A/N: Hmmm… seems like most of you want a "happily ever after". I'll have to get back at ya on that one. Honorary mention for SaraLou for suggesting Nick has Sofia's name tattooed above his heart!
Xxx XXX xxX
Sofia just laid there, mouth open, without knowing what to say or think. Nick had just delivered the most beautiful, romantic, soul shattering speech she'd ever heard, and the best her brain had come up with so far was Huh?, which she was absolutely certain was not an adequate response.
But she just couldn't stop gazing at his naked torso. She was so engrossed with it that she had failed to register that it wasn't the only part of him that was naked until he stood up. Nick Stokes dressed was a sight for sore eyes. But naked… Sofia's mouth went dry just imagining running her hands and tongue all over him: sculpted, chiseled, muscled, bulging, toned… all those adjectives fit perfectly, and yet failed to do him any real justice. In one word, he was just perfect…
Save for the dozens of angry red marks that covered his body.
Sofia sat up in bed and carefully inspected them. Nick stood still, hands on his sides, eyes closed in order to give her whatever encouragement she might need. She got up and stood closer to him. Tiny red circular scars began at his collarbone, some of them stood alone, some of them in groups of 8 or 9. They ran over his shoulders and unto his upper arms. They speckled his chest and abdominal area and seemed to clutter around his waist and hips, and there was a particularly big concentration near his crotch, huddled so close together they looked like one big purplish welt. A few more splotches ran down his thighs and calves and there was another big clutter around his left ankle. Sofia craned her neck to check his back, and, sure enough, it had its share of markings as well.
They weren't the typical scars left behind by a childhood disease, or by a severe and acute case of acne. It seemed too extreme to be an allergic reaction, and they definitively didn't look like birthmarks. She absentmindedly began running her finger, circling the one mark closer to his right nipple and Nick shuddered.
"How?" she asked simply.
Nick sighed. She was the first one to have ever asked that question. But then again, she had been the first woman he'd allowed to see him like this.
"Fire ants"
"But… I thought… they gave you several treatments at the hospital… and the bites on your face and hands cleared…" Sofia covered her mouth with one hand, aware that she had spoken without clearly thinking of the consequences.
Nick noticed the gesture and gently pulled her hand away. "They did. And the ones on my face and hands and forearms did clear up nicely because they didn't get infected. The rest… well, I guess I writhed too much and the friction with my clothes did a nice job breaking up the pustules. Being covered in dirt and doused with chemical agents also helped. And by the time I got to the hospital there was little the doctors could do about it, except prevent the infection from spreading."
Sofia ran a hand over his chest, causing him to shudder once more. "There's always laser removal surgery, Nick… you don't have to live with the scars…"
Nick gave out a bitter laugh. Not live with the scars? He was scarred both inside and out, damaged goods really, and the fact that he slept with a pistol under his pillow wasn't due to training or paranoia, but rather the awaiting of his frustration to overcome his will to live… peace and quiet just one shot away.
"Oh, I don't think I'll have them removed. They go along quite nicely with the nightmares and the hyper-sensibility to insect bites. All three of them guaranteed to last until I die or I blow my brains out, whichever happens first"
The sting of her hand slapping him across the face was unexpected.
"Snap out of it!" She yelled to his face.
"Since when did you start channeling Cher? Besides, you got the wrong Nicholas…"
"Since when did you become a suicidal idiot?"
"Since when do you care that much?"
Sofia gave out an exasperated sigh and gave him a shove that sent him backwards towards the bed. She stood in front of him, hands on her hips, fuming, and Nick would have felt slightly afraid of what she might have to say had she not been naked. Having her breasts heaving less than a foot away from his face made it difficult to be really afraid of her.
"How long have you been considering it?" she demanded, and he made a huge effort to focus his attention to her face.
He debated on whether or not to be honest with her. It had been a long struggle, nearly two years, and he was tired of putting on his Pollyanna act for everyone around him. He was tired of being burdened by all the negative feelings and not be able to share them with anyone, lest they locked him in the loony bin and threw the key away for good, which, on second thought, wasn't such a bad idea to begin with…
"Since I realized I was buried alive and had a gun with me…"
Sofia felt her eyes growing moist. So it had been true, the rumors she had heard. Grissom had made sure the video feed of his ordeal was destroyed, but it had been filtered through the grapevine that he had, once or twice, put the barrel to his head. Not that anyone thought any less of him for it. Quite the opposite, actually. Most officers respected Nick a great deal, all of them agreeing they wouldn't have made it out alive, and that it took some real courage to survive something like that.
"Why?"
The question was asked so softly that for a moment Nick wasn't sure she had said anything at all. But she kept looking at him with those eyes that seemed to peer right through him and straight into his soul and he was afraid once more of letting anyone como close enough to hurt him again, so he chose to hide behind anger and sarcasm.
"Why do you want to know? What is it to you anyway? If I recall correctly you wanted me to get the fuck out of your life… or was it to get the fuck of your life? Please explain to me what kind of moral ground you have to question my actions when yours aren't that great to begin with, and I'm not sure I'm the only one here with a deranged love affair with their gun. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!"
Nick watched Sofia's eyes grow darker and he instantly regretted his words. She surprised him by laughing out loud.
"We're truly fucked up, did you know that Nick Stokes? I'm actually starting to believe we deserve one another..."
She was silent for a moment, as if considering what her next words were going to be.
"So…" she said, her tone almost conversationally, "Fuck now and blow our brains out later? Or just fuck our brains out, then I kick you out and we both end our miserable lives in solitude?"
Nick looked down, ashamed of his outburst and unsettled by her own poisonus words, but Sofia wasn't going to let him off the hook so easily. She grabbed his hair and pulled down, hard, until he was facing her. "What's it going to be, Nick? Huh? What's it going to be?"
Before she had a chance to react, Nick quickly grabbed her around the waist and threw her in bed, pinning her down with his own body, holding her wrists above her head.
"What was it that you said about fucking, Curtis?" he growled next to her ear, making her shudder in fear and desire.
They stared at each other for a long time, breathing hard out of rage and arousal, each making an extraordinary effort to keep their gaze fixed in the other's eyes. It wasn't a matter of giving up or surrendering in front of the other, but a matter of not doing so to desire. Nick knew that the moment he looked at her mouth he was going to be a goner, since all the anger and fear had transformed to lust and it was running wild through his veins, setting every inch of his body in contact with hers on fire, and he was hanging to his self control by barely threads.
Please, please, please, dear God, I want her so badly, but I don't want a repeat of what happened earlier…
In the end, it was Sofia who doomed them. Maybe Nick could have withstood the feelings provoked by her foot running up and down his calf, or the way she subtly shifted her hips underneath his. He might have even resisted the warm breath of her mouth trailing its way to his ear. But he simply wasn't able to fight anymore when she whispered in his ear.
"Make love to me, Nick."
Xxx XXX xxX
A/N: Admit it. You love this roller coaster and you love my cliffies!
A/N2: For those of you who never saw "Moonstruck", the best known scene in that movie is Cher slapping Nicholas Cage and demanding he "snap out of it"
