I still don't own Chuck.

Content Warning: For those of you new to the story, it was rated M on . I've marked it as explicit on LiveJournal. It's not smut. At least I don't think so. That isn't my intent anyway. But it is written for adults. I wanted to tell a mature story about the darker side of the spy world that the 8:00 show could only hint at. And I'll admit… the freedom that the rating brings me as a writer feels good. I'll even admit that I've sometimes gone farther down that path than I originally intended.

One of the complaints that I've heard about the show is that they rarely showed C/S with any passion. Part of that was undoubtedly the limitation of an 8:00 show. But they had no problem showing Sarah kiss the other men in her life passionately. Why not her fiancé / husband? And maybe that was intentional, to show the difference between lust and love. Yeah, I'm going with that.

Anyway, there is a rather intimate scene at the beginning of this chapter. It's not gratuitous (at least not totally gratuitous anyway :) ) or even all that explicit. There is a point. But the squeamish among you might want to skim the first scene. The bullies from would hate, hate, hate it. In fact if anybody came over from for Long Road Home and since that is over now wants to be taken off the list, just send me a note. No hard feelings.

As long as we're on this subject, I want to say a few words about my vision of Sarah. I've already had some form of this discussion with many of you.

My Sarah is not exactly the Sarah from the show. When I'm writing I don't even picture Yvonne Strahovski (sorry, Yvonne, :) ) playing her. In fact, I'm not totally buying the Sarah from the show. At first they were careful to make her appear girl next door, trapped in this life as a spy that she really didn't want, always longing for the home and family that was denied her by her upbringing and circumstance. That's still how a lot of the fandom sees her. But over time they told us (mostly subtly) that our earlier perceptions of Sarah weren't correct… and neither were Chuck's. She enjoyed being a spy, was very good at it… in no small measure because she was so flawed, and simply lived for the next mission because it provided the self-esteem that was so lacking from her life in any other area. So she was very willing to do anything (emphasis on anything) that the mission required. And I know that sex is the first thing that might pop into your head, but it was far more than sex. In Santa she was willing to kill Mouser in cold blood when he was surrendering. In Baby she was willing to mow down an entire extended family. In Phase Three she was willing to do literally anything to save Chuck. But she was also willing to deny her feelings for him for two years because she was afraid they would impact the mission. To Sarah, the mission plainly came first.

The show didn't emphasize this enough for my tastes, but Chuck clearly changed her. I get that a fair amount of the fandom wants to view Sarah as the sweet, innocent, virgin girl next door and are uncomfortable with the idea that she might have a past that included those things (especially the sex part, lol). I just don't think that view is consistent with the show or even particularly interesting.

The very fact that Chuck changed her tells us that she needed to be changed, right? That is the romantic love story I've always tried to tell. A flawed, dark, and basically miserable Sarah who's been to hell and back with deep seeded self esteem issues changed into a warm loving wife and mother who is eventually comfortable in her own skin… by the love of a good man. It's not an uncommon literary theme. And in my mind, the more flawed Sarah was, the more melodramatic and romantic the transformation.

That can't happen overnight. So my Sarah makes mistakes, tons of them. She is a seasoned, experienced spy. But she is a total rookie at being a wife. She struggles with the basic things, is used to taking charge, and it sometimes doesn't register that Chuck has an ego that she is crushing. She does stupid, stupid things like leave pictures of her and her ex on vacation on her phone for her husband to see. But in typical Sarah fashion she honestly realizes that she's clueless, is trying as hard as she possibly can, and loves Chuck with a ferocity that borders on obsessive. Just like Chuck, she doesn't think that she deserves him, and is even slightly paranoid about losing him. She simply doesn't always understand him and just plain sucks at communicating all that to him.

My Chuck is also flawed, maybe a little less than in the show where at times he was pretty unlikeable. He allows his jealousy and insecurities to drive him instead of taking a minute, thinking things through, and realizing that Sarah often really isn't meaning things the way he heard it.

But here's the deal. If they weren't flawed, the story would be boring. But they are both growing. Indeed, their growth is really the story, isn't it? All the rest is simply background noise – obstacles for them to overcome, opportunities for them to grow.

So it's okay to get invested in the story and the characters. Otherwise, why bother reading, right? I'm quite proud that people trust me enough to get invested, even when they might disagree with me. Just remember at the end of the day that Chuck and Sarah Bartowski are fictional. And don't judge them too harshly when they make mistakes. Judge them by how they react and work to fix them.

I understand that there isn't a review function on this site. But I would still appreciate your comments. The worst thing for an author is silence. You can't tell if you're connecting with your readers, if they're getting where you think the story is going or not. And those comments don't have to be praise. Of course, I'd be lying if I tried to say that I don't enjoy the praise. But I actually learn more from the critical comments. Just as long as you're respectful and allow me to respond, you can say anything.

The Power of the Intersect

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Sarah quickly realized that she had never felt like this before. Her hands were trembling with excitement so badly that she was having trouble unbuttoning her blouse. Her talk must have sunk in a little. This was definitely a first in their relationship. She wasn't even sure at first that she had even heard him correctly. But the look he was giving her left little room for interpretation. This was something that Chuck would never do. Being dominant simply wasn't in his nature. The Intersect was clearly in charge. And he wasn't in any way teasing. He had just told her, ordered her was closer to the truth, to take off her blouse for him… slowly. The electric tingle that was running up and down her body was a little odd… totally wonderful, but definitely odd.

A year ago Sarah could never figure out why everybody always seemed so obsessed with sex. Sex was okay… at best. Yes, she'd be lying if she tried to claim that she hadn't enjoyed some of the times with Seth and Bryce. She was a normal flesh and blood woman. Those sessions were mostly okay, while they lasted. But the truth was she could also have lived without them. Because virtually every time as soon as it was over she felt naked and cheap with the feeling of being used… just like she had with marks. It just wasn't pleasant. That's why she had been willing to go for years at a time without sex.

Sex was on balance far more trouble than it was worth. She saw what it did to people. It was mainly a weakness that your enemies could exploit. She had been fully trained in the art of using sex, or at least the anticipation of it, to get normally serious men to do the silliest things. And the women… Carina, Zondra, Laura, she loved them all. But they had all come to think of themselves as pure sex objects more than people. That part actually made sense to her. It was impossible to value something that you gave away so freely. They were every bit as much slaves to sex as the men they hunted and exploited. They simply weren't disciplined. It became their weakness.

Sarah just said that she had gone for years without sex. That maybe wasn't technically true. It's just that she had gotten very used to providing for her needs all by herself. Like so many other areas in her life, she was the one person she trusted enough to have sex with. It certainly wasn't because of a lack of opportunity. Sarah was well aware that she could walk into any bar in the country on any night of the week and quickly enough walk back out with some good looking guy willing to have sex with her. Carina had pushed one at her almost every night for years. It's just that she refused to lower herself like that. The cheap meaningless pickup seemed… well, pathetic. Alone in her bed, she could imagine herself in fantasy situations that she would never, ever actually allow herself to be in. She was perfectly content with her one person sex life.

Until she met Chuck.

He had transformed her in many, many ways. But none greater than how she viewed sex. For the first few months Sarah refused to allow herself to even fantasize about Chuck. It couldn't happen. Why get her hopes up? But once she caved to herself she became very hopeful that sex with him would be different. She had imagined it hundreds of times when she was alone in her bed over the past six months. But when it actually happened she was honestly blown away by how much different it really was. It was nothing like her imaginations.

Making love with Chuck made her sex with Seth and Bryce seem cheap, dirty, even a little childish. She quickly discovered that it was all of the things that were missing from her life rolled into one amazing package. It was warm and comforting and loving and intimate… and most of all trusting. Chuck was the man who she trusted enough to take care of her, to let go with him. The feeling was life changing.

So suddenly Sarah found herself just as obsessed with sex as Carina or Laura ever was. It was just that she was obsessed with only one man. It was a new experience for her, one that she really didn't know how to deal with. She found herself almost perpetually aroused. And since he was incredibly shy, it was left to her to take charge. Sarah Walker had never been one to shy away from taking charge of anything. So take charge, she did. Quickly all it took was something as innocent as him brushing up against her arm and she was ready to get naked… if she wasn't naked already. She seduced him so frequently that she was beginning to worry about over doing it and damaging him somehow.

And being newly obsessed with sex presented its own set of problems. Sarah wasn't the normal girl next door type. She was a trained expert seductress. Chuck knew all about that. He had witnessed her in action. Mom and Dad hadn't ever sat her down to talk about the birds and bees. She never had the group of high school girlfriends to whisper and laugh with. Almost all of her knowledge about what men wanted she had learned from SeductionSchool or from sitting in the van listening to Carina. Chuck also generally knew about that. Any single special thing that she could think to do for him was something that a spy had been trained to do for a mark. Chuck most definitely didn't want to think of himself as a mark. It was impossible to find fault with that. But the honest truth was that what she had planned for him tonight before the Intersect interrupted, the strip tease, the erotic show, and followed by the long drawn out blowjob, was straight from page one of the CIA seduction playbook. So why was Sarah so aroused that when Chuck again surprised her, this time by demanding her bra, she had trouble getting it unfastened?

Really the answer was pretty simple. This was the very best of both her worlds. Before Chuck, Sarah's biggest fantasy, the one she would never, ever, ever have allowed to really happen, would have been to be rescued from some dangerous situation on a mission, seduced, and basically given no choice as she was ravaged again and again by some confident nameless, faceless, big, tall, strong, good looking spy type. And here was the one man on the planet who met all of her ridiculously rigid requirements.

He maybe wasn't nameless and faceless. But he was tall, strong, and good looking. He had rescued her from dangerous situations on missions far too many times to count. With the Intersect he was actually the most skilled spy in the world. And far more important for tonight's purposes, he was her husband, the only man she had ever loved, the sweetest guy in the world, the one she would do literally anything for. He loved her unconditionally. He was the one man she trusted enough to actually allow herself to submit totally to his will. This was making love with the unquestioned love of her life, and fulfilling her wildest fuck fantasy all at the same time.

Chuck clearly could tell how aroused she was. Hell, it didn't take much of a genius to figure it out. Once her bra hit the floor, her nipples were so hard that they could have cut raw diamonds. And he just as clearly wasn't going to hurry through this to get to the action. He definitely was going to insist that she put on a slow strip show for him to prove her total submission. He was taking his time getting her naked, allowing her excitement to build to a crescendo. But finally she didn't have anything else to demand to take off except…

He motioned for her to stand in front of where he was sitting on the bed with her arms by her side while he slowly slid her bikini briefs to the floor. Once she had stepped out of them Chuck wordlessly had her take a step back and took a long time very overtly checking out her naked form from head to toe and back again. Again, it was an odd feeling. Agent Walker had been trained not to be shy about men seeing her less than fully clothed. Not only that, this was her husband. He had seen her naked scores of times. She even always made a point of teasing him by posing provocatively anytime he gave her any hint that he was looking.

But this was different somehow. This wasn't only Chuck looking at her naked, this was also the Intersect. It was fully in control. The confident smirk said it all. He was teasing her. She eventually realized that she was instinctively covering herself with her arms. She actually felt the blush running up her neck as she forced herself to fully face him, lower her arms, smile sweetly, and noticeably widen her stance to give him the most unobstructed view possible. When he indicated with a single waive of his hand that he wanted her to turn around for him, she took great pains to make it the best show that she possibly could. She even bent over at the waist, pretending to pick up her blouse from the floor, just to give him the best view possible.

Once he was satisfied that she was obediently waiting for his next instruction, Chuck motioned for her to join him on the bed. He had her straddle him on her knees and conspicuously took her hand and placed it on his shoulder with a stern look that told her to keep it there. Then he did the same thing with her other hand. He put his hand behind her head and pulled her mouth to his.

In her submissive position without the use of her hands, Sarah had no choice but to allow Chuck to set the pace and simply follow his lead, not that she was unwilling in any way. In fact allowing Chuck to control the agenda made it ten times more exciting.

Chuck knew full well how much Sarah loved kissing. Kissing was something that you avoided with a mark at almost all cost. It was Laura who first explained the difference to her years ago. You could hopefully just lay there when a mark was fucking you, close your eyes, switch off your mind, and pretend you were somewhere else. Kissing was different. It was impossible to pretend when you were kissing. You had to actually get intimate. Neither Seth nor Bryce were ever all that interested in kissing. It was just their warm up for the main event. Consequently, it was Sarah's very favorite part of her life with Chuck, even more than sex. He was an amazing kisser. And so he spent a long, long time just stoking the inferno in her loins. Through her fog of lust she could definitely feel Chuck's excitement poking up against her as their tongues danced. Again it reinforced Sarah's realization that the Intersect was controlling his actions. Chuck was a healthy, normally endowed man. But what she was currently feeling poking through his boxers was much larger than usual and more like the rock that Laura bragged about in Miami.

Chuck was always so cute. They had been married for almost two weeks now and had lived together before that. They had made love so many times that it was impossible to keep count. Yet he was clearly still bashful about putting his hand on her breast when they were necking. She almost always had to grab his hand and guide it there. But not tonight. The second base action lasted for a long time. It sort of, in a way, eventually became third base action when he took one of her hands off his shoulder and guided it down her stomach and between her legs. Again, it was something that Chuck would have never asked of her in a million years. He would have died from embarrassment even talking about it. So she bit her lip and leaned back a little to give him the best view possible while she slowly complied with his unspoken instruction. He watched with an approving grin for a while before he pulled her back in for another round of kissing.

Sarah was now in totally uncharted territory. She was already very close to the edge of a huge, mostly self induced, climax when Chuck grabbed the hand that was between her legs, scooped her up, and then put her back on the bed.

Once he had her flat on her back, he raised her arms over her head and had her firmly grasp the headboard. Then he lifted her knees until her feet were on the bed and not so gently pushed them apart to give himself total access. He started at one of her knees, and frustratingly slowly started kissing up her leg.

Naturally, Chuck had done this for her tons of times already. He clearly enjoyed driving her crazy almost as much as she did. It was one of his best skills. He was an expert at dancing his tongue around her hot buttons, getting her to the very, very edge, and then slowing down a little to allow her to step back away from the cliff, and then repeating the entire process over and over again until she was silently moaning for release. It was something that she honestly never expected from Chuck. She was even at first a little curious where he learned this skill. It usually didn't take long thinking about it for that curiosity to develop into full fledged jealousy. But whoever had taught him, it quickly became one of the favorite things in Sarah's life. But tonight, with the power of the Intersect, he quickly had her at an entirely different level. She desperately wanted to take her hands and press his head into her as was her norm. But she didn't. The Intersect was in charge. So she kept her hands where he had placed them.

Every single nerve in her body was tingling when finally she could feel him enter her. He was still clearly teasing her, going very slowly at first to prove who was in control. But eventually he began to steadily pick up the pace. This wasn't making love. It actually wasn't like anything Sarah had ever experienced before. It was pure wild, animal lust fucking. She had long ago lost the ability for much rational thought. But as he continued to thrust into her ever harder and faster Sarah had an epiphany.

This was the feeling that Carina, Laura, and all of her spy friends were always looking for. This is what drove them night after night, from bed to bed, always looking for but never really finding that one perfect fuck. And the irony was that the only thing that ever kept them from finding it was the one thing they were most afraid of, the totally wonderful thing that fate had thrown into Sarah's lap when she was least expecting it… love. This only worked if you were willing to go all in, if you loved someone enough to trust them to give them everything. This had nothing to do with the Intersect.

Sarah was desperately trying to think of something to make this incredible feeling last as long as possible. She knew that she couldn't hold out against the inevitability of the Intersect inspired climax very long. So she just matched his thrusts with her own, knowing that her total surrender was only a few brief moments away. Surrender was actually the correct word.

When the first wave of Sarah's orgasm hit, it was so intense that it was almost a little painful. She wasn't sure how long it lasted, at least several minutes of wave after wave after even more wonderful wave rocking her entire body. When it was finally over, they both were too exhausted to move. Chuck was still on top of her panting for breath.

As Sarah returned to the living, she knew that she needed to tread very carefully. She certainly wanted to thank him for giving her the most wonderful experience of her life. But she also didn't want him to think that he wasn't enough by himself, without the Intersect. Because he certainly was. And he had just gone a hundred miles out of his comfort zone. Playing with sex was uncomfortable for him at best. Using the Intersect, doubly so. That's why it was so special. "Thank you, sweetie," she finally said. "That was amazing. I know that you're not comfortable using the Intersect. We don't have to do it again."

Chuck somehow found enough energy to roll off her and throw on his sweatpants. "I didn't use the Intersect," he said between breaths. "That was all me, your husband. There are actually some things that I can do all on my own if you just give me the chance."

"If you want to fuck an Intersect, I'm afraid that Bryce is in Russia."

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Jennifer Bowles stomped into Alexei's office. Well, you really didn't stomp into Alexei Volkoff's office. That would be stupid. But she did have something of an attitude. "Okay, Alexei," she said. "I fucked up. I get that you're pissed at me. I guess that I have that coming. But did you really have to plant me as the girlfriend in his new memories?"

Mary made little effort to keep in the mocking laugh. "What's that matter?" she asked. "There are tons of women who wouldn't mind your assignment at all, especially ones your age. He's very pretty. Don't you like pretty? Oh, I forgot. You usually prefer your pretty without a penis."

Bowles ignored the shot. "Please, Alexei," she pleaded. "He's driving me crazy. It was just plain cruel to give him the short endurance."

That got Mary laughing even harder. "What?" she asked. "At least your duties don't last very long. Make up your mind. Which are you complaining about? That he always wants to fuck? Or that it doesn't last very long? It's hard to want it both ways."

Again, Bowles ignored the shot. "Alexei," she said. "We're friends. Okay, so you are punishing me. I get that. But I've learned my lesson. I'll never be disloyal again. Can I please be forgiven now?"

Volkoff stopped Mary's next jab with a look. "He has one more mission first," he said. "Then we'll find him another girlfriend. But he needs your help on this one. I think that you might just enjoy it."

"What is the mission?" Bowles asked hopefully.

"You're going back to Washington," Volkoff said with a grin that lit up the room. "It's time that we showed the CIA the price they are going to pay for coming after me. I want my new best friend to secretly capture Diane Beckman and bring her here."

"I'd like to have a little chat with her."

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Sarah could only lay there in stunned silence for a long moment after Chuck stomped out of the room. Once it registered what he had just said she was very tempted to just go running after him. But she was naked… and sweaty. And who knew who was wandering around out there? All she needed was to make this night any worse by running into her new father-in-law in the hall wearing only a frown. So she took the time to find her blouse and pants from the floor and throw them on.

Chuck wasn't in the main room. Instead she found Ellie sitting at the main table all alone drinking a cup of coffee. Sarah tried to appear calm. "Have you seen Chuck?"

Ellie's smile was soothing. "He's in the workout room," she said. She poured Sarah a cup of coffee and slid it over to her. "Don't worry. He's just blowing off some steam."

Sarah tried to figure out a way to quickly find out what Ellie knew without tipping her off. She quickly decided that there wasn't any way. And after all, this was her sister. So she dropped the coy attempt. "Did he say why he was upset?" she asked. "I really have no clue."

Ellie shook her head… and her smile broadened. "Not really," she said. "But he didn't have to." She saw the look of pure despair on Sarah's face and her smile turned into a broad grin. "Sweetie, men are silly, silly creatures," she said. "Sometimes they just want to know that they're appreciated… in charge, even when they really aren't."

"But Chuck's not like that," Sarah protested. "There is not a macho bone in his body. Maybe I'd better go talk to him."

Now Ellie's grin turned into pure laughing. "Wow," she said. "I guess that proves you don't know him as well as you think you do. Give him a couple of minutes. Let him cool down and realize all on his own how silly he's being."

Sarah suddenly realized that Ellie was out here all alone. "Where's Devon?" she asked.

Ellie's laughing calmed down a little. "He's playing cards with Casey, Laura… and my new parents," she said. "They all want to hear about the amazing Orion."

Sarah fought the urge to ask Ellie why she wasn't in there. She already knew. "I'll bet they do," she said.

"Tell me, sweetie," Ellie asked. "What do you know about Orion?"

"Almost nothing," Sarah said. "All I know are the rumors. But if they are only half true, then he's a ghost, a magician with technology." She looked into her sister's eyes… and saw the conflict. Suddenly her newest tempest-in-a-teapot fight with Chuck seemed small and silly. "How are you doing?" she asked. "Do you want to talk?"

If Ellie was trying to hide that she was moved by Sarah's concern… she failed miserably. "I'm okay," she said. "But thanks for asking. You already have your hands full with one crybaby Bartowski tonight. You don't need another. I just have to deal with it."

"I'm here," Sarah said. "If you ever want to talk. You're not at all a crybaby Bartowski. There is nothing wrong with taking some time to deal with the situation. I'm proud of the way you're handling this."

Ellie's smile became more relaxed. "Thanks, sis," she said. "That means a lot to me. Don't worry. We're going to get through this." Then she perked up. "You're not totally right about Chuck," she said, clearly changing the subject. "Yes, he's not really the macho type. He's perfectly willing to let you take change… of almost everything. But he is also like all men. Trust me, I know. Devon is no exception. Sarah, sweetie, you're the strong silent type. He just wants a little reinforcement from time to time. He wants to hear some nonsense about how he rocks your world, how big you think his muscles are, how he makes you feel like you could fly. It's silly. It even borders on annoying sometimes. But it's also kinda cute. At the end of the day it's a small price to pay."

"Isn't it?"

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