a/n: Writing this pair has always been difficult, but it's getting more and more tricky as we go along. As a matter of fact, I changed my mind about this chapter several times. I'm also not entirely happy with the final result, but I put it out anyway. Why? Mostly because I was changing my mind so much. Once again, I figured if I put it out, I can't change my mind after that.
a/n: As usual, thanks for the reviews. And here we go.
Concession
Chapter 34: Madness Follows
She should have been happy that he admitted to his arousal. She should have been happy that he admitted to intimate intent. But there was something else she needed from him. After reaching over and grabbing a condom from Sheldon's messenger bag, she handed it to him, and with a confident smirk said, "Well, you brought me here. You come up with something."
Her boyfriend took the condom and studied the package in the streetlamp light that shone through the window. "Me? Come up with something? Like what?"
"That's completely up to you, but you should probably put that on first."
Sheldon rolled onto his side so that his back was to her and began putting on the condom. "How am I supposed to know what to do?" he muttered.
"I don't know. You must have imagined something at some point. Just relax and do what feels right," Amy told him.
Once he was finished putting on his protection, he turned onto his other side to face her. "What feels right is having a well-established course of action."
"Then nothing we've done up until this point has felt right?" she asked. "Seriously, you're making this more difficult than it has to be. It's like the kiss all over again. Don't put so much thought into it." She sighed and was about to put her hand on his face, but she stopped short. Leading by example had been her way for too long. He'd brought them this far. It was time for him to act.
Or maybe bringing them this far was his idea of taking action. That and kissing her in the car without having an excuse to do so. Maybe she was making too many demands.
So, if he didn't have anything in mind when he brought her to her bedroom, then his course of action was to let her do whatever she wanted?
Amy sighed again. She'd been spending a lot of time and effort trying to figure out her boyfriend. She wanted to do intimate things with him. And he seemed okay with doing intimate things with her as long as she was the one to initiate them... The minute she asked him to initiate intimacy was when things became difficult again.
How was she supposed to know he wanted any of this? How was she supposed to know he wasn't just going with the flow?
Why should she be the only one to initiate these things anyway? It's not like she was very knowledgeable on the topic. Sure, she'd been writing fantasies about them, but half of those were directly sex related.
"We've done some things in the past. As a matter of fact, I got the impression that maybe you wanted to repeat the events of last night," Amy went on. Making a suggestion couldn't hurt. It would almost be like he made the suggestion himself. Not quite, but almost.
"Okay."
His response surprised her, especially since she hadn't asked a question. Would he have responded the same way to any suggestion she made? She would never know now.
She felt him moving closer to her and the first thing that came into contact with her was his latex-sheathed longing. He closed his eyes and slowly began rubbing himself against her thigh. Well, he did say he'd been aroused since she came out in her pajamas, so he was well overdue for release by this point. She hadn't considered that.
"Sheldon, wait," Amy murmured breathlessly. Even though he was simply poking at her thigh, she was still getting worked up. She had to put her hand on his hip to stop him from moving. "Sheldon."
Sheldon finally opened his eyes and looked at her strangely.
"I want to try something," she told him. She rolled onto her back and spread her legs for him. "Come over here."
Her boyfriend wordlessly climbed between her legs and began thrusting his length against her silk-covered pleasure zone. No questions asked.
Amy had a question, however. How did he know what she wanted him to do without giving him specific instructions?
She couldn't believe that anything could feel better than last night, but this had that beat a thousand times over. With only those thin layers between them it almost felt like it could have been skin on skin. And oh, those choked up little stifled sounds that came from Sheldon's throat were both beautiful and annoying. They were only annoying because she wished he would just set those sounds free.
His hands found their way to her hips, which she had no idea were feverishly grinding against him, and she felt his excitement throbbing against her as he orgasmed. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite there yet, but she had no idea what she should do. She wanted to wrap her legs around him and demand satisfaction, but he was already calming down from his rigorous activity.
She had two options: 1) She could pretend that she was satisfied and finish herself off when he went to take his shower. 2) She could be honest with him and tell him that she hadn't yet finished and finish herself off when he went to take his shower.
At some point during her contemplation, Sheldon had looked at her and he frowned. "You're not done yet, are you?"
Well, there went option 1. Amy simply shook her head. And since he was still there between her legs with his hands on her hips, she was still incredibly turned on.
After what seemed like an eternity of deep thought on Sheldon's part, he finally moved from between her legs and lay beside her. His abandonment shouldn't have been a surprise. He had a track record for being selfish.
She wanted to cry out in frustration and anger. She wanted to slap him in the face.
That is, until she felt a set of fingers slowly moving up her inner thigh. She gasped and looked at him. "Sh-Sheldon...?"
"Let me help you," he said quietly.
It had barely been audible, due to the throbbing of her ears. This was an unexpected turn of events. She could barely hold still as his fingers made contact with her panties.
Her boyfriend looked surprised and she was sure he was going to say something negative about the feel of her damp silky undergarments. Actually, forget saying something negative. She was sure that he'd run away screaming before he even made an attempt to touch her there. Strangely enough, he was still in the same bed with her and he'd remained silent.
His fingers did seem to be frozen, however. That wasn't a good sign at all. She lay on her back, closed her eyes and began moving against his fingers. It was amazing. She couldn't and wouldn't stop herself from making pleasured sounds.
This shouldn't have felt like a new experience for her. She'd played with herself in this very manner plenty of times before. If it was the silk or if it was the fact that these were Sheldon's fingers making it all feel so different, she wasn't sure.
She could feel his fingers beginning to make some moves and she all but squealed with delight. When she opened her eyes to look at her boyfriend, he was staring at her, utterly amazed by her reactions. So she closed her eyes again, gripped the head of her bed with both hands and continued indulging in the awkward fumblings of his fingers between her legs.
As she began nearing ecstasy, she felt Sheldon remove his fingers and she sighed in disappointment. What was the problem now? Did he think she'd finished?
But what she hadn't expected was the fact that he'd mounted her once again, only this time he was actually lying upon her. He put his arms around her, buried his face in the side of her neck and—at the risk of sounding inelegant—began some pretty lively humping against her silk-covered wetness.
All of these unforeseen occurrences rattled her brain, but it didn't put a halt to the orgasm that ripped through her entire body within only a few of his movements. Every muscle in her body spasmed and she involuntarily threw her arms around her boyfriend as wave after wave of convulsions overwhelmed her lady parts.
She wasn't even sure when her boyfriend climaxed again, but apparently it had happened at some point because he'd stopped moving. He simply lay on top of her, his arms still around her, and she could feel him trying to catch his breath.
(Once he's worked up, it really doesn't take much to overload his excitement,) Amy decided. (It's getting him worked up that's the problem. I've gotta remember that...)
But at the moment what she needed was a shower. "Sheldon, you're heavy."
"Oh. My apologies," he said quietly. He avoided her eyes as he went back to his side of the bed and he even sounded embarrassed.
"It's okay. If I didn't need a shower, I would've let you stay," Amy said with a little smirk. But she too was pretty embarrassed. Even with the protection of her underwear, she knew some of her juices had escaped onto the bedding. "Um, I'm gonna take a shower and while you're taking yours, I'll change the sheets."
Her boyfriend nodded, lying as still as possible, making sure to continue averting his eyes.
She was a little surprised that he hadn't insisted on taking a shower first.
The two finished up with their showers in record time and Amy had changed their sheets, as planned. Unfortunately, there was too much awkwardness between them now. She would have thought that they'd be used to these kinds of things by now, but she was sure that he was feeling just as uncomfortable as she was.
They simply sat on opposite sides of the bed, not a word passing between them for a few minutes. Neither of them moved. All that was left for the night was to sleep. And oddly enough, it was relatively early. Relatively in comparison with the other nights they'd done this sort of thing. She wasn't sure if they'd be able to exist in the same room for an entire night if this kept up.
"Um," Amy began. "I could sleep on the couch if you want."
Sheldon turned to face her, a confused look on his face. "What? Why?"
Amy turned to look at him and he slowly looked away. "What do you mean, 'Why'? You can't even look at me."
Her boyfriend stared down at their new bedding. "That doesn't mean I want you to sleep someplace else."
"Then what does it mean?"
"That I can't look at you right now. I just made a fool of myself."
It was Amy's turn to look confused. "Made a fool of yourself? What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. After saying that I was just going to help you, I ended up helping myself...again. It's not really fair, is it?" Sheldon asked.
"What are you talking about?"
Sheldon sighed and was quiet for a moment before he finally said, "I was gratified three times today and you were only gratified once."
Amy smiled and shook her head. "Is that what's bothering you about all this?"
"Yes," he said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"It wasn't the embarrassing position we were in or touching me 'down there' or the fact that you came back for seconds?"
Sheldon thought for a moment. "Well, you suggested that position, so if either of us should be embarrassed by that, it should be you. And while I was sure that touching you 'down there' would be like something from a horror film, it wasn't all that bad." He appeared to be in thought again and he frowned a bit. "As far as coming back for seconds, I guess I should be embarrassed about that. But I only did it because you were squirming and making all those lewd noises while I was touching you, so that embarrassment is also yours."
Now that he was saying it like that, maybe she should have been even more embarrassed than she was.
Wait! He was talking pretty openly about what they just did! Amy had to wonder if he even realized it. The fact that he was blaming it all on her didn't matter. She was just glad that he actually talked about it. This was all so unbelievable. Was she really getting everything she wanted in one fell swoop? Well, technically, she was the one who initiated their intimate activities for the night, but close enough.
"Fine, Sheldon. But if that's the way you see it, then I owed you that extra gratification. So we're even."
Sheldon nodded slowly. "I suppose you're right."
"Alright. So, get in bed and let's get some sleep. We have a lot of episodes to watch tomorrow," Amy reminded him as she pulled back the new covers and climbed into bed.
"Okay."
All throughout her dreams, one phrase Sheldon had spoken kept playing over and over in her mind: "And while I was sure that touching you 'down there' would be like something from a horror film, it wasn't all that bad." Her boyfriend's degrees of tolerance usually varied dramatically, while his verbal expressions of those degrees of tolerance were a little hard to decipher.
So far, she knew that when he said that he "didn't dislike" something, that meant that he liked it. That left this new statement open to interpretation. "It wasn't all that bad," was what he'd said.
Despite that statement's constant appearance in her dreams, she had a pretty restful night's sleep. She looked over at her boyfriend and was surprised to see that he was not only still there, but he was still sound asleep. Perhaps he was getting used to sleeping with her. Or perhaps he was exhausted from all of his activity yesterday.
She simply stayed in bed and watched him sleep until she drifted off again.
It was nearly eight in the morning and Sheldon was still sleeping, so she got up, quickly went about her morning ablutions, got dressed in her normal attire, then returned to her slumbering boyfriend.
"Sheldon, wake up. It's eight o'clock," Amy whispered, giving him a little shake.
Sheldon awoke and frowned. "It's that late already? I can't believe I slept for so long. Why didn't you wake me earlier?"
"Well, you were sleeping so soundly and I didn't want to disturb you," Amy told him. "Then I thought about all the episodes of season five we have left to watch and I had no choice but to wake you."
"I wish you would've had no choice but to wake me sooner. There's no way we'll finish this season today."
"We can always try. Hurry and take care of your bathroom business. We'll see how far we can get," she told him, rushing him off to the bathroom.
Sheldon came out and went to the kitchen to make his cereal as soon as Amy was putting her bowl in the sink.
` "I just don't understand. I don't normally oversleep. This is unprecedented," Sheldon complained, studying his cereal bowl.
"Maybe your internal timer's just out of whack. You've been spending a lot of weekends outside of your normal environment. But don't worry. We've only got two weekends left and you can go back to your old routine," Amy reassured him. She headed toward the couch and she could feel Sheldon following her.
Now that she said it out loud, having only two more weekends left together felt like a tragedy. It was like the end of an era. They'd made so much progress these past few weekends. She was afraid that if they no longer spent weekends together, all of the things they'd been through together would be for naught.
Oddly enough, Sheldon didn't have anything to say on the matter. She was sure he'd be rejoicing about getting back to the way things were. Well, maybe he was showing a little courtesy and didn't want to celebrate in her presence.
Amy took her usual seat on the couch, then watched as her boyfriend did the same. He just seemed to be staring into his cereal bowl. What could possibly be so fascinating inside that bowl? "Is everything alright?" she asked him.
He simply looked at her for a moment, then nodded his head. "Everything's fine." Turning his attention to the television, he grabbed the remote and started the show.
Things were going well for the first few hours of viewing. They were sharing her throw and they were even doing something they hadn't done in a while—cuddling. Amy's head was resting comfortably on her boyfriend's chest, her arms wrapped around his waist. She lay wrapped in Sheldon's arms, much like their very first cuddle session. And everything was right with the world.
But in the middle of an episode, Amy felt an overwhelming need to kiss her boyfriend. It may have been the fact that Riker was getting all romantic with a member of an androgynous race of beings. Or it may have been her closeness to Sheldon. All she knew with certainty was that she scooted up and kissed him on the lips.
It seemed to take him a moment to realize what was happening before he responded, but eventually he answered by tentatively grazing her lips with his tongue.
Amy was sure that Sheldon would lecture her about having a makeout session in the middle of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, especially unannounced, but he was willing to go along with it. So she deepened their kiss and slowly slid one of her hands to her boyfriend's chest, tracing his sternum.
As soon as she worked up the courage to explore his rib cage, he broke the kiss and chuckled.
"That tickles," he murmured.
Amy grinned and squeezed his side, coercing another chuckle from him. "You really are ticklish, then? That wasn't just an excuse last time?"
She didn't even wait for him to answer. The wicked side of her came out and she began tickling his sides, watching as her boyfriend wriggled helplessly and laughed like she'd never seen him laugh before.
"P-please...please st-stop!" Sheldon stammered between bouts of laughter.
Amy stopped tickling him and just held him by the waist. "I'll stop if you..agree to make me lunch," she said after some thought.
"I thought we were ordering pizza."
"Well, I want grilled cheese."
Her boyfriend raised his eyebrows and nodded. "Okay."
Without many more interruptions, they were able to finish season five. Sheldon was still munching on a Red Vine when Amy ejected the DVD.
She sighed and looked at Sheldon. "They had a habit of ending a season on a cliffhanger. Are you sure we can't watch the first episode of season six?" she asked.
"You know we can't do that. A season six episode can only be watched on season six weekend," her boyfriend told her as he finished off his candy.
"Come on, Sheldon," Amy whined. "The origin of Guinan and Picard's friendship. How Data ended up losing his head. Some sort of weird snake thing. How does it all come together? Don't make me wait another week to find out."
Sheldon looked at her for a long time. "As happy as I am that you're this excited about the series, we can't go against the rules. It's one season per weekend. Now, it's after nine o'clock. I'd like to go home. We both have work in the morning."
She watched as he grabbed the boxset and put it in his messenger bag. "So, you're just gonna hold the series hostage again until next weekend?"
"You've left me no choice. You have a tendency to succumb to temptation much too easily."
Amy simply narrowed her eyes at him as he headed toward the door.
...to be continued...
a/n: Okay. That's the result of all of my mind changing. Thanks for waiting so long for this chapter and thanks for reading it. Please let me know what you think. With all the changes this chapter went through, I'd be surprised if it makes any sense at all. So, don't be afraid to be honest. Maybe it'll help with future chapters.
a/n: Again, slow-paced story, so thank you for your patience in that regard as well.
a/n: I just want to see if what bugged me the most about this chapter bugged anyone else...