Thank you for your answers. I'm taking a chance here because there's something I wanted to test out around around Extreme Prejudice! This is the chapter set around Prizefighter, before, during and after and it pushes ratings. You can skip if you wish.
This chapter is written for CocoBacon as we've discussed Makepeace's 'yelp' when they arrive in the office before Mrs Spiking arrives. The entire chapter is really based on the yelp!
He looks apologetically at her from his side of the car. Her feet ached from dancing and standing around in high heels in a hospital.
It was rather pleasing to be on the arm of a chilled Dempsey who clearly set tongues wagging as he escorted her to their seats, dressed to kill in his suit. He is everything her ex was not, and she loves him for those differences. And that revelation is one she's still trying to understand. Reconciling this man with the version who reduced her to a 'broad' means some self-reflection she's unwilling to do.
The mood is nervous expectation. The key is still in the ignition, and the question of whose bed hangs in the air as they sit in the car. On an urge leftover from what could've been; she leans over. Her lips brush against Dempsey's, and she feels him respond, encouraging her to get lost within him. She parts to see his reaction and watches a smile break out on his face.
"What was that for?" He asks.
"Trying to get the mood back." She smiles back at him. When she leans back into the passenger seat, he follows. She feels lightning bolts and tastes the whisky he had drunk earlier and a dose of testosterone. No kiss felt this good, and no man created this ache. He journeys down her jaw and over her neck and breaths her name.
When her hand finds his jacket, she grasps his shirt, and his hand slips onto her thigh. Then he lets her go, his hand cupping her cheek, his eyes more sincere than she has seen before. "If we keep going, I'm gonna want more."
There's a pause when she searches his face, "Would that really be so awful?"
"No, that's not so bad, but…" He runs his fingers over hers, twines them together, "I just thought we'd have longer together."
"I have bath essence too." She says wishing her voice didn't wobble so, reacting to the surge of lust from deep in her body. The implication that he wants to take his time with her propels her on. "It's not fancy."
"I got enough Joy de'Vire for us both." He comments with a grin, pausing to check he's understood what she's inferring.
That's new. Dempsey would never have done that before. She's sure he honours consent; that much was clear from how he'd been chaste after Stringfellows, but Harry had imagined he'd be pestering her for the wedding night hourly. That he wasn't, has made her uncertain if she's what he wants at all.
"A terrible line, one of your worst." She tells him, wishing she could flirt as well as he does. "I don't think we'd both fit in your bath."
"I wasn't thinking…." He begins and then there's a slow grin, "but if you'd invited me, I'd be stupid to say no."
She is sure he isn't the sort of man who drove in bed; in that way some men do, well, the ones she had experienced. Once they had her clothes off, they'd admire her, make some obligatory gestures and get on with it. If she wanted to come, that was her responsibility. Dempsey doesn't have that demeanor. Right now he has the look of a man who is hell-bent on her pleasure.
His clothes disappear first in a flurry of both their fingers. She hasn't forgotten his nakedness the first time, but seeing him like this, well, he's impressive. Alarmingly so. He gives her time to touch and look at him, utterly confident about his body, encouraging her. She's left in no doubt that he has wanted her all along.
He slows them down, taking his time with undressing her. Every freckle seems to get a kiss and the nerves slowly disappear. He arranges her on his lap so she has control. He assures her, characteristically, that all these inches are for her. She forgets about other women.
She's held like porcelain; he's so attentive. Him losing control is the energy that she thrives on. Pausing to watch his face, his eyes closed as he kisses down her neck, over her breasts, there's the faint memory of the man she first met who annoyed her with his sexual energy. Upended her with the effortlessness of Danny and Debbie. Metaphorically she throws them into reverse, exploring his mouth, and demands he touch her right there. He responds with an animalistic groan, finally losing all reason and setting fire to the sparks she's felt since he landed in her life.
His feet plant themselves on the bed. She curses like a sailor's wife as he fills, stretches, and completes her like no one else. His hands kept her safe as she rises up with him and ignites.
"I knew we'd fit." He says happily the next morning. She's not sure what he means as he slips into the bath behind her, the water sloshing around. She grins, and he sniggers like a teenager.
"A shower would have been quicker." She comments; his feet nudge her toes.
"You're too dammed practical; I ever told you that?" He applies soap with careful attention to her breasts. "There's no hurry."
"I can't promise I was listening…. Dempsey…James!" She wriggles ineffectually in his grasp. "We've got surveillance this evening; how I am ever going to concentrate?"
"Nah, we'll call this dude in and get ourselves to mine later; check out my bath." He confirms, his lips on her neck.
"You're very determined."
"I got this bath essence special for my wife. Direct from Paris." He stops, eliciting a protest, "We could go to Paris; I got my passport back."
The thought stays with her into the afterglow and distracts her. Of course, his passport.
DMDMDM
"We screwed up." She complains and curses in a way she never used to. He grins. "Don't start…."
"You got a little American in you." He can't resist.
"A little, yes." She can't help but respond with a smile, taking the heat away from her irritation.
"You didn't say it was little last night or this morning." He teases draped beside her on the overstuffed sofa in the living room of the safe house. He watches her with hungry eyes.
"It's what you do with it that counts." She says with more primness than she wanted and thinks of American women with sass and sexiness.
"You can do anything you want with it… Hey, Harry," Dempsey leans forward into her space with sudden concern at her sigh, "Look, so we didn't get the names sorted out, but don't it prove that we work well together? Duane is a great name."
"I suppose so, but we're usually better than this." She quivers as he runs a finger up her cheek like he did in the car, unaware he's given rise to a new worry.
"Usually, we have more time to plan. We could have thrown this back and done the surveillance instead."
She shakes her head, wondering if she should give a voice to the other feeling inside her.
"Out with it." He levels at her, reaching over to pour them a glass of wine each.
"It's nothing." She takes a sip and feels the burn travel down her body. "I'm going to get changed. I hate this dress."
"It's all American…" He follows her to the bedroom. Apparently, they do this now, hang around each other in states of undress. He wandered around her house naked, and she'd taken advantage of where she was sat. He is ruining her in ways she never expected.
"Do you like it?" She asks, the doubt coming out as bitching as she sits on the edge of the bed. "Me being American?"
He leans against the dresser, "I like you."
"You said I shouldn't drop the American accent…" She begins and stops, uncertain of rocking the boat.
"It was sexy. You're sexy." He says and she almost laughs. He told her the same last night in a low growl, juxtaposing his uncertain manner now.
She chances it. "Angie was American."
He looks baffled, "Who?"
"Angela Hughes, the hit killer who held you hostage." She exclaims, using it as an excuse to test him. It's unfair, but she needs to know. "That's typical, isn't it? You can't even remember her name."
"I remember her now you've told me." He says quietly, not rising to her bait. "It ain't a memory I keep centre of my mind. Yeah, she was American; what of it?"
"Do you even want an English woman?" She says and judges his silence as doubt. "I knew you didn't."
He sits down on the bed next to her. To her surprise, he begins to rake his fingers through her hair. A shudder runs through her; he'd done the same this morning, desperate to watch her mouth. He removes hair grips, unclasps her fake jewels. He pauses on the wedding ring; they both look wordlessly at it for a moment. It stays on.
He unbuttons the dress. "Take it off."
She's about to protest at his unruly demand until she sees anguish on his face. Standing up, she complies, dropping the gaudy fabric to the floor, and sits down beside him when he asks; her stomach pitching between lust and anger; something else she can't explore now.
"You see what I see?" He directs her gaze to the mirror. She nods. He tests her; "Tell me."
"I see me dressed in my second best underwear and you in a bad suit, trying to prove a point." She scowls at him, hoping he'll move this on.
Stormy eyes alight on her flashing with a little anger at her weak summary. "Since I met you, I wished those women were you. I wanted to see you in my bed."
His hands slide a strap down her shoulder, and he bestows a kiss to her skin. "I thought about your body. What you'd feel like, your taste, and your voice. How you'd sound."
She swallows, the lust winning over her anger. "And those other women… were they…."
"Nothing compared to you. End of." He says with firmness, leaving her in doubt. His hands slide down her shoulders, and he sighs, "Second best underwear, huh?"
She nods, thinking that there's much to thank Coltrane for, in a strange, twisted way.
"You okay now?" He asks gruffly.
"Yes, I'm okay now." She takes a breath and nods, smiles a thank you at his crooked reflection, her heart racing for other reasons. It feels a lot like making love but he never says and she doesn't ask.
DMDMDM
"You called me your wife." She is lying under him in his bed. "And you pinched my bottom in the office. I should sue you for harassment."
"I told you I'd fantasised about you, and you're gonna do me for pinching your ass?" He looks up from between her legs.
"You really shouldn't be doing anything at all. Look at your bruises."
"You don't mean that." He licks a path up the inside of her thighs.
"But.." She never wants him to stop doing this. He's too good; her protest dies. She can't really remember what she wasn't going to say.
"The hospital said I was cool. Bulletproof." He nudges her legs apart with little effort, "Cmon babe, let me in."
"You are not bulletproof." She reminds him, capitulating despite her warning.
"I got you. You're beautiful and deadly." He takes advantage of his position to completely distract her.
"It did stuff to me. Calling you my wife." He says later, sleepily with his head on her pillow because he can't see the point of two.
"Spikings would have heard." She warns the second time today. "The whole van probably."
"I was testing it out." He curls a lock of her hair around his finger. "Felt good."
She yawns and wraps her arms tightly around him. "You found your inner caveman anyway."
"He was always there; you just tamed him." He nuzzles her hair, and she wonders if they'll ever tell Spikings.