AN: Enjoy! =)

Chapter Fourteen: Because the Night

Take me now, baby, here as I am

Lexie had slicked a thin layer of gloss across her mouth while she'd waited for the elevator downstairs. By the time it released her onto his floor, she'd pulled the sheen off with small, anxious bites of her lower lip.

As she made her way down the hallway, she could feel her courage accompanying her heels as they sank into the plush carpet. Things had seemed much clearer when she'd been drinking.

Now, head no longer muzzy with the idealistic simplicity of just going up to a man and demanding sex, Lexie faltered. Shaking her head, she took a step backward. After executing a messy turn, she took three more steps toward the elevator. Then she stopped, turned again, and walked closer to his door.

After staring at the wood for a long while, she swung her eyes to look at the metallic double doors of the elevator. Frozen in some warped pickle, Lexie remained in the hallway, unable to go forward yet unwilling to retreat.

Desire and hunger is the fire I breathe

Mark pressed the pads of his thumbs to his temples and rubbed them in idle circles. Feeling his massive headache dissipating, he blew out his breath.

Being chastised by your best friend's mother when you were ten was one thing. After all, the kitchen was her domain and frogs and microwaves didn't mix. Rules were there for a reason; at ten, boundaries were synonymous with protection.

It was an entirely different thing when the one setting up boundaries was your peer and the rules weren't so much for your own good as they were safeguards against your destructive tendencies.

The vote of confidence was bolstering, Mark thought wryly.

The initial pleasant surprise of seeing Derek at his hotel door was short-lived. After a few preliminary greetings, he'd gotten down to business.

The premise he'd set up was simple: Lexie was fragile. Mark didn't own a pair of kid gloves. Mark was destructive; Lexie was not made of Vibranium.

The rule he'd promulgated was even simpler: Talking to Lexie was fine, but pants were mandatory.

Part of him had been just plain offended. After all, in her current condition, the girl was the epitome of vulnerability and as much as Mark Sloan liked a good time, he wasn't into coercing consent. For a small moment, he'd been tempted to tell Derek the truth of how he'd met Lexie.

But most of him had just been weary. So he'd merely nodded and pretended like the George story wasn't old news. He was getting sick of hearing the kid's name.

His cooperation had earned him a smile from Derek before his friend had left. All he needed was a pat on the head and he'd be back from the doghouse. The cynical thought pulled one corner of Mark's mouth up.

The knock at the door yanked it right back down. Sighing, he stood up. His headache was back with reinforcements.

"What," he said, reaching for the doorknob. "You forget to—"

His next words slipped from his mind. Because rather than Derek at the door, it was the epitome of vulnerability.

Just stay in my bed 'til the morning comes

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Even though she had knocked, her mouth parted soundlessly. Apparently, the feeling was mutual because he just stared back at her, his body still blocking the doorway

She took advantage of his raised brows and stricken face by sidestepping his tall frame. Three steps put her well within the confines of his hotel room and he closed the door behind them.

"Hi," she said, shrugging off her pea coat.

He watched the movement warily and she tried not to take that as a bad sign. Aiming for nonchalance, she tossed the coat over the back of a chair and turned to look around the room.

He didn't say anything so she spoke, her hands nervously finding each other. "I wanted to apologize." Then she added, "And to thank you for listening." When he didn't appear to be catching on, she explained, "For the other day? In…in the stairwell?"

He nodded. "I remember." His arms crossed over his thin t-shirt.

It could hardly be seen as encouraging, but she forged ahead, forcing her fingers to stop twisting. She needed to exude confidence, not frailty. "You were right, I was out of line."

"And projecting," he prodded.

Her eyes narrowed into slits. "And projecting," she conceded through gritted teeth.

He smiled then, displaying a row of even, white teeth. It was such a difference from the surprised, aloof man who'd answered the door that she could only blink.

"Admitting you have a problem is the first step," he teased, moving to sit on the couch.

Sucking in a steadying breath, she sat next to him. Instead of taking the cushion at the other end, she opted for the middle one. Angling to face him, her knee pressed against his thigh and she waited. It wasn't until he froze at the contact that she realized she'd been holding her breath.

He cleared his throat then, shifting ever so slightly. The movement created a millimeter of space between them, but it was perceptible.

Telling herself to man up and go for it, she inclined her body a bit further until they were touching yet again. She wasn't sure if the heat she felt was from his thigh or from her own adrenaline, but when his eyes rose from their joined legs to her face, she met his gaze boldly.

Then he shot up, the movement so quick, she almost fell back against the sofa.

The vicious circle turns and burns

"Hey, in here," Derek called out when the front door closed.

She found him in the kitchen. Dumping her satchel on a nearby chair, she said, "Hey, I'm glad I caught you." She put her hands in her back pockets, the movement stretching the fabric of her button-down shirt. He watched the motion with clear appreciation and she hid her smile. "I need to talk to you about Mark."

He held out a palm as if to stop her. Smiling broadly, he said, "No need. Took care of it just now; he will definitely be staying away from Lexie."

She groaned. "What? No, no, no. I need him to sleep with Lexie."

Derek's smile fell. "Excuse me?" he asked. "Didn't we already agree that Lexie is fragile?"

Nodding her agreement, she sighed. "That's why he needs to sleep with her. Otherwise she'll be devastated."

Derek frowned. "I—"

Running her hands through her hair, she paced in agitation. "She's over there right now throwing herself at him and you've told him to reject her."

"Er—you told me to tell him to reject her."

Waving her slender hands as if brush off the minor detail, Meredith implored him, "You have to tell him to forget what you said, to go for it."

Derek stared at her for a long moment. Then, words slow and precise, he asked, "You get that I'm a surgeon, right? Not a pimp?"

Come on now, try and understand

"I was going to get something to drink," he said abruptly. "Did you want anything?"

The change of topic didn't disturb her; the uneasy way he spoke did. Shrugging, she agreed.

Mark made it halfway to the bar before stopping. He turned and walked back, talking more to himself than her. "On second thought, no drinking," he muttered.

Her brow furrowed when he sat in the chair adjacent to the sofa instead of returning to her. Meredith's words reminded her of the promise he'd made to his best friend.

Lexie shook her hair back and strengthened her resolve. Leaning toward him over the sofa's arm, she tucked her chin into her palm. "Are you all right?" she asked, keeping her voice low. She aimed for a throaty purr only it came out as more of a wheeze.

Luckily, he seemed too preoccupied to notice. "Uh—yeah, sure," he said, his eyes bouncing off the walls.

She smiled and stood up, her legs eating up the short distance to his chair. "You have an eyelash," she explained, bending to lean over him. With one palm on the chair's armrest to brace her weight, she brushed her finger across his cheekbone. "Make a wish," she offered.

He stared at the pad of her finger in front his mouth and then at her face, which was level with his. A dark curtain of hair spilled over one shoulder, falling into the space between them. A cross between vanilla and citrus flooded his nostrils and he forced himself to stop inhaling. His eyes slid from her hair to her lips.

Damn.

"Do you hear that?" he asked, unnecessarily loud.

Her brows knitted. "No," she answered, but he stood up anyway, forcing her to take a step back or risk getting mowed over.

"I thought I heard the phone ring." He walked to the landline near the nightstand and picked up the receiver. With his back to her, he exhaled, giving himself a few moments of reprieve. Jesus, this was going to be death of him.

He wasn't sure if Derek had set this up as some kind of supreme test, but if so, Mark no longer had a best friend. Just a sadistic son of a bitch ex-best friend.

Momentary refuge over, he set down the phone. "Guess not," he laughed uneasily, turning to walk back to the sofa. He stopped short when he saw that she was right behind him, her damn eyes darker than he'd ever seen them.

He knew that look. He was vastly familiar with that look. That look was one hell of an aphrodisiac. It was the heavy-lidded, feline look of a woman who knew the full extent and power of her wiles. The soft smile that tugged one corner of Lexie's mouth merely confirmed it.

Double damn.

He opened his mouth to tell her it was getting late, that she needed to get home, that he needed to take about three cold showers. Instead, he only let out a winded oomph as she pushed the heels of her hands against his upper chest.

Then he was staring at the ceiling, wondering how someone so little could have such freakish upper body strength. Elbows as leverage, he propped up on the bed just in time to see her fingers work the buttons of her thin sweater, her eyes on him the entire time.

"Lexie," he started, his voice bordering a scold.

She didn't heed him and a moment later, she was wearing a flimsy excuse for a bra.

"Oh, Jesus," he muttered, looking back at the safer, less stimulating view of the ceiling. Soon enough, his eyes cried mutiny and found her again, if only to discover what color her bra was so that he could save the image for later, much later, when she came to her senses and left and this memory was all he had of her.

He was hoping for beige. Or gray. Or some dingy hue that used to be a color but no longer was.

Red. God clearly hated him.

Then he gave up not watching and surrendered to the greed. His eyes flew over her body once, taking the siren call of her bra, the dip of her navel. Then he slowed down with the realization that time was on his side, that he had been afforded the luxury of slow memorization. As she worked the top button of her jeans, his eyes ran down her body once more.

Rarely was the second time of anything better than the first. Lexie was apparently an exception because this time he was able to see more than the red of her bra. He was able to see the swell of her breasts, the smooth skin near her collarbone. He didn't just see the indent of her belly button, but also the way her slender waist flared into the hips hugged by the low rise of her dark jeans.

There was something oddly compelling about the expanse of skin covering her ribcage before tapering into denim. Maybe he was too used to skirts and stockings and silk blouses. For a brief moment, he wished she'd keep the jeans on.

"Lexie," he choked out, the name no longer a warning.

But then her jeans were off and it was a stupid miracle he'd ever wished clothes on her.

The way I feel when I'm in your hands

Lexie wasn't a prude. She enjoyed sex, always had. However, she'd be damned if she'd have to take off her own underwear the first time she slept with a particular man. There was something to be said for foreplay.

That decided, she moved forward, one bare knee sinking onto the mattress before its twin joined. She hadn't even made it to his side of the bed before he was scrambling backward away from her.

"Lexie," he said, staring at her earlobe. "Lexie, this is—you are—"

"Yes?" she encouraged softly, her smile curving her mouth up. Still on her knees, she walked closer.

He swallowed hard. His head met with the headboard and he realized there was nowhere left to scoot. She had to be one step ahead of him because in a matter of seconds, she was over him, one knee planted on either side of his hips.

Then she lowered herself onto his lap, her hands reaching out to frame his face. Frozen, he watched her features come closer and her eyelids lower. His initial thought was that if more people had genes like Lexie's, it'd put him out of business.

Desperate, he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her away. "What time is it?" he demanded.

She blinked, stunned. Hair tumbling around her shoulders with the force of his grasp, she stuttered. "I don't know."

Depositing her to one side, he moved to the end of the bed. "I have to call the hospital. I completely forgot to get updates on—"

He cut himself off. She knew why. "You don't have patients," she said slowly. He watched her face carefully over his shoulder. Her near nudity and clear rejection becoming all too apparent, she looked sick. "Oh, god," she said, looking around the room. Her clothes were on a pile in the floor.

"Lexie..." The hand reaching out to was as imploring as it was helpless.

She waved him off. "Forget it," she said. "I'm an idiot."

"Lexie, it's not—"

"Stop saying my name," she snapped, pulling her hair back as she tried to get off the bed whilst covering as much of her body as she could without appearing like a self-conscious child.

"I'm sorry," he said.

She laughed dryly, "For what?"

Standing, he came over to her. "Look at me," he demanded, blocking her path to her clothes.

Sighing her aggravation, she finally obeyed. "What?" Her voice was petulant, snarky even and he knew that in respecting her vulnerability, he'd just shattered her self-esteem.

"You're…" he started, running his hands up and down her arms in a gesture that was meant to reassure. He pulled back to drink in her body. "Look at you," he finished softly.

The tone conveyed more than the words. Lexie sniffed and peeked up at him. "Yeah?" she asked, tenative.

"Yeah," he confirmed, nodding. "Oh, yeah."

She gave him a tremulous smile. Hair rumpled and eyes bright, she looked entirely too innocent to be the same woman who'd thrown him down on the bed moments ago. Instead of the slanted eyes of a seductress, Lexie's doe-shaped eyes were back, their hazel color returning.

And even with the fact that she was nearly naked and wearing a shade of red that inspired lust, Mark found himself endeared.

"You are," he started, and her face perked up, displaying the rapt attention of a woman who senses a imminent compliment. "Adorable," he finished.

Her face went from warm to livid in half a second flat.

"Adorable," she repeated. "Adorable?" she asked, this time louder. Slapping his arm, she shoved past him to get to her clothes. "Puppies are adorable, naked babies on rugs are adorable," she ranted.

"Unbelievable," she said to herself as she yanked on her jeans. Tight as they were, she had to shimmy into them and Mark pressed down his smile at the picture she made.

"Lexie—" he tried.

"Oh, shut up!" she shouted, reaching down for her sweater. "You are such an ass." She scoffed, "Adorable. Adorable!"

Blindly stuffing her arms through the sleeves of her sweater, she rounded on him. "You know, I'm sorry my hair isn't red and I'm sorry I'm not a foremost neo-natal surgeon and—and I'm sorry I don't have legs up to my ears, but in my family, we're proportional."

The mention of Addison barely made him blink. But as she turned away from him, the image of her back compelled another smile he had to repress. He didn't have the heart to tell her that her right sleeve didn't quite reach her wrist because she'd twisted the back of her sweater twice in her hurry to get it on. She figured it out on her own, however, when she raked her hair back and saw her bare wrist.

Letting out a growl that bordered on a cry, she dropped her arm and stomped to the door, grabbing her jacket on the way.

"Lexie," he called after her.

She didn't pay attention as she worked the locks. Prepared to yank the door back, nothing happened when she pulled. Instead of unlocking the door, she'd twisted another lock in place. Muttering to herself, she tried again.

"Lexie."

"How the hell do I get out of here?" she asked of no one in particular.

"Lexie."

"What?" she spat.

Hands on her shoulders, he guided her to him. "Adorable," he informed her, " is the new sexy."

Then he kissed her.

Because the night belongs to lovers

Because the night, belongs to us

AN: Please review!

"Because the Night" is written and performed by Bruce Springsteen.