Disclaimer: The Closer and its characters are the property of their respective creators and owners, James Duff, Warner Bros. and TNT. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Note: Once again, thank you all for leaving such kind reviews. MirandaMinerva, you're too smart ;)
Chapter Eleven:
…there's Fire.
Nibbling on her lip, lowering her head slowly, her gaze strayed from the road and to the right inconspicuously, all just to catch a glimpse of Captain Raydor who was sitting in the passenger seat.
They had been driving for twenty minutes already but neither had said anything. What was there left to say anyway?
Things were different now, less heated. At least Brenda liked to think of it that way.
Stopping at a red light, the blonde let her eyes wander once again until she caught sight of Captain Raydor's exposed knee; she had a couple scrapes there, they had happened during the shooting but instead of feeling compassion or anything resembling it, Brenda just thought that the bruise, the tiny scratches that marred the woman's otherwise perfect…perfect knee, looked so terribly out of place.
Brenda sucked her lower lip in coyly as her eyes darted to the Captain's face. Their gazes met unexpectedly, startling them both.
Brenda looked away and then glanced back real quick just to make sure Raydor wasn't looking at her anymore.
The woman was staring out of the window, doing that thing with her lips that Brenda always thought of as oddly unfitting for a woman of her…dragonesque deviousness; she looked downright cute like that.
Awful.
Sometimes Brenda wondered what lay underneath that hard exterior and when she sometimes caught a glimpse, small and gone again in the blink of an eye, of a dorky, sweet yet odd girl, Brenda had an inkling, an image, which was almost instantly smashed to pieces when the woman opened her mouth again.
"Now I know why you always insist on separate means of transportation," Raydor said evenly. "You're embarrassed by your poor driving skills..."
The blonde realized that the light had turned green. She stepped on the gas, embarrassed for a tiny moment at her lapse but then she thought that she had had a very long day and a very long night, she was entitled to a lapse here and there after all of that.
She gave Raydor the evil eye.
And Raydor gave her that barely-there, very-pleased-with-herself, superior little smirk and a disapproving and mocking raise of the eyebrows.
Oh, that woman!
Brenda gritted her teeth, her nostrils actually flaring in anger that suddenly boiled up within her from practically out of nowhere. And to think she had actually felt for her!
She couldn't really pinpoint what it was about the woman that enraged her this much, that made her feel Argh! whenever they shared the same space. Raydor was just one recurring annoyance, asking questions that no one would ask, saying things no one else would ever bother to point out, criticizing things no one would find anything wrong with.
Sometimes Brenda could even predict what would next come out of the woman's mouth.
It was still a mystery though how Raydor managed to get under her skin like that.
She had done a lot of thinking over the past couple months and she had dedicated a fairly big amount of her thinking-time to Raydor and that thing they had had going on – because it had been a thing and not a nothing, Brenda knew that now.
She had made peace with it.
But now she felt familiar, unwelcome, uncomfortable and decidedly unexpected words pinch her in the butt.
If you don't deal with things, they tend to catch up with you…
Brenda glanced over at Raydor.
"Make a right here."
The blonde almost jumped and decided that she should rather concentrate on driving.
That awful scent, that smooth voice, that thick mane of hair, those lips and those eyes! Brenda's knuckles turned white as she gripped the steering wheel tightly.
In that moment Brenda felt like the most ridiculous person that had ever graced the earth. She could not at all stand the woman, she couldn't, ever, in a million years be even remotely friendly with her.
How could you possibly be attracted to somebody like that?
How, for heaven's sakes?
She glanced over again.
At that moment, Brenda wanted Raydor more than she had ever wanted her just because she knew now that if she could, she would have her way with the woman.
"Oh, for crying out loud, what is it?" Raydor turned a piercing stare at her.
Brenda narrowed her eyes, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. This was all Fritz's fault. Brenda had been perfectly fine with not dealing with all this but now that she had thought about her marriage, thought about Raydor, thought about work, the left-over simmer, the smoke, everything had just erupted a moment ago and turned into a full-out flame…
A wildfire.
It was all due to stress really. It wasn't like back when she had had early onset menopause and had blamed it on stress because she had known somewhere in the back of her head that it wasn't. Brenda had avoided the truth for as long she had been able to but that wasn't the case now, of course. At work, even though she had found a comfortable way of doing her job, sometimes the pressure just seemed unbearable.
Then there was Will constantly questioning her methods and it felt like people pitied her for not getting the Chief-thing even though she was perfectly fine with it.
And at home, well, she often felt like somebody's wife now…and not like Brenda Leigh Johnson. And then, when she was running away from all that, from the pressure at home, to distract herself with work, to hide at Major Crimes, she had to deal with people like Raydor.
It was stress.
"I owe you an apology," the blonde said suddenly. "When you said that I was sendin' you mixed signals, well, I've thought about that lately…and you may've been right."
"Oh?"
"Yes…oh," Brenda said and smiled a little at their familiar banter but turned serious again. "I tried blamin' you for what happened between us but…I've…I've been as much at fault as you."
Raydor nodded once, her eyes focused on the ceiling for a moment before she seemed to get a grip on her emotions. "There's my house…if you could just stop the car, please," she said tersely, already unbuckling her seatbelt.
Brenda did as she was told, irritated by the woman's dismissive behavior. "Captain-"
"I was just in a shooting last night, my fellow officer got hurt and I shot a guy in the leg and now you wanna talk about the possible implications of your…extramarital affairs."
"It was not an affair!" Brenda said immediately then stopped as common sense caught up with her; being defensive often indicated guilt, didn't it? She sighed and looked up at the house. "You should go on and get some rest."
Raydor cleared her throat and was about to get out when her hand stilled on the door handle. She sat like that for a moment as if she couldn't will her body to move. "I've had a truly horrible—tonight was—" Raydor sighed, unable to even admit that the night's events were affecting her. "All I can think of doing right now is asking you to come inside with me."
Brenda sat impossibly still; was she asking or was she merely trying to gauge Brenda's reaction? The blonde wasn't sure, her mind raced, what if she did ask? Would she dare? Would she just get out of the car and follow the woman inside?
Or would she have the strength to walk away from this?
She would have to, they were in the middle of an investigation and Captain Raydor was involved in it all. One lapse could jeopardize a potential successful outcome, it could ruin everything!
And, of course, she was still as married as the day they had met.
Brenda was just about to say something, to apologize, to explain when Raydor grasped the door handle again. The blonde impulsively lunged after her, caught the woman's hand in hers and pulled her back. Confronted with Raydor like this, holding her hand, Brenda felt at a loss. Her lips parted slowly as she started to comprehend in what precarious situation she had maneuvered herself into.
"I…I've done it again, haven't I?"
Raydor's eyes wandered about the car before they settled upon her, the expression on her face one of defeat, as if the joke was, yet again, on her and so Raydor nodded, her lips forming a silent 'yes'.
The blonde actually felt bad about it, suddenly aware that Captain Raydor, as she was sitting before her, was, perhaps, somewhat vulnerable tonight, not as put together as usual. Glancing down at their joined hands, wanting to stop all this and make it right yet unable to let go, Brenda couldn't help but smile embarrassedly and blush, coyly averting her eyes. "And here we are again," she drawled and let out a breathy laugh.
They both stared down at their joined hands.
Brenda felt her whole body turning first warm then hot. Her fingertips tingled.
Her pulse pounded visibly in her throat.
The woman was so warm and her skin was so smooth, so…so…
Brenda moved the pad of her thumb slowly to get a better feel, just a bit.
"It's…it's not that I don't want…it," she said slowly, her eyes landing on Raydor's. "I do. It's just that I-"
"That you can't," the Captain finished with a nod.
Staring into the woman's eyes, feeling her own resolve weakening and thinking that some things just didn't matter much in the grand scheme of things, like staring at the object of her very desire and thinking about sliding over there, ripping her blouse open and just letting Sharon Raydor take care of things.
The blonde's gaze turned heavy, smoldering as her mind pictured it, tried to imagine what it would be like between them.
She squeezed Raydor's hand tightly as she felt a tingle of immediate arousal at the mere thought of molding her body into hers, of the woman's lips against her own, of their want for each other driving them to unimaginable heights. Raydor squeezed back, her eyes connected with Brenda's so intensely that her gaze actually felt like a caress.
As Brenda came back to reality, she was still staring into the green, shining eyes of Sharon Raydor who gave her a look of permission, of surrender.
The blonde's eyes dropped to the woman's lips, she studied them for a moment then her eyes traveled along her jaw line, to her neck, her throat, her collar bone visible beneath her skin, to her breasts. Brenda thought she glimpsed a bit of the woman's bra as her chest heaved with every breath, that grew more labored the longer Brenda stared.
She couldn't get enough of what she saw, she wanted to see everything yet knew that she couldn't and also rather shouldn't but her eyes kept greedily studying all that was before her and for the first time she could actually look without having to pretend that she wasn't.
Eventually her gaze landed upon that exposed knee. The skirt had ridden up even further now and a bit of Raydor's thigh was exposed, her creamy and soft looking skin on display in a most titillating and alluring manner.
It was like staring at chocolate she knew she shouldn't have which only made her want it more. No one was watching though, no prying eyes, something that made Brenda rather nervous usually because she could only enjoy and indulge in chocolate fully when she was alone with it.
They had a special relationship, an intimate one, purely physical of course and somehow, when she wanted Raydor this much, Brenda started to compare the woman to chocolate.
She reached out with one hand but pulled back again a little. She hovered and sucked her lower lip in, suddenly feeling weak, trying to justify what she knew she would end up doing anyway.
Maybe she just needed a little bit, just to calm her nerves, just a bit to tide her over until she could actually get her hands on real chocolate.
Oh, she would eat her way through at least three Ding Dongs when she got home later.
To hell with-
Her fingertips made contact with the soft skin of Sharon Raydor's knee.
Maybe she should just do it, turn fantasy into reality, and because reality could hardly ever live up to ones fantastical desires, Brenda could stop lusting after an illusion afterwards.
Her fingers traveled upwards, caressing the truly silky skin. Brenda's mind went blank and maybe she wasn't even breathing that's how good this felt. Her hand, fingers, palm and all, caressed until she reached the hem of Raydor's skirt. It was the one barrier she knew she should not cross even though she wanted to, badly.
Her eyes darted to Raydor's, afraid the woman could see the unadulterated desire in her eyes and indeed she was studying Brenda's features intently. The blonde felt the skirt give way, the material no longer holding her back.
Her gaze dropped again and she saw that the Captain had grasped a fistful of her own skirt and had pulled the material up; Brenda expelled a slow, heavy breath at the sight and let her hand wander up further, caressing, tickling, marveling at the texture, at the tiniest imperfections, the warmth of the woman's flesh.
Her touch remained gentle even though Brenda wanted to do other things, even though she wanted to dig her fingertips into the woman's flesh and touch every bit of skin she could possibly reach. Instead she let her hand slide over the woman's knee again, to her calf and back to the back of her knee.
And then she let go, stunned at her own actions, stunned at the reality that made Brenda's imagination seem boring and tame in comparison to what she had just experienced. Clearing her throat, the blonde sat back in her seat, her skin damp from the sheer exhaustion, the result of having to restrain herself.
She glanced over and saw how Raydor smoothed her skirt down as if they had just given in to carnal lust and had practically eaten each other up then she just stared out of the window, trying to calm her breathing – that she heard Raydor pant in barely contained arousal right next to her didn't help matters at all.
After what felt like a while but was perhaps only a minute, Brenda glanced over once more, saw Raydor pinching the bridge of her nose, eyes closed and breathing shakily, her knees, thighs, pressed together tightly. Brenda flushed at the sight.
They sat like that for a bit until Captain Raydor cleared her throat also; the woman looked composed, as if nothing had transpired between them at all as she spoke. "I should go," she said, her voice a tad uncontrolled, a tad hysteric, the only indication that whatever lay beneath that exterior had been shaken. "Thank you for the ride, Chief Johnson."
"Oh, you're welcome, Captain."
"I'll see you-"
"Not tomorrow, you have to rest."
"Well-"
"G'night, Captain."
"Night, Chief."
They stared at each other for another moment then Raydor opened the door and got out.
As the passenger side door slammed shut and Brenda watched the woman ascend the stairs to her home, the blonde felt like somebody had just dumped a bucket of cold water over her head.
What in the world had she been thinking?
Yet she felt surprisingly little guilt and not even shame necessarily. It was embarrassment at how easily her desires had overruled her common sense.
She should have known that this would happen.
Correction, she had known somewhere in the back of her head – where there's smoke, right? So all her thinking had essentially been for nothing.
What she hadn't expected however was how quickly and thoroughly her hard-won principles had just gone up in flames.
~TBC~
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