having sex was while asleep.

But this isn't about sex.

Not for him.

This is just about being able to think of his brother and not feel like he needs to soak the memories in vodka. This is about being maybe almost whole. With her. Because she gets it.

"Because I want..." He looks up at her and she's looking at him concerned and gorgeous and god. He pushes himself away from the table his back to her because he thinks it'll be easier that way, "because I want to...because I don't want them to..."

God words he's used them before what the hell is the problem.

She moves in front of him and he can see silver under the collar of her shirt. Her hands twist into his shirt and pull him down to her, "Cindy..."

Her mouth is on his, rough and hot and god she's better than he thought she'd be.

His arms wrap around her pulling her in close and she bites at him to get him to open up for her.

Which he does. Her tongue is in his mouth and her hands are pressing hard into him and he backs up and falls backward onto the bench seat of the table. They are separated for all of a minute before Mac is on top of him her mouth on his skin.

A moan pulls from his throat and in the near silence of the ship is ungodly loud.

Stop. Stop. Stop.

He wraps his hands around her arms and pulls her carefully off him.

"Dick..."

"Stop." He tells her and he can't meet her eyes.

"I'm sorry..." She steps back away from him, arms folding around herself, "I thought that...I didn't mean too...force..." The word is broken in her mouth and it pulls his eyes up to her face.

Oh god.

Her eyes are wet.

She's going to cry.

"No Mac its not-" but he's not even sure she can hear him.

"I'm just going to go watch some TMNT..." She points at the bedroom and he watches her walk into the bedroom and close the door.

Shortly afterward he can hear the theme song but if she thinks he can't hear her crying underneath it she's wrong.

God how is it that she can make him feel like such a monster for trying to do the right thing?