Cassidy felt nauseous and more than a bit fidgety. She could hear the chief communicating with Jess, giving her recon. He was all business.
There were loud explosions in the background. Cursing. The roaring, evil sounds of aliens as their lifeblood exploded out of them.
The minutes seemed like hours. After a long time of total silence, she heard his voice on the comm.
"It's over," he said. "Come and get us."
"Stand by," Jess responded, breathing a sigh of relief.
The ride in was bumpier than ever before. Cassidy's face was ghost white. She stumbled into the medical bay and waited for the shaking to stop.
The ship landed with a hard thump. She heard the bay open and peeked around the doorway. Ten male and female Spartans, battle-weary but in good spirits, jumped aboard.
He boarded last, slowly, his armor covered in black plasma burns and needler scrapes.
"This way!" Cassidy shouted at the troops. One by one they lined up by the door. She saw him and desperately wanted to check him first – he seemed to have the most damaged armor – but he motioned that he would be the last one she would see. Typical, she thought.
She hurried through and examined everyone. She admitted she could have done a more thorough job, but everyone seemed alert, pumped up and filled with adrenaline. She treated one small neck wound, no more than a scratch, and the last soldier left the bay.
But where was the chief? He never showed. She came out and asked Jess about him. Jess just shrugged. She helped him take off his chestplate, and the last she saw he was headed to his quarters.
Strange, Cassidy thought. Very strange.
She walked quickly down the hallway, past the hollering, drinking soldiers in the mess.
She stood by his door and put her ear to it. Silence. She thought about knocking, but maybe he wanted to be alone. She could respect that.
She walked into her own quarters, brushed her teeth and sat down on the bed, changing into a thin, silky nightgown.
She was finally alone. She wanted to relive what happened in the bay, but she was exhausted. She laid down and fell asleep, this time deep and peaceful, her last thoughts wondering what he was doing.
It seemed like she was only asleep for minutes. Or was it hours? She awoke slowly at what she thought was a soft knock at the door. She waited, heard nothing, and put her head back down, thinking she had imagined it.
Then she heard it again.
She put on her robe and pushed the panel to open the door. It was the Chief. He was still wearing his battle-bashed armor and helmet. He smelled of smoke.
"Dr. Raines," he said, formally.
She wondered what that was about, and then she saw a few Spartan soldiers lingering nearby. She would play along.
"Master Chief," she said with faux irritation. "You forgot to come in for your injury check."
He turned around and stared back at the looky loos. They immediately hustled down the hallway.
"Can I come in?" he asked.
"Of course," she said, stepping aside.
He began taking off his things, ever so carefully, setting it everything next to the bed. She silently unclasped and opened things, putting them down, helping him. She ran her hands along the muscles of his back, checking for wounds, as he removed armor from his thighs and his feet. It seemed more meaningful this time, as if shedding his equipment was akin to shedding the memory of the last battle. Almost ceremonial.
She jumped up and walked toward one of her small cabinets, asking him if he wanted something to drink. Surely he must be thirsty, she thought.
He sat down on the bed and looked at her.
"Come here," he said quietly.
She sat down next to him and he turned and laid her down gently on the bed. He climbed over her, above her, and began kissing her, deeply. He gently sucked on the soft, fleshy part of the top of her lips, a sensuous tease, drawing a quiet moan from her of surrender.
He slid his lips across hers as he gently pulled the hem of her silk nightgown up, ever so slowly, as if he was unveiling a beautiful gift. She raised her hands above her head and arched her back, and he pulled it up so that it draped across her neckline, exposing her full breasts and erect, pink nipples.
He slid down a bit and cupped them with his hands, his tongue and lips circling her nipples, sucking gently and teasing her, sending electric shocks along her back and across the nape of her neck.
His hand moved down, across her stomach and into her panties, him gently pushing her legs open to gain better access. She cried out, gasping, as his fingers teased her. He kissed her again and moaned when he felt how wet she was for him.
He slid her silk panties down her leg, slowly, and off of her. He spread her legs and delicately kissed her inner thigh.
He would finally get to taste her. It was something he had thought about and imagined, sometimes obsessively. Her eyes squeezed shut. She arched her back again, her arms stretched above her head, as he savored her, feasting on her.
She was amazed at how skilled he was, how oral he was. His perfect lips applied just the right amount of pressure, his tongue just the right amount of tease. She could vaguely feel his hand splayed across her lower stomach. As soon as she felt a strong build up to a climax, he slowed down his pace, drawing her back from the abyss.
She was not aware of time itself, how long he did this, or how many moments she stood on the precipice of a powerful orgasm before he pulled her back until her desperate moaning turned to just uneven breathing and sighs. She came so close at one point, so close, but instead of letting her come, he climbed up again, over her, and kissed her.
"Not yet," he said.
He was naked now, fully erect, she could feel his stiffness against her thigh. He slipped the head of his cock into her wet tightness, but this time he pushed slowly, patiently, asking her frequently if she wanted him to stop or needed him to slow down. He said sorry way too many times. He knew he was big. He wanted to make sure he pushed in slowly to minimize the hurt.
He was finally deep inside her now and she wrapped her legs around him, moaning his name over and over. He pulled her arms above her head, holding her hands there, kissing her deeply as if she was a passionate captive.
He had never called her anything but Dr. Raines, but for the first time he called her by her name and it rolled easily and naturally off his tongue. The aroma of sex filled the room, an orgy of pheromones and biological excitement, making everything feel more intense, more urgent.
He had to slow himself down several times. His natural instinct was to punch into her, quickly, with tremendous force. Instead he forced himself to slide slowly and deeply into her, his shape and size molding her insides, making her his.
It was getting harder and harder for him to resist going faster, deeper. She was slick and tight and hot inside, closing in around him and massaging his shaft. He stretched his neck above her head, eyes closed, his face tense.
As he slid in and out, deeper each time, he suddenly became alarmed that he would come before she did. She would let him, he knew this, but he wanted desperately to hear her climax, to see her face when she did, to feel her body shudder. Last time he was so angry he missed seeing it. But not this time, he would make sure of it.
She moaned loudly, gasping, telling him she was going to come. She could have said nothing - he could tell by the sounds she made against his neck and the urgent way she moved her pelvis up and against him, making him go in even deeper, that she was close. It was just a matter of hanging on until it happened.
I'm not going to last, he thought, I'm not going to last.
"John…" she moaned, over and over, louder and more desperate each time. "Almost….there…"
"You'd better….hurry up…." He gasped into her open mouth, warning her.
With that she cried out with such volume and passion that it surprised him, her whole body shaking, her fingers digging into the back of his neck.
He was certain that anyone within a 50 foot radius could hear her come, and for once he didn't care. He could feel every pulse as her muscles tightened and wrapped around him, the sensation sparking his nerve endings, driving him to his own tremendous climax. He felt a new rush of wetness inside her and on him, a completely different texture, and he slid deeper into her now without any resistance at all.
She pulled his head down and put her mouth near his ear.
"John," she gasped, a smile in her voice. "John….just come."
The next minute of John-117's life was not entirely unlike a slow-yet-fiery explosion of a plasma grenade. Waves and waves of pleasure and almost unbearable sensation washed over him, through him.
He pushed in so hard that he thought he would break her, moaning primaly as fluid shot out, over and over again. His heart thumped so urgently and rapidly in his chest that he was afraid he was going to pass out. Thankfully, he didn't. Now that…that would be embarrassing.
It took a long time after that to calm down. He finally collapsed on top of her, forgetting for once how big and heavy he was.
"Can't…breathe…." she gasped somewhere near the base of his neck. He shifted and laid on his back, pulled her onto him, her body flat and limp against his chest and stomach.
"Better….much better," she sighed.
They laid in the darkness listening to the soft hum of the ship, her fingers tracing circles on his chest, feeling his scars.
"Where did you get this one?," she asked of each wound.
He told her, as best as he could remember, how each came to be. Each time he downplayed his role, giving more credit to his soldiers than himself, but she could see through that. Those victories were his, no matter how he painted them.
She found one scar that was especially long and wavy on his lower stomach, and she quickly became fascinated by it.
"What about this one? It's pretty big," she wondered out loud.
"I'm not sayin," he said firmly.
"Ouch!" she said in mock protest. "So….it's okay to fuck me into another dimension, but not tell me about some weird scar on your stomach? As a certified medical professional, it would be terribly irresponsible if I failed to investigate such a mysterious wound."
"No way," he said.
"Come on! I promise not to tell," she pleaded. "What was it? Energy sword? Needler?"
Surely there was some glorious battle story behind it, with him fighting solo against 10 elites, bullets running out, and only a grenade and his handgun standing between life and death.
She sat up on his stomach, straddling him, looking down at him and giving him large, luminous, highly persuasive eyes. He reached up and ran his hand through her hair. She's so beautiful, he thought.
"Please tell me," she said quietly.
He had two choices: he could keep the mystery to himself and tell her how he got the scar. She was right, though, he admitted to himself. After they traded declarations of love – as well as fluids – he really had no justification for keeping it from her.
"Okay! Okay!" he snapped, pretending to be annoyed.
He mumbled something, incoherent.
"I'm sorry, come again?" she asked. "I didn't hear what you said…"
He sighed deeply. This is going to be embarrassing, he thought. His face turned red and he avoided eye contact with her.
"Just tell me already…jeez..enough with the windup….."
Time to man up, he told himself, just get it over with.
"Grifball," he said sheepishly. "I got it playing Grifball."