A/N: I'm officially changing the rating on this story to "R". You'll see
why as you read.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed! You guys are just. . . wow.
Special thanks to Beth for her expert beta (you so rock) and to "T" for letting me know it was time for a prep school skirt moment.
.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
.
"Mom?" Rory yawns, padding into the kitchen.
The only response she receives is the baritone hum of the heater, fighting to keep out the December chill.
Stretching, Rory walks to the kitchen table where she spies a note lying atop a stack of mail order catalogs. It reads:
"Rory, From now on, I only want to witness one 5:30 per day (this is not it, by the way). Hotel auditors are in town - you know the drill. See you tonight. Love, Mom."
Trying to remember if her mother had mentioned the audit to her yesterday, Rory's shoulders sag. There are some days when she needs to start her day the Lorelai way and today is just one of them. When Lorelai is around, Rory has the sense of being in the center of the universe, in the place where action lives. For whatever reason, she needs a high voltage dose of Middle Kingdom serum today. Disappointment over her mother's absence floods her. Compared to playful Lorelai banter, the silence of the kitchen feels heavy, oppressive. She tries to shake off the pensive feeling as she retreats to the bathroom to shower.
The hot water and steam help her spirits. Feeling slightly more cheerful, Rory wraps her wet hair in a towel and returns to her room. She pulls a fresh Chilton uniform out of a dry cleaning bag and hangs it on her doorknob. Walking to her underwear drawer, Rory withdraws a matching cream lace bra and panty set. An old memory floats up and envelops her.
'Always make sure your bra and panties match,' the elder Gilmore had instructed.
'In case I'm hit by a bus?' Rory had asked.
'OK, there's that,' Lorelai had grinned, 'but there are other reasons too.'
'Like what?'
'Just trust me on the matching thing.'
Rory puts on her underwear, smiling to herself. On impulse, she moves to the full-length mirror. Tilting her head to the side, she removes the towel, allowing her damp hair to cascade about her shoulders. Carefully, almost scientifically, she examines her reflection in the mirror. Studying herself from every angle, she concentrates on how her body looks in the underwear. Turning and twisting, her eyebrows knit together while her lips purse in question. 'Sexy?' she wonders. Honestly, she can't tell. 'What is sexy anyway?' she muses pushing her hair out of her face. Her movements slow as she imagines what Jess would think of the set, what his reaction might be if he could see her in it. Toying with the thought, Rory gazes unseeingly at the mirror. Making unwitting eye contact with her own reflection, she is startled from her revelry. Quickly, almost guiltily, she moves away.
Grabbing her uniform off the doorknob, she tosses it on the bed. Tights slide on first, then the skirt, which she steps into, tugs upwards, and buttons at her waist. Zipping it, her mind flashes to a day at Chilton last year when she watched that girl - what was her name? Lemming? Lem? - use the teacher's stapler to shorten the hem of her blue tartan plaid.
Rory had walked into homeroom early and caught her doing it. Bending over slightly, the girl had tucked the hem inside her skirt and secured it, at least 5 inches shorter that it was supposed to be, with staples. She had looked up at Rory and smiled conspiratorially. Surprised, Rory had just looked away and taken her seat. She remembered the girl's smile melting off her face.
Rory sits on her bed. A feeling of shame rises in her throat and she swallows it only to have it lodge uncomfortably in her stomach.
At the time she had felt so superior to that girl, so. . . clean. She hadn't shared the smile because she didn't want to conspire with her, didn't want to leave any doubt that Rory disapproved of breaking dress code. Rory wasn't the kind of girl who shortened her uniform skirts. She didn't have to, didn't want to. The shortening of a prep school skirt was so cliché anyway, too Britney for her tastes. The girls who shortened their skirts were the same ones who unbuttoned their blouses, wore red lipstick, and let boys press them against lockers to kiss them. That sort of pandering your sexuality to the lowest common denominator was beneath her. She wasn't the type to illegally raise her hemline simply to feel sexy. She was better than girls like that.
Her stomach churns at the memory. Face burning, she forces herself to walk back to the mirror. It's just as she suspected - her skirt hangs at exactly the Chilton regulation length. If someone measured it with a ruler, it would probably be off by less than a quarter inch, if it was off at all. Hot tears spring to her eyes as she remembers how she had felt so pure, so self-congratulatory over her sexual control.
She's seized by a fleeting impulse to find that girl and apologize.
It's easy to be in control of yourself when you sleepwalk through life. She hadn't understood what it was like to even want to be sexy. With Dean, she barely felt like kissing. With Jess, she feels like Gertrudis in Like Water for Chocolate, whose sexual longing is so intense, that the heat from her body causes water falling from a shower to evaporate before it ever reaches her skin. Gertrudis' heat had eventually burned the shower itself, along with half the porch, to the ground. At the time, Rory thought it was a metaphor but now she makes a mental note to ask Lorelai about fire insurance.
Turning from the mirror, Rory continues dressing. Is she different from any other girl at Chilton? She's been awfully good for an awfully long time not because of a higher calling but because she simply hasn't felt like being bad. Until now. If she wants to get really honest with herself, she'd have to admit that she isn't even worthy of her hated nickname. She never really was. Mary hadn't been judgmental and unsympathetic. 'Hypocritical too,' Rory thinks, remembering her little underwear episode in front of the mirror. It's an unsettling realization to have so early in the morning.
Rory Gilmore, human? Who would ever believe that?
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Despite being largely unaware of the temperature, Rory feels immediately warmed when she walks into the diner. Making her way past the tables, already full of customers, she approaches the counter. As is her habit, she peels off her coat and drops her book bag on the floor. Peering into the kitchen, she searches for any sign of Jess.
Instead, it's Luke who emerges from the kitchen.
"Hi Rory," he smiles.
"Hey," she greets, sitting on a stool. "Where is Jess?"
"Still upstairs," Luke grumbles, pulling a pencil from behind his ear
"Oh. Uh.. . . Can I-" she begins, leaving the sentence unfinished. Gesturing towards the curtain, she smiles guiltily at Luke.
"Go ahead," he concedes, as he walks to a table to take an order.
She slips from her stool and makes her way to the stairs.
"Tell him to get a move on," he calls to her departing back, "I need his help down here."
Rory turns to him and nods.
As she steps behind the curtain, she pauses to catch her breath. Something is happening to her. She feels different today. Just as Tita's blood began to boil in Like Water for Chocolate, so too has Rory's blood. She's been on low simmer since meeting Jess but now, the boil is almost powerful enough to make the fabled chocolate, powerful enough to melt asphalt.
Climbing the stairs, she thinks again about her morning, the mirror, the Chilton girl. She wonders absently if she'll shorten her skirts but knows she probably won't. There are many ways to be brave and really, that's one of the lesser ones. The bravest acts are always the most frightening and frankly, those are the ones she avoids. Giving herself permission to feel her life - now that will take guts. Shedding the mask of perfection that she has hidden behind all her life and letting herself be known? Scary.
As she nears the apartment door, she's beginning to understand what it means to have courage. When her knock isn't answered, she opens the door slowly peeking inside. Entering the apartment, she calls to him.
"Jess?"
Almost immediately, the bathroom door opens and Jess emerges with a towel wrapped around his midsection. His hair is wet. Part of it sticks up, pointing in all directions while other sections hang in dripping plaits, close to his head. His body glistens, still damp from the shower. He is halfway across the room before he notices her. Mild surprise registers on his face.
"Hey," he says.
"Hi," she greets in return, unsure of what to do or where to look.
He smirks and raises an eyebrow at her.
"I didn't hear you come in but, the shower will do that to you," he says, half expecting her to bolt from the room. Water drips from his hair and runs down his neck onto his chest.
"I knocked," she replies simply, watching the water's path.
He laughs quietly at what he's sure is her stubborn refusal to show her discomfort.
"Give me a minute to get dressed," he grins as he continues on his original course towards his bedroom. "I can be decent in no time."
The words of Laura Esquivel float to her. What is decent anyway? Denying everything you want? Obeying random rules of etiquette simply because it wouldn't be proper not to?
She steps in front of him blocking his path.
"You look decent to me," she whispers. Placing her hands on either side of his face, she kisses him. His skin is warm and he smells of soap. Water from his hair drips across her fingers and she savors the feel of it, the taste of him.
Taken aback by her boldness, he is slow to respond. Pleasure quickly overtakes surprise and he steps towards her wrapping his arms gingerly around her waist. Only when his body presses against hers does she realize just how wet he is. Automatically, she jumps backwards with a cry as she looks down at her clothes.
"Sorry," he laughs, "I'm getting you wet."
"It's OK," she replies looking in his eyes, "I'll just borrow this towel."
Before he even knows what's happening, her fingers slip underneath the top of his towel and pull it free. She takes several steps backwards, away from him, and waits. Her face is calm and her eyes don't leave his face.
A hush descends.
Jess stands, frozen with shock. He's too stunned to even cry out. His jaw slackens and his eyes widen with disbelief. The only movement he makes is to blink. It's impossible. It's just. . . impossible. Words utterly fail him as he tries to process the information, tries to wrap his head around a reality in which she - Rory Gilmore - has just removed his towel. What's true and what's imagined swirl together like a kaleidoscope, all color and no sound. Water from his wet hair drips in his face and, blinking one last time, he shakes his head to clear his vision.
Focusing his eyes, he sees Rory, standing more than an arm's length away from him. Her arms hang suspended, forgotten in front of her. His towel - Oh God, it is his towel - dangles from her fingertips. His mind forces him to sort through the confusion assailing him and identify the pertinent pieces of information. He is wet. He is naked. He is alone with Rory.
He looks at her face and gets his second surprise. The patented predictable Gilmore blush is nowhere to be seen. She is eerily calm, self- possessed, composed. Her gaze remains glued to his face and she watches him. He knows the shock that pierced him has also crossed his face and been observed by this silent, thoughtful witness. He tries to calm his pounding heart but he knows the cadence of his breath gives away his mental state. His eyes search for, and find, her eyes. They proclaim her calmness and oddly enough, her determination. Heat passes between them and he almost succumbs to the desire to step towards her but something keeps him rooted in place.
Unsure, he waits to see what happens next.
Her breathing, like his, is labored. At length, her eyes break from his. With indolent grace, they slide across his face. Cheekbones, jaw, hair - all familiar territory, already cataloged, already memorized. Carefully, she moves her gaze down his neck to his shoulders. They look strong, even. Their sinew gives way to lean, muscled arms, which hang next to his body. Taking her time, Rory looks at his veins, running in blue lines down his forearms into his hands.
As Rory's gaze travels back up his arms, she feels as if she's falling, falling home to herself. It's a strange sensation, like being suspended in amber, protected by dragonfly wings. She's somehow retreated into a safe, tucked away part of herself, yet she is completely present, so here in this room with him, totally in the now. Her body hums.
Her eyes continue wandering. She looks at his chest and is surprised that he's so thin. Despite this or maybe because of it, his muscles stand out, clearly visible, stretched taut just underneath his skin. One word - strong - drifts across her mind. His chest is virtually hairless, his nipples, as dark as her own. Her eyes slide down his body and again, she finds him thinner than she expected. When she realizes she can count some of his lower ribs, she does. He's wiry. His stomach is hard, flat. She is fascinated to find a narrow band of curly dark hair growing just under his navel. It's path points downward and, without the slightest hesitation or feeling of shyness, she follows it. Her eyes land on the evidence of his sex.
He tenses.
She stares at him, not out of prurient interest but out of genuine curiosity. She's never seen this part of the male anatomy in real life before, not even to change a baby boy's diaper. This too is different from what she expected. She ponders the contrasts between imagination and reality until a bead of water slides across his hipbone and down his leg, pulling her gaze lower.
His legs are covered in fine dark hairs, some of which are stuck to his skin by a thin sheen of water. Like the rest of him, his thighs are all leanness, all hard muscle. His knees are more knobby than hers and there is a large angry looking scar beside his left patella. 'Sports injury?' she wonders. Below his knees, his shins are wetter than his thighs. Where he is standing, water has pooled around his feet. Her eyes go unfocused slightly as she takes in the whole of him. His skin, God. . . his skin. It's Italian olive, though pale from lack of sun.
She feels his eyes on her. The heat from his gaze almost burns her skin. Every fiber of him tugs at her like gravity but she resists. The electricity from his stare seems to find its way into her blood and settles between her legs. When she moves at last, it's not towards him but in an arc around him. With light angel steps, she walks slowly, maintaining her distance. Confused, he begins turning to face her. She stops him with a word.
"Don't."
Immediately, he stills. Understanding dawning, he realizes she wants to see the rest of him. He wills himself to just. . . stand there. Not moving is the hardest thing he's ever done. Somewhere, Rory has found the courage to view his body. The least he can do is take it like a man. Provided he can survive it.
It's. . . God, it's fucking torture. He needs her to touch him the same way he needs water, the way he needs air. The exquisite pain of letting himself be examined this way is almost more than he can tolerate. She can't know, she couldn't know what she's doing to him. He's getting hard but there's nothing he can do about it. To cover himself would mean moving and he can't do that to her. Whatever it is that's happening to her, he's a part of it. He can't leave her - won't leave her - when she so obviously needs this. His hands curl into fists and he digs his fingernails into his palms. Shutting his eyes, he grits his teeth and he waits. For her.
Rory is behind him now continuing her exploration of his physique. Her senses are nearing overload, her breathing is labored. Her eyes gaze at the tips of his hair, which curl up slightly against the back of his neck. His shoulders are square and they rise and fall as he breathes. A droplet of water slides from his neck, slips between his shoulder blades, and rolls down his back. His torso is V-shaped, his back, muscled and sturdy. Thin, thin, so thin. She stops short when she notices another scar on his lower back.
It's relatively short and the edges look clean. She guesses it's a knife wound but doesn't know enough about these things to be sure. Wait - a knife wound? The thought makes her tremble. There is so much about his past he keeps secret, so much more she wants to know. One day, she'll ask to hear the stories of his scars.
Her eyes move to his spine. Following its bumpy path downward, her vision lands on his ass. It's tight and small, slightly whiter than the rest of him. This at least looks exactly as she imagined it would. Just below it, the backs of his legs are solid and covered with the same fine hairs found on the front of his legs. She has a fleeting thought that his body is beginning to dry in the air.
She moves closer to him, close enough for him to feel her breath on his neck and open his eyes. The urge to taste the water clinging to his shoulders is almost overwhelming but she doesn't. Instead, she inhales his clean scent before backing up to complete her journey around him.
Face to face, their eyes meet. This is their world - the room, the towel, the water. Only this.
He doesn't move or speak because he can't. He's too far gone for rational thought anyway. All he can do is look at her with eyes laid bare and wait. He's lost, drowned, hers. Her eyes leave his one last time to caress his body. Her gaze slips down his chest and pauses at his erection. A shiver slices through her as her eyes leap back to his.
He holds her gaze. The air is thick with her want, his need. All they can do is stand in this moment and burn, burn, burn.
A quote from Like Water for Chocolate flits through her mind, "To the table or to bed. You must come when you are bid." Rory moves towards him. Jess inhales sharply. When she pauses a foot away from him, a groan almost escapes him but he wills himself to remain silent. Her fingers itch to touch him. Instead, all she does is hand him his towel.
"You're beautiful," she says.
With those words, she turns and leaves the room. The door closes softly behind her.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
A/N: Reviews are always appreciated.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed! You guys are just. . . wow.
Special thanks to Beth for her expert beta (you so rock) and to "T" for letting me know it was time for a prep school skirt moment.
.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
.
"Mom?" Rory yawns, padding into the kitchen.
The only response she receives is the baritone hum of the heater, fighting to keep out the December chill.
Stretching, Rory walks to the kitchen table where she spies a note lying atop a stack of mail order catalogs. It reads:
"Rory, From now on, I only want to witness one 5:30 per day (this is not it, by the way). Hotel auditors are in town - you know the drill. See you tonight. Love, Mom."
Trying to remember if her mother had mentioned the audit to her yesterday, Rory's shoulders sag. There are some days when she needs to start her day the Lorelai way and today is just one of them. When Lorelai is around, Rory has the sense of being in the center of the universe, in the place where action lives. For whatever reason, she needs a high voltage dose of Middle Kingdom serum today. Disappointment over her mother's absence floods her. Compared to playful Lorelai banter, the silence of the kitchen feels heavy, oppressive. She tries to shake off the pensive feeling as she retreats to the bathroom to shower.
The hot water and steam help her spirits. Feeling slightly more cheerful, Rory wraps her wet hair in a towel and returns to her room. She pulls a fresh Chilton uniform out of a dry cleaning bag and hangs it on her doorknob. Walking to her underwear drawer, Rory withdraws a matching cream lace bra and panty set. An old memory floats up and envelops her.
'Always make sure your bra and panties match,' the elder Gilmore had instructed.
'In case I'm hit by a bus?' Rory had asked.
'OK, there's that,' Lorelai had grinned, 'but there are other reasons too.'
'Like what?'
'Just trust me on the matching thing.'
Rory puts on her underwear, smiling to herself. On impulse, she moves to the full-length mirror. Tilting her head to the side, she removes the towel, allowing her damp hair to cascade about her shoulders. Carefully, almost scientifically, she examines her reflection in the mirror. Studying herself from every angle, she concentrates on how her body looks in the underwear. Turning and twisting, her eyebrows knit together while her lips purse in question. 'Sexy?' she wonders. Honestly, she can't tell. 'What is sexy anyway?' she muses pushing her hair out of her face. Her movements slow as she imagines what Jess would think of the set, what his reaction might be if he could see her in it. Toying with the thought, Rory gazes unseeingly at the mirror. Making unwitting eye contact with her own reflection, she is startled from her revelry. Quickly, almost guiltily, she moves away.
Grabbing her uniform off the doorknob, she tosses it on the bed. Tights slide on first, then the skirt, which she steps into, tugs upwards, and buttons at her waist. Zipping it, her mind flashes to a day at Chilton last year when she watched that girl - what was her name? Lemming? Lem? - use the teacher's stapler to shorten the hem of her blue tartan plaid.
Rory had walked into homeroom early and caught her doing it. Bending over slightly, the girl had tucked the hem inside her skirt and secured it, at least 5 inches shorter that it was supposed to be, with staples. She had looked up at Rory and smiled conspiratorially. Surprised, Rory had just looked away and taken her seat. She remembered the girl's smile melting off her face.
Rory sits on her bed. A feeling of shame rises in her throat and she swallows it only to have it lodge uncomfortably in her stomach.
At the time she had felt so superior to that girl, so. . . clean. She hadn't shared the smile because she didn't want to conspire with her, didn't want to leave any doubt that Rory disapproved of breaking dress code. Rory wasn't the kind of girl who shortened her uniform skirts. She didn't have to, didn't want to. The shortening of a prep school skirt was so cliché anyway, too Britney for her tastes. The girls who shortened their skirts were the same ones who unbuttoned their blouses, wore red lipstick, and let boys press them against lockers to kiss them. That sort of pandering your sexuality to the lowest common denominator was beneath her. She wasn't the type to illegally raise her hemline simply to feel sexy. She was better than girls like that.
Her stomach churns at the memory. Face burning, she forces herself to walk back to the mirror. It's just as she suspected - her skirt hangs at exactly the Chilton regulation length. If someone measured it with a ruler, it would probably be off by less than a quarter inch, if it was off at all. Hot tears spring to her eyes as she remembers how she had felt so pure, so self-congratulatory over her sexual control.
She's seized by a fleeting impulse to find that girl and apologize.
It's easy to be in control of yourself when you sleepwalk through life. She hadn't understood what it was like to even want to be sexy. With Dean, she barely felt like kissing. With Jess, she feels like Gertrudis in Like Water for Chocolate, whose sexual longing is so intense, that the heat from her body causes water falling from a shower to evaporate before it ever reaches her skin. Gertrudis' heat had eventually burned the shower itself, along with half the porch, to the ground. At the time, Rory thought it was a metaphor but now she makes a mental note to ask Lorelai about fire insurance.
Turning from the mirror, Rory continues dressing. Is she different from any other girl at Chilton? She's been awfully good for an awfully long time not because of a higher calling but because she simply hasn't felt like being bad. Until now. If she wants to get really honest with herself, she'd have to admit that she isn't even worthy of her hated nickname. She never really was. Mary hadn't been judgmental and unsympathetic. 'Hypocritical too,' Rory thinks, remembering her little underwear episode in front of the mirror. It's an unsettling realization to have so early in the morning.
Rory Gilmore, human? Who would ever believe that?
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
Despite being largely unaware of the temperature, Rory feels immediately warmed when she walks into the diner. Making her way past the tables, already full of customers, she approaches the counter. As is her habit, she peels off her coat and drops her book bag on the floor. Peering into the kitchen, she searches for any sign of Jess.
Instead, it's Luke who emerges from the kitchen.
"Hi Rory," he smiles.
"Hey," she greets, sitting on a stool. "Where is Jess?"
"Still upstairs," Luke grumbles, pulling a pencil from behind his ear
"Oh. Uh.. . . Can I-" she begins, leaving the sentence unfinished. Gesturing towards the curtain, she smiles guiltily at Luke.
"Go ahead," he concedes, as he walks to a table to take an order.
She slips from her stool and makes her way to the stairs.
"Tell him to get a move on," he calls to her departing back, "I need his help down here."
Rory turns to him and nods.
As she steps behind the curtain, she pauses to catch her breath. Something is happening to her. She feels different today. Just as Tita's blood began to boil in Like Water for Chocolate, so too has Rory's blood. She's been on low simmer since meeting Jess but now, the boil is almost powerful enough to make the fabled chocolate, powerful enough to melt asphalt.
Climbing the stairs, she thinks again about her morning, the mirror, the Chilton girl. She wonders absently if she'll shorten her skirts but knows she probably won't. There are many ways to be brave and really, that's one of the lesser ones. The bravest acts are always the most frightening and frankly, those are the ones she avoids. Giving herself permission to feel her life - now that will take guts. Shedding the mask of perfection that she has hidden behind all her life and letting herself be known? Scary.
As she nears the apartment door, she's beginning to understand what it means to have courage. When her knock isn't answered, she opens the door slowly peeking inside. Entering the apartment, she calls to him.
"Jess?"
Almost immediately, the bathroom door opens and Jess emerges with a towel wrapped around his midsection. His hair is wet. Part of it sticks up, pointing in all directions while other sections hang in dripping plaits, close to his head. His body glistens, still damp from the shower. He is halfway across the room before he notices her. Mild surprise registers on his face.
"Hey," he says.
"Hi," she greets in return, unsure of what to do or where to look.
He smirks and raises an eyebrow at her.
"I didn't hear you come in but, the shower will do that to you," he says, half expecting her to bolt from the room. Water drips from his hair and runs down his neck onto his chest.
"I knocked," she replies simply, watching the water's path.
He laughs quietly at what he's sure is her stubborn refusal to show her discomfort.
"Give me a minute to get dressed," he grins as he continues on his original course towards his bedroom. "I can be decent in no time."
The words of Laura Esquivel float to her. What is decent anyway? Denying everything you want? Obeying random rules of etiquette simply because it wouldn't be proper not to?
She steps in front of him blocking his path.
"You look decent to me," she whispers. Placing her hands on either side of his face, she kisses him. His skin is warm and he smells of soap. Water from his hair drips across her fingers and she savors the feel of it, the taste of him.
Taken aback by her boldness, he is slow to respond. Pleasure quickly overtakes surprise and he steps towards her wrapping his arms gingerly around her waist. Only when his body presses against hers does she realize just how wet he is. Automatically, she jumps backwards with a cry as she looks down at her clothes.
"Sorry," he laughs, "I'm getting you wet."
"It's OK," she replies looking in his eyes, "I'll just borrow this towel."
Before he even knows what's happening, her fingers slip underneath the top of his towel and pull it free. She takes several steps backwards, away from him, and waits. Her face is calm and her eyes don't leave his face.
A hush descends.
Jess stands, frozen with shock. He's too stunned to even cry out. His jaw slackens and his eyes widen with disbelief. The only movement he makes is to blink. It's impossible. It's just. . . impossible. Words utterly fail him as he tries to process the information, tries to wrap his head around a reality in which she - Rory Gilmore - has just removed his towel. What's true and what's imagined swirl together like a kaleidoscope, all color and no sound. Water from his wet hair drips in his face and, blinking one last time, he shakes his head to clear his vision.
Focusing his eyes, he sees Rory, standing more than an arm's length away from him. Her arms hang suspended, forgotten in front of her. His towel - Oh God, it is his towel - dangles from her fingertips. His mind forces him to sort through the confusion assailing him and identify the pertinent pieces of information. He is wet. He is naked. He is alone with Rory.
He looks at her face and gets his second surprise. The patented predictable Gilmore blush is nowhere to be seen. She is eerily calm, self- possessed, composed. Her gaze remains glued to his face and she watches him. He knows the shock that pierced him has also crossed his face and been observed by this silent, thoughtful witness. He tries to calm his pounding heart but he knows the cadence of his breath gives away his mental state. His eyes search for, and find, her eyes. They proclaim her calmness and oddly enough, her determination. Heat passes between them and he almost succumbs to the desire to step towards her but something keeps him rooted in place.
Unsure, he waits to see what happens next.
Her breathing, like his, is labored. At length, her eyes break from his. With indolent grace, they slide across his face. Cheekbones, jaw, hair - all familiar territory, already cataloged, already memorized. Carefully, she moves her gaze down his neck to his shoulders. They look strong, even. Their sinew gives way to lean, muscled arms, which hang next to his body. Taking her time, Rory looks at his veins, running in blue lines down his forearms into his hands.
As Rory's gaze travels back up his arms, she feels as if she's falling, falling home to herself. It's a strange sensation, like being suspended in amber, protected by dragonfly wings. She's somehow retreated into a safe, tucked away part of herself, yet she is completely present, so here in this room with him, totally in the now. Her body hums.
Her eyes continue wandering. She looks at his chest and is surprised that he's so thin. Despite this or maybe because of it, his muscles stand out, clearly visible, stretched taut just underneath his skin. One word - strong - drifts across her mind. His chest is virtually hairless, his nipples, as dark as her own. Her eyes slide down his body and again, she finds him thinner than she expected. When she realizes she can count some of his lower ribs, she does. He's wiry. His stomach is hard, flat. She is fascinated to find a narrow band of curly dark hair growing just under his navel. It's path points downward and, without the slightest hesitation or feeling of shyness, she follows it. Her eyes land on the evidence of his sex.
He tenses.
She stares at him, not out of prurient interest but out of genuine curiosity. She's never seen this part of the male anatomy in real life before, not even to change a baby boy's diaper. This too is different from what she expected. She ponders the contrasts between imagination and reality until a bead of water slides across his hipbone and down his leg, pulling her gaze lower.
His legs are covered in fine dark hairs, some of which are stuck to his skin by a thin sheen of water. Like the rest of him, his thighs are all leanness, all hard muscle. His knees are more knobby than hers and there is a large angry looking scar beside his left patella. 'Sports injury?' she wonders. Below his knees, his shins are wetter than his thighs. Where he is standing, water has pooled around his feet. Her eyes go unfocused slightly as she takes in the whole of him. His skin, God. . . his skin. It's Italian olive, though pale from lack of sun.
She feels his eyes on her. The heat from his gaze almost burns her skin. Every fiber of him tugs at her like gravity but she resists. The electricity from his stare seems to find its way into her blood and settles between her legs. When she moves at last, it's not towards him but in an arc around him. With light angel steps, she walks slowly, maintaining her distance. Confused, he begins turning to face her. She stops him with a word.
"Don't."
Immediately, he stills. Understanding dawning, he realizes she wants to see the rest of him. He wills himself to just. . . stand there. Not moving is the hardest thing he's ever done. Somewhere, Rory has found the courage to view his body. The least he can do is take it like a man. Provided he can survive it.
It's. . . God, it's fucking torture. He needs her to touch him the same way he needs water, the way he needs air. The exquisite pain of letting himself be examined this way is almost more than he can tolerate. She can't know, she couldn't know what she's doing to him. He's getting hard but there's nothing he can do about it. To cover himself would mean moving and he can't do that to her. Whatever it is that's happening to her, he's a part of it. He can't leave her - won't leave her - when she so obviously needs this. His hands curl into fists and he digs his fingernails into his palms. Shutting his eyes, he grits his teeth and he waits. For her.
Rory is behind him now continuing her exploration of his physique. Her senses are nearing overload, her breathing is labored. Her eyes gaze at the tips of his hair, which curl up slightly against the back of his neck. His shoulders are square and they rise and fall as he breathes. A droplet of water slides from his neck, slips between his shoulder blades, and rolls down his back. His torso is V-shaped, his back, muscled and sturdy. Thin, thin, so thin. She stops short when she notices another scar on his lower back.
It's relatively short and the edges look clean. She guesses it's a knife wound but doesn't know enough about these things to be sure. Wait - a knife wound? The thought makes her tremble. There is so much about his past he keeps secret, so much more she wants to know. One day, she'll ask to hear the stories of his scars.
Her eyes move to his spine. Following its bumpy path downward, her vision lands on his ass. It's tight and small, slightly whiter than the rest of him. This at least looks exactly as she imagined it would. Just below it, the backs of his legs are solid and covered with the same fine hairs found on the front of his legs. She has a fleeting thought that his body is beginning to dry in the air.
She moves closer to him, close enough for him to feel her breath on his neck and open his eyes. The urge to taste the water clinging to his shoulders is almost overwhelming but she doesn't. Instead, she inhales his clean scent before backing up to complete her journey around him.
Face to face, their eyes meet. This is their world - the room, the towel, the water. Only this.
He doesn't move or speak because he can't. He's too far gone for rational thought anyway. All he can do is look at her with eyes laid bare and wait. He's lost, drowned, hers. Her eyes leave his one last time to caress his body. Her gaze slips down his chest and pauses at his erection. A shiver slices through her as her eyes leap back to his.
He holds her gaze. The air is thick with her want, his need. All they can do is stand in this moment and burn, burn, burn.
A quote from Like Water for Chocolate flits through her mind, "To the table or to bed. You must come when you are bid." Rory moves towards him. Jess inhales sharply. When she pauses a foot away from him, a groan almost escapes him but he wills himself to remain silent. Her fingers itch to touch him. Instead, all she does is hand him his towel.
"You're beautiful," she says.
With those words, she turns and leaves the room. The door closes softly behind her.
. ~ . ~ . ~ .
A/N: Reviews are always appreciated.