Disclaimer: I don't own GS/D . . . =_= '
AN: Time flew so fast. If you're asking what the Heck took me so long, One word: School
Athrun's Fall
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Chapter Thirteen
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Smiling seductively, Cagalli bumped her middle against his. She watched his eyes grow smoky. She came up on tiptoe and kissed his mouth. Against his lips she whispered. "I want you hard."
With a hungry sound his mouth came down on hers. He ground a savage kiss on her lips. "You knew what you were doing to me, didn't you?"
"Yes," she said defiantly.
"You tortured me intentionally."
"Not tortured, enticed."
"Why?"
"Because I want you, Athrun."
He kissed her again with a release of pent-up violence, anger, and passion. His free hand raked open her kimono. He touched her breast, fanned his fingertips over her nipple, then slid his hand down the tapering shape of her body and encircled her waist with his arm. His hand splayed wide over her derriere and pulled her higher against him. When she responded with a tilt of her hips, he quickly released her.
But he was far from finished. Using his arms, he walked himself backward and dropped into his wheelchair. In a matter of moments he was in bed, lying on his back, and drawing her down on top of him.
"Give me your best, baby," he growled.
She did. They kissed endlessly, with honest, soul-bearing lust. When they finally pulled apart, he shoved the kimono off her shoulder. She shrugged out of it and stood on her knees before him, proud and unashamed. She reached for the waistband of his shorts.
In that instant she saw the first flicker of doubt appear in his eyes. He caught her hand. "Cagalli, wait, I—"
She slapped his hand away and aimed her index finger at the center of his chest. "Don't you dare freeze up on me again, Athrun Zala. I let you get by with it last night, but damned if I will again."
"I—"
"Shut up and listen to me." Aggravated, she ran a hand through her hair to get it off her face. "You're scared that you won't be able to see this through. But you'll never know until you try." She drew a long, unsteady breath that made her breasts quiver with emotion.
"And you can lay your worries to rest that I'll taunt you if you're slow or awkward or even a total failure. I won't know the difference. I won't know if your performance is good, bad, or indifferent because . . . because you'll be my first lover."
He stared at her blankly. Seconds later, when he began to laugh, it was a nasty sound. "You laying little conniver. You've got more gall than anybody I ever met. You'll do anything, say anything, to get your patient to respond to your idea of therapy. Well, I don't want to hear your lies. And I damn sure don't want your pity."
Cagalli propped her fists on her hips. "Look, Athrun, there's only one way you'll ever find out if I'm lying or not."
She efficiently removed his shorts and straddled his lap. Bridging his chest with hers. "?I dare you to chance it." She kissed him in earnest, running her tongue across his teeth. "Dare you, Zala. Double dare you." lowering her head, she nuzzled his chest, then touched his nipple with her parted lips. He hissed a swear words and caught double handfuls of her hair. But he didn't pull her head away, especially not when she flicked her tongue over his nipple. "Dare you."
She had barely breathed the words before he bracketed her hips between his hands and pulled her down to his rigid endowment. He wasn't gentle.
Resistance.
A little gasp of pain.
He froze.
"Ah, God, Cagalli I'm sorry," his expression registered two emotions at once—regret and bewilderment. "I didn't mean to . . . I don't understand how . . . This is . . . You really are—Why didn't you tell me?"
"I did." She looked into his face. "It's the truth. You're my first. And you can believe this too. If you stop now, I'll kill you."
A smile twitched at the corner of his lips, but his touch was compassionate and tender when he reached up and stroked her cheek. "You're sure?"
"Yes." She faltered. "But I don't think I can look you in the face while we're doing it. I mean it's so . . . And I—"
"Cagalli?"
"What?"
"Shut up."
He drew her down for a long kiss. His tongue made repeated forays into her mouth while his hands caressed her breast, her back, her legs. She responded to every subtle suggestion he whispered, until, without any further pain and a great deal of sensations and joy, he was fully nestled inside her body.
He continued to coach her. A soft touch, a guiding hand, a whispered endearment. Loveplay. Erotic and exciting. Until itbecame uncertain exactly who was coaching whom.
The foundations of their worlds began to quake, then break apart. They clung to each other. He cried her name. She chanted his.
Replete, totally drained of energy, she collapse on top of him. Her limbs were so weak she couldn't move them. Her skin was damp with perspiration. His hands continued to idly strum her back and bottom, but all she could do in reaction was smile complacently against his shoulder. It took a long time for her to regain enough strength to raise her head.
Athrun was grinning.
She grinned, too, and said, "Well for started, that wasn't bad."
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". . . all I knew was that we were slipping and there wasn't anything I could do to stop it. I reached for a handhold, anything, but grabbed nothing but air. I kept saying to myself that should do something. 'Stop this. Prevent this from happening.' I was powerless."
"And you hated that."
"Yes."
Athrun sighed as he mindlessly sifted his fingers through Cagalli's hair. "I remember hearing Nicol scream. Or maybe it was my own screams, because I was told later that he died instantly."
"Were you in pain?" talking about his accident was therapeutic. As difficult as it was for him, Cagalli had encouraged him to verbally air his feelings about it.
"I don't think so. I don't remember having any pain then. Maybe I was in shock."
"Probably."
"I drifted in and out of consciousness. I couldn't see him, but I remember calling his name and getting no answer. I think I cried."
She held him tight for several moments. He cleared his throat before speaking again. "The next memory I have is of the helicopter carrying me to the hospital. The racket was terrible. I sensed the urgency in the people around me. When I fully regained consciousness, I was told that I'd had surgery to repair the broken bones in my back."
"I'm very sorry," she told him as she laid a loving kiss on his chest. "It must have been a terrifying experience."
"I don't remember being scared so much as I was angry. It was happening to me, and I couldn't quite believe that. I had so much I still wanted to do with my life." He shook his head in befuddlement. "I know that was a crazy thing to be thinking at the time, but that's what was going through my mind."
"You felt, 'How unfair,' right?"
He laid his hand heavily on her head. "Yeah. That's it in a nutshell. Tragedies were supposed to happen to other people. Not to Athrun Zala. I heard hard luck stories on the news, but I went on with my life untouched and unscathed. Doesn't make me sound like a very nice fellow, does it?"
She stacked her fists on his breastbone and propped her chin on top of them. Gazing up at him, she said, "It makes you normal. That's what everybody in your predicament feels like. The 'why me' syndrome. And it's justified. Why you?"
His expression was reflective. "I don't know. Was God favoring me or punishing me? I thought about that a lot when I first regained consciousness. Why was I the one who survived?"
"Don' feel guilty for surviving. Aha, you already have," she said, reading his rueful expression correctly. "Sometimes the survivors have the hardest time of it."
"I thought about that too. Especially before I was brought here. I hated lying there in the hospital in Rome, helpless, in pain, unable to move, afraid."
"What were you most afraid of?"
He thought for a moment before answering. "I was afraid of never being Athrun Zala again. I felt like I'd been robbed not only of the ability to move, but of my whole identity."
"That's symptomatic of your condition too." She kissed him lightly on the lips. "What is it? You have an odd smile on your face."
"I know this sounds stupid, but I was embarrassed too. The first time they put me on that . . ." he made a descriptive motion with his hands.
"The tilt table."
"Yeah. I threw up all over myself. Imagine, Athrun Zala, CEO of the worldwide Zala Hotel chain, disgracing himself like that."
She inched upward and kissed him again, more soundly this time. "You were the only one there who was unsympathetic with your condition."
"I know. I gave everyone a hard time."
"No foolin'."
He laughed with a chagrin, but became serious again. "One of my character flaws is that I have no tolerance for personal failings."
"You have no tolerance for things beyond your control."
He looked down his nose at her. "I think you fall into that category. You're way beyond my control."
She giggled. "That's what you don't like about me."
"I like you." he spoke with a soft earnestness that immediately captured her attention.
"You do? Since when?"
"Since . . . I don't know."
"Bet I know. You started liking me when I stripped off your shorts and jumped on your bones."
"No. I mean, yes, I like that. A lot," he said with a lecherous twinkle in his eyes. "But it's just occurred to me a second ago that I like you, the person, too."
"Why?"
"I guess because you've patiently listened while I've talked about the accident."
"I'm glad you shared it with me. You've needed to talk it out with someone. They told me that you refused counseling in the hospital."
He shrugged. "I felt like a dope."
"You're too tough to ask for help, right?" she asked it teasingly enough to make him smile.
"Thanks for listening and for not making judgments, Cagalli."
"You're welcome."
He reached up and curled a wisp of her hair around his fingers. "We've gotten into some heavy subject matter here, but I find it hard to wax philosophic when a sexy broad is sprawled across my belly."
"Do you know?"
"Hmm." He regarded her with open curiosity and interest. "But, now that I've revealed all my secrets to you, let's turn the tables. Tell me why and how."
Assuming a casual air, she lightly plucked his earlobe. As earlobes went, it was nice but didn't warrant the single-minded attention she gave to it. "Why and how what?"
"Why you're still a virgin—"
"How soon you forget."
He frowned at her. "Why you're still a virgin and how that's even possible."
"Technically, it's possible because I've never had a consummated love affair."
"That answers the second half of the question. What about the first half? To refresh your memory, it's the part about why?"
"I've never wanted to before."
"Cagalli." He sounded like a parent scolding a child who was obviously stretching the truth. "I want the truth."
"That's the truth. Knowing me as well as you do, do you think I'd preserve my virginity for any other reason?"
He still seemed puzzled. "It just doesn't jive with your personality. You'll do or say anything without a single qualm. I find it hard to believe you have such a liberated and relaxed attitude towards sex but have never participated."
"I go to football games and cheer on the players, but I've never played myself."
"That's hardly a correlation."
She sighed with exasperation. "What do you suggest, that I brand a bid red V on my forehead?"
He linked his hands at the small of her back and held her tightly. Nuzzling her neck, he said, "It's too late now."
"That's right. So why are you making such a big deal out of it?"
"I was surprise. No, shocked is a better word. And you still haven't given me a straight answer."
"I never wanted to make love before. It's as simple as that."
He was already shaking his head. "No, it goes deeper." He tried to delve into her eyes and find the truth, but she wouldn't hold eye contact long enough. "Does this have anything to do with that conversation we had about your feelings of inadequacy?"
"Of course not!"
"Bingo!"
She glared at him. "Okay, maybe it does, what of it?"
"You're a beautiful, funny, sensual, strong, sexy woman, that's what of it. Why have you deprived yourself of the most fulfilling experience the human being can enjoy?"
"Because if there was a way to mess up the most fulfilling experience the human being can enjoy, I would have found it."
Athrun softened his tone. "Care to expound?"
"No, but I will since I get the impression you're going to persist until I do."
"Right."
She drew a deep breath of resignation and expulsed it slowly. "I figured that I would be as clumsy and awkward about sex as I was about everything else. I don't mean in bed exactly. I mean all the trappings that go with it. I was afraid I'd get pregnant despite precautions. I'd be the one and a half percent the pills won't work on. I was afraid that I'd fall in love with the guy but he wouldn't fall in love with me, or the reverse." Her wide almond eyes appealed to him to understand. "I know it sounds ridiculous now, but I'd flubbed everything else I had ever tried."
"Except basketball and tennis. Kira told me."
"Well, I was okay skillwise, but I got kicked off the high school basketball team."
"Dare I ask why?"
"For sewing a row of sequins on the hem of my trunks. Well, those uniforms were ugly, Athrun," she stressed when he burst out laughing. "And men would get mad as hell when I beat them at tennis, so I quit playing. See? It followed that I'd fail at sex too."
A trace of vulnerability had crept into her voice, though she was unaware of it. "I didn't want another failure on my record. By the time I was told enough to say yea or nay to any guy who happened to ask, Kira was married to Lacus. She's the perfect little homemaker. Kira adored her. She gave birth to absolutely gorgeous, precious, precocious babies. If I had entered into a relationship with a man, it would end in some kind of dreadful tangle."
"But you dated."
"Yes, lots of men. But I always halted them before the final countdown."
"Poor suckers."
"Hey, the dates didn't come with a guarantee for goodies. It wasn't as though I made promises and then welshed. I didn't love any of them, so I didn't care if they read the signals wrong then ranted and raved, called me names, went away in a huff, and never asked me out again."
"But Cagalli, the way you act, the way you talk, you can't blame a man for feeling manipulated if you don't come through."
"I guess not," she admitted. "But there was too much at stake. Everything I was, everything that makes me Cagalli was at risk, and I just never thought it was a risk worth taking." Her gaze grew lambent. "At least, not until this afternoon. Now I know what I've been missing."
"Don't look at me like that, you little hustler. You should have gone into advertising. You sure as hell know how to package the product and launch a convincing campaign. You've turned a self-defense mechanism into an art form." His eyes moved over her, taking in the tousled hair, her lips, which were rouged by his kisses, the I'm-game-for-anything glint on her eyes. "God, you're so sexy."
"You thought I was an easy lay."
"Certainly not easy," he said, chuckling, "but definitely worth the trouble." He pressed his palm over her derriere. "With your lusty nature you were loaded and primed. No wonder you were so quick to fire yesterday."
Cagalli actually blushed. "What are you doing to me, I couldn't help it." His mouth spread into a wide grin. "Proud of yourself, are you, Zala? Well, don't get smug. As you've so ungallantly put it, I was primed. Any man could have pulled the trigger."
"But you didn't let any other man," he reminded her softly. "You let me. Why?"
Smoothing his eyebrow with the pad of her thumb, she thoughtfully considered her answer. "Maybe I knew you'd be grateful for a guinea pig and wouldn't mind my amateur performance. In fact, I knew you'd feel more self-confident with an amateur."
"You're no amateur. You're a natural. I feel sorry for all those poor slobs who tried to bed you and failed. But I'm glad they did."
He cupped the back of her head and forced her face down to his. With their lips pressed together hard, his tongue boldly entered her mouth. He separated her thighs with caressing hands. His touch was delicate and deliberate and deadly to her senses."
"Athrun," she said on a ragged sigh, "can we do it again? Once more with greater feeling."
"Yes," he moaned. "I can do it again. Now I know, with you I can do anything."
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AN: Finally! I got through with it. I'll post the next chapter real soon, I promise. There will be no ASAP (As Soon As I Please). So don't forget, R&R.