She puts one foot in front of the other at half a pace slower than her usual speed. It's enough to know they got out of this in one piece, and that those girls are finally safe. But there's no time to be relieved. Her forehead starts to crinkle as their disaster of a day makes itself known in her eyes. A ragged, half-repressed sob comes clawing out of her throat just before her legs buckle beneath her. The numbing sedative of shock has finally worn away.
Jack grabs her arm, pivots to throw a steadying arm around her waist, and molds her body against him just as her tears start to fall. He guides her into the nearest empty room he can find, which just happens to be the interview room they were just in. With his back to the door and Phryne crumpled to his chest, he lowers them both to the floor and holds on with all that he has.
She tries to shake it off much too soon, her slim body still racked with grief, sniffling as she speaks brokenly into his shoulder. "I… I'm sorry, I…"
"It's fine, Phryne. You don't have to explain."
"It's just...I know. I…," she says with a sharp exhale, "Those girls, Jack. Those poor girls."
An agonizing ricochet of hiccups settles in between just about every other word she manages to get out, escalating to the point where her own breathlessness prevents her from uttering another syllable. Jack keeps his hand moving in a constant rhythm up and down her back, but the verbal reassurances that should be accompanying it seem trapped somewhere inside of him. He tries, he really does, but the truth of the matter is that he's just as lost as she is on this one.
In the end, he only has one thing to say, and he repeats it several times over to make up for his lack of eloquence. "I know, Phryne. I know."
She nods against him with a batch of new tears soaking through the material of his suit coat, sailing through one last cresting sob before the worst of it seems to be behind her. A minute or so passes, maybe more, and then she's lifting her wet face with a rueful look.
Her eyelashes flicker a little as his hand sweeps up to rest against the back of her neck. He squeezes gently, allowing the warmth of her skin to permeate through all of the residual stress and concern that's been stored up inside of him until now. He knows how these cases, especially, affect her.
A sudden awareness creeps into her face. She's perched across his legs, basically sitting side saddle in his lap, and while they're often connected to each other by an arm or some other innocuous touch, this is the most intimate they've ever been.
He's so absorbed in his maze of thoughts that he almost misses the obvious cues. Her head slants sideways as it edges nearer to his. Her cerulean eyes shutter closed. Her breath is warm on his mouth. And then, with a rustle of anticipation in the air, they're kissing.
On some level, he didn't really need any warning signs to know what was coming. Maybe because it's been on his mind for weeks. Months even. Always there subconsciously, playing noiselessly at the brink of his every rational thought. Her mouth commands his attention in even the most innocent of moments. Here, wedged tightly together in a quiet room, with her weight balanced on his thigh and plenty of emotion crackling between them, there's no question that he's plagued with the prospect of her lips getting caught between his.
And it's so good, so right, that he almost believes it's nothing more than a fantasy. He nips at her bottom lip and is rewarded with a drawn out sigh. She grasps at his neck, his shoulders, maneuvering herself until she has a knee on either side of him. Her mouth parts with another sigh and he seizes the opportunity. Their tongues meet, seamlessly finding perfect harmony. Jack grips her waist between splayed fingers, spurring her closer until she's hit just the right spot and he's humming with pleasure. She's so terrifyingly irresistible. His hand rustles up under her blouse and her hips snap forward as he feels his way along her rib cage.
That forces him to drop back against the door with a groan, breathing heavily. Phryne shifts a little in his lap and he swallows a grunted curse. He waits for the imminent retreat, the loss of steady pressure she's supplying, the emptiness of a dimming spark...
But he waits in vain. A sharp click resounds from somewhere above his head, then he hisses with latent pleasure as Phryne's full weight sinks over him again. Her hand trails down over the front of his waistcoat until she's reaching for the buttons, and his eyes fly open.
"What are you - "
Her mouth silences him. She pitches against him, dauntless and ardent, consuming him in an unbelievably visceral kiss that puts a swift end to his question. She answers anyway, her breath tickling against his lips. "I locked the door, Jack. Now where were we?"
Her fingers are now undoing his carefully knotted tie, obliterating any coherent thought he has, as she slowly rocks back just enough to leave him reeling.
He hauls her back in with both hands splayed across her back, lunging forward into a kiss that ends with him toppling over her. Phryne's shoulders are level with the floor but her legs don't budge from around him, still locked on either side of his hips. The magnetizing poetry of her lips, her tongue, her body - it impedes his concentration. His hands are roaming aimlessly, disjointed in their need to simply be everywhere.
She sucks him back in with a singular focus when her heels flatten against the back of his thighs, urging him to pitch his hips forward against her center. Jack complies immediately, angles his mouth down over the pale skin of her neck, and lets his fingers graze lower to make quick work of as many buttons as he can.
A mewl of pleasure rises from her throat as his teeth nip her earlobe. He does it again, relishing in the shudder that passes through her.
"Phryne," he whispers.
"I think we're wearing too many clothes for this, Jack."
He smirks into the side of her neck, running a deft fingertip along the opening of her unbuttoned blouse. Phryne wriggles her arms out of the sleeves of her blouse without another word, face now flushed with something other than embarrassment. He matches her movement stroke for stroke, tugging his own jacket, waistcoat, and shirt off in record time.
He slips a hand beneath her neck and rolls her body upward, searching for the hem of her camisole in a flourish of urgency. She exploits his distraction, fastening her arms around his shoulders and flipping herself around, bearing down on him suddenly and forcing his back against the floor.
He's groaning and cursing as he presses up into her, pulling the camisole over her head. Jack's pulse quickens as he finally sets his sights on what he's been fantasizing about since seeing that painting of her oh so many months ago. He's touching her before he even realizes what he's doing, fingertips sketching downward over the inner curve of her breast.
"Jack…" His name slices past her parted lips like the flare of a lit match. He ghosts his thumb over her more directly and her hips jerk into him with a low, whimpering cry.
He's excruciatingly hard and the restrictiveness of his trousers isn't doing him any favors. He reluctantly abandons the source of his current fascination, and transfers his efforts to undoing his fly. Phryne moans again, her mouth skimming his cheek. He turns into it, traps her lip between his, and manages a few kisses until he can get his pants open. He switches his attention to her then, tugging restlessly at the waistband of her skirt only to find that it's already undone.
He had forgotten he'd undone it already. Phryne interrupts his musings with a frustrated sigh. "Jack, a little help please?"
He peels her skirt and tap pants down past her thighs in one swift movement, panting out a labored, "Always, Miss Fisher."
She kicks them off as soon as she can and he doesn't waste a single second, too impatient to bother with pushing his trousers and smalls any further than his knees. His arm cinches around her narrow waist before shifting both of their bodies up to where they started - his back against the door and Phryne straddled over top of him.
Surprise flashes uninhibited across her face as she grapples for balance. Her squirming sends shock waves of ecstasy through his entire body, and he frantically tightens his hold around her, desperate to keep her still before she can bring an untimely end to the occasion.
"This is rather unexpected, Jack." Phryne chuckles.
Before Jack can even begin to formulate a suitable response, she's scooting forward and laying an open kiss to the corner of his jaw. He angles himself against her entrance, and then they're one.
He has to put his face to her shoulder to muffle the irrepressible noise that follows. It's been a long time, surely she knows this, but he wasn't prepared for this. She's so warm and tight, almost too much for him to handle. He fears he'll tear a hole through the inside of his cheek for how harshly he's biting down on it, but he has to do something to keep himself in check.
Phryne's nails rake through his hair, her voice unmistakably tense. "Problem, Jack?"
Jack grunts something incoherent, his hands hooking around her bent knees and drawing her legs out gently until they're extended behind him.
"Oh…" The noise snaps off at the end as she presses up on her heels and comes down around him again.
They moan in unison that time, the sound of which brings a fleeting smile to Jack's face. His hands grip her hips and he encourages her to make another fluid thrust, being sure to drive himself upward right as she's plummeting down. Her head arches back as they fuse together, exposing the graceful line of her flawless neck.
A potent affection kindles in his heart as he watches her, moves with her, throbs inside of her. He slants forward to catch her mouth in kiss that's soft and simple, almost qualifying as chaste if not for the way he's thrusting even deeper into her with the resulting shift in his posture.
Phryne hums in pleasure, and she clings to him, her palm slick against the back of his neck. She's rocking back and forth faster now, and he scrunches his eyes shut, attuning himself to each intensified stroke she makes, chasing that illusive rush of delirium with another jolt upward, another sway forward, another -
"Jack?"
He peels his eyelids open, noting the frenzied heat in Phryne's gaze. He can tell she's close, just barely hanging on.
With one hand darting between them and another supporting the small of her back, Jack plants a series of hectic kisses to her neck, collarbone, and breasts. Her whole body curves and contorts as he provokes her toward an inescapable climax, one that her coiled body is clearly searching for with a palpable ferocity.
He hears her crying out just an instant before his last vestige of restraint fades into oblivion. He loses himself inside of her, riding out each blistering crest of release as it rushes through him. Every intoxicating sensation is amplified to excess as Phryne flutters around him, answering each ripple with a shock of her own.
Jack slouches back at last with a heavy groan. He's nearly catatonic. And he's happy. Absurdly, undeservedly, wholeheartedly happy.
He's still wrapped up in a radiant haze when Phryne sags against him, her head dropping to his shoulder as her arms fall limply between them. He settles his cheek against the inviting refuge of her hair, and he breathes deeply as he lands there, gathering her even closer in a languid embrace.
"I'm never moving again," she drones softly, her tone so low that she sounds drugged.
"Fine by me," he murmurs against the top of her head. "Although, I'm sure Collins might be thrown a bit by that decision."
Phryne tenses against him, her voice far more alert now as she cuts him off. "I almost forgot where we were. I… I, uh, probably shouldn't have…"
"You were upset," he says eventually, a tremendous amount of effort needed before he can formulate anything coherent. "I should have been the one who stopped it. I'm sorry, Phryne."
"Sorry...it happened?"
He wants to shout his disagreement, but he's uncertain of her current mood. "Sorry to take advantage…"
"Take advantage? Really?" She cracks a slight smile. "You're usually far more perceptive than that. You can't actually believe that's what just happened, Jack."
He cups the side of her face in his palm, bringing her gaze to his, taking a deep breath. Before he can say anything, Phryne continues, "You usually seem to know what I'm thinking before I even know what I'm thinking. Is it really taking advantage if you're giving someone exactly what they've been wanting?"
Jack can't help smirking at that. "If I was a gambling man, and I'm usually not, even I would have put my money on you and me landing in a spot like this sooner or later."
"I would have preferred sooner, Inspector, but I'm not one to complain." Phryne coos.
"Phryne..." Her name leaves him like a sweet ballad, flooding out in a hum of tenderness.
She runs the back of her hand over his cheek, her gaze hazy as she watches him.
"Jack…"
He presses his jaw against her hand, closing his eyes at the feeling of her touch. He turns his head to place a kiss on her palm, his hand running up and down her back in lazy, indistinct strokes.
A timid knock sounds on the door, startling them from their reverie.
"Inspector, is everything alright?" Hugh's words are muffled through the interview room door, but his awkwardness is obvious.
Jack's mouth lifts in his trademark half-smile as Phryne turns her head into his shoulder to stifle the giggle escaping from her.
"Yes, Collins. Everything is fine."
"Glad to hear it, sir. I will check on the cells before I go," Hugh retorts, his voice tentative.
"Thank you, Collins."
Phryne waits until the last of Hugh's footfalls have faded away before turning her attention to Jack. Her mouth flits lightly over his neck for just a barely-there kiss that hits him like an aftershock.
"Your place or mine?" she purrs.
"What?" Jack is surprised she'd make such an offer, despite what just happened.
"After everything that has happened today you don't expect me to sleep alone tonight, do you Jack?"
He takes her arms in his hands, coaxing her away from him, not satisfied until he can see her beautiful eyes staring at his.
"Not on your life."