Into Temptation, Chapter 11
It's not the loud click-clack of Cuddy's stilettos he hears pause in front of his door, but more of a light tap-tap-tap. He's heard those particular footsteps many times before. That fact and a certain inexplicable twist in his chest tell him exactly who is standing at his door thinking of entering.
The who was easy. The why is harder. But he figures that while there's always more than one way to find out, the direct approach might be the most expedient this time.
"Well, are you going to come in?" he invites, pulling the magazine off his face and tossing it toward the desk. He grimaces as he overshoots and it slides off the other side and onto the floor.
"Ah, yeah. Hi," she says as she walks in and leans over to pick up the magazine, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of lace-covered cleavage.
"Hey," he responds, taking out the earbuds he'd been wearing just for show. People are more apt to leave him alone if they assume he can't hear them rather than that he's merely ignoring them. But damned if he can concentrate when there's actual music blaring directly into his ear canals.
Dropping the magazine on the desk, she sits down in the chair across from him. As he watches, she opens her mouth to speak, but she can't quite seem to get the words out. At last, she mutters something incomprehensible and her head drops to his desk, blond hair fanning everywhere.
It seems to creep its way across the desk, tempting his fingers – touch me; you know you want to. And so he does. He starts by toying with the ends that have landed only inches from his hand, but before too long, the softness has lured his hand up to the top of her head until he's stroking her as one would a cat. It's not because she looks distraught, he tells himself. It's simply because it feels good. Soft. Silken. Similar to how he imagines the skin covering her collarbone would feel under his tongue. Not that he's spent much time imagining that.
He knows he should ask her what's wrong, but he's really not sure he wants to know. Whatever she says may mean an end to this, whatever this is. Where exactly he wants it to go, he hasn't made up his mind, but he does know he's not ready for it to be over.
He continues to twine his fingers through her hair until she jolts upright after he accidentally – mostly accidentally – okay, purposely - runs a finger along the curve of her outer ear.
"Stop," she says. "What are you doing?"
He shrugs. "Comforting you? You looked upset."
"Well don't. It's not like you and it's only making this harder." She stands and walks past him, over to the glass door of his balcony.
Swiveling around in his chair, he watches her as she stares out the window at the night sky. She looks so small and vulnerable standing there in the dim light. Her arms are wrapped around herself as if she were cold, though it is quite warm in his office. Her face reflected in the glass is unreadable, but the fact that she can't look at him probably isn't a good sign.
"Making what harder?" he asks. He rises from his chair and walks over to stand directly behind her. "I bet you're thinking about kissing me right now," he speculates. It's certainly the foremost subject in his mind.
"No!" she says, sounding almost too vehement to his ears. "No. That was a mistake."
"Don't say that," he reprimands. "You wanted it as much as I did. You kissed back." And she had too. He hadn't imagined her fingers dancing across the back of his neck and her tongue sliding against his own. He takes another step closer, until there is scarcely an inch separating them. Reaching out then, he rests his hands lightly on her hips.
He can see her small smile in the glass of the door. "Isn't that my line?"
He nods in understanding. She's talking about the first time they kissed, some years earlier. "Do you remember what I said then?"
She exhales forcefully and finally turns to face him. He allows his hands to slide along her midsection as she turns, but he doesn't remove them and she doesn't push them away. He can see the wariness in her eyes. She's wondering where he's going with this. Truthfully, so is he. He's really just making it up as he goes along, but the fact that she's looking at him now is encouraging. "That you didn't want me to die without knowing the feeling," she answers. "And now I know it all too well. House, this has to stop."
Uh-uh. No.
"Kiss me again, and then repeat what you just said." Pulling her to him, he closes the miniscule gap between them and lowers his face to hers. She joins in willingly, immediately, despite what she'd just said, and relief floods through him. Her words were a token resistance, nothing more. His thoughts are only confirmed when he hears a little hitch in her breath as he slides a hand down from her hip to her bottom to pull her tighter against him. Moving his mouth from hers, he leaves a trail of kisses from her jaw line to her ear, down her neck and finally across the collarbone he had not been dreaming of tasting for so many years now.
Vaguely, he registers that she's speaking softly, but her words aren't important. He wants to touch her everywhere all at once, wants to lose himself in her, wants to consume her completely. She's his, finally his. He kisses his way back up her neck, along her cheek, searching for her lips again.
What he finds instead are tears. The moment he tastes the salty water on her cheek, her words penetrate the fog of lust that comprises his brain.
"I don't know…I don't know what to do. I'm lying to Chase. To my boyfriend, who loves me. Because of you. I'm turning into a cheater, but I've wanted this, you, us, for so long, and now… I don't know what to do. This isn't me; this can't be me. I don't know who I am anymore. But I can't not be with you."
He pulls back, horrified. When he looks down upon her tear stained face, it hits him. While he is feeling some complicated combination of lust, affection, and maybe even love, she is feeling despair. Guilt. He's breaking her. Ruining the goodness in her, just as he knew he would when he first balled up his feelings for her all those years ago, and shoved them to the darkest corner of his heart.
He was right then. He's wrong now.
Wilson's words from the previous evening echo through his mind. "She's a human being, not a toy…As soon as you get your way and she leaves Chase, you'll be bored and she'll be left in pieces on the floor."
He needs to put an end to this. Now.
Wordlessly, he lets go of her and takes a step back. She looks up at him, confusion written plainly on her face. He can almost hear her thoughts aloud. I was giving in, why are you stopping?
"I win," he says simply. "Game over. Go home, Cameron."
He limps around her, opens the glass door and goes out onto the balcony. Resting his forearms against the rails, he hangs his head, closes his eyes and counts slowly to fifty. It's better this way, he tries to convince himself. She'll be hurt, sure, but she has Chase to pick up the pieces for her. And more importantly, she has her self-respect. Her integrity. Better to break her heart now, than have her wake up six months or a year from now and realize she's made the biggest mistake of her life. And hate him for it. Not because leaving Chase would be such a bad move, but because compromising all she is and all she values, would be the end of her. She means too much to him to let her do that.
When he turns around again, his office is empty.
Slowly, feeling every one of his forty-nine years, he limps back into the office and drops into his chair. He pulls a vial of Vicodin out of his desk drawer, along with a bottle of bourbon. He's not going anywhere else tonight.
A/N: Please don't hate me. Heh.
