Sydney sat at her kitchen counter, tapping her fingernails lightly. She hadn't spoken with Sark in a whole week. He had gone out of town on some sort of important business and hadn't deemed it necessary to call her during his whole time away.
"It's not like you have an actual relationship," she said under her breath. She blew the piece of hair that had fallen into her eyes back out of the way and continued to stare out the window.
It wasn't like she expected anything different. She didn't. Sark had a lot of things to do that occupied his time. He couldn't be reporting his every waking move to her. Especially since she would probably feel obligated to stop at least half of the things he planned.
Still, strangely enough, if he was nothing else, he was dependable. Sark had said he would be back that night so that meant he would be back in the country that night. She didn't know why, but she had just assumed he would find a way to come over to her house. It had become like a routine with them. Thinking about it, this assumption was probably incredibly foolish.
In fact, their whole relationship was incredibly foolish.
She had discovered that fun little fact while telling Stephanie about the man in her life. It wasn't easy trying to describe what they had. Even after hours of thinking, the way she had described to her old friend was about the best she could do, now or ever. "If prizes were given out for dysfunctional relationships, we would get the blue ribbon."
The words she had used had echoed through her mind since the second they escaped her lips. Normal people didn't call their relationships dysfunction, did they?
The uneasy feeling she had about Stephanie had quickly worn away. The girl had just been doing her job all those years ago on their mission in Quebec, and she was just doing her job now. It was silly to start wondering if maybe there was something more than what was present on the exterior. Dredging up old memories that should remain buried was one of her worst habits.
With that in mind, all worries were cast aside, and Sydney had found herself becoming immensely happy that she had someone she could talk to about all the important aspects in her life. Particularly a certain spy who seemed to be erecting barriers around a few specific parts of his life.
Bringing her mind back around to the topic of Sark, she groaned. What was going on between them wasn't healthy. They spent every waking moment together that they could. They couldn't get enough of each other. But when it came to telling anyone, they danced around the subject. There was this powerful history between them. They had a past. But both of them refused to return to that high level of intimacy they once had.
Sydney could remember that she had once lived and breathed for Sark. He was her whole life while the Covenant had her kidnapped. He was her sanity.
Now he meant a lot to her, but she really believed that she wasn't as strongly attached to him as she once was. She could leave. "Couldn't I?" she asked herself, standing up.
She began to pace the room, working through the many options that she could take to remedy the situation. She didn't like her options. On a positive note, the one that kept ringing through her head seemed to have at least a modicum of rational thought attached to it. On a negative note, that option was the one her heart really didn't want to take.
In her mind, the only healthy thing to do was to tell him that as much as she loved him, they couldn't keep seeing each other. It would hurt, but she would just have to work through the pain.
"Yeah, that's what I'll do," she said determinedly.
A knock on her front door made her jump and let out a tiny shriek. Rolling her eyes at how pathetic she was at times, she walked over and opened the door.
And there he was, leaning against the doorframe, looking like he didn't have a care in the world. His suit was crumpled from what must have been a rather uncomfortable flight. Immediately she wondered where his personal jet had run off. He was the type of man to not want to mingle with the pedestrians."Did I scare you?" he said in a husky whisper.
Her heart skipped a beat. "Okay, this might be a little harder than I though," she thought. Taking a deep breath, she motioned for him to come in and locked the door behind him. There need to be some sort of barrier to keep him from just storming out of the house.
"We need to talk," he said, suddenly serious.
"I know." She looked him in the eye for a moment before realizing that if she was going to do this, she couldn't maintain eye contact. The looks he was sending her made her uneasy and not in a way she currently wanted to be feeling if this relationship was going to be ended. Uneasy in the I-want-to-have-you-in-my-bed-this-very-second kind of way.
"This isn't working," she said quickly before she could have any second thoughts.
"Huh?"
"You and me. It's just not healthy." She absentmindedly played with the end of her sleeve in an effort to avoid his eyes. She could just guess the surprise and hurt that were reflecting in them. "You're a rational man. What we've been doing the past few weeks isn't what normal couples do. You know it, and I know it. We've been running around, hiding our relationship from all the people we care about."
"If you want me to broadcast how much you mean to me to the world, then I will. I was just assuming that you wanted to keep this whole thing quiet."
"It's not just that," she said swiftly, realizing that he was already beginning to talk his way out of this conversation. If she let him start to smooth talk his way out of this situation, she might not have the heart to tell him no. "You and I don't have a… normal relationship."
"What are you referring to?"
"We were intimate once." She paused not knowing where she was going with this. She had hoped he did, but when he didn't say anything in response, she understood that she would have to spell her point out a little more. "You and I have both been purposefully avoided getting that close again. We both have our reasons. But I just don't think we should be encouraging a relationship based on holding back."
He scratched the back of his head in the telltale sign Sydney had begun to associate with his being confused. "Could you maybe explain to me what reason you think I have to keep you at a distance?"
"I'm not exactly the girl you fell in love with." When he rolled his eyes at her, she groaned. "I know you're not going to admit it. But when I worked with the Covenant, I was a lot tougher. I had to be to survive. That toughness has worn off since I've returned to L.A." She frowned at him. "You like tough girls, Julian."
"I thought we agreed not to bring up Allison or Lauren ever again. They were mistakes, Sydney. Pathetic attempts to fill a void that could only be properly satisfied by you."
"Stop smooth talking," she warned.
"I'm telling you the truth. When I met Allison, I was just lonely. You know how the life we live can be at times. It was nice to have someone to come home to." He ran a hand through his hair, nervously. "And Lauren Reed was just a way to take a jab at that idiot man you were in love with. Michael Vaughn was just a pathetic man who would never be able to treat you like the precious gem that you are. I don't think I've ever wanted to hurt a man as much as I wanted to hurt him when I heard he had married someone else instead of searching every inch of the globe for you."
This comment threw her off. "You knew that he had gotten married?"
He sighed and looked at her. "I knew that he had foolishly moved on. I knew that you ran away from the Covenant that night and dropped in to see him on a date with his wife. Even if I didn't know that for a fact, that night you came to me in Algeria, it was written all over your face. Heartbreak is hard to hide."
"Why didn't you tell me you knew?"
"Because you needed to work through it on your own." He smiled at her. "Getting back to your original point, I don't think you're a weaker person than before. You're just as tough as I remember you being. In fact, you're probably tougher now that you've broken your ties with Michael Vaughn. To be blunt, you've always been a strong woman, Sydney. You don't know how to be weak."
She narrowed her eyes at him and crossed her arms over her chest. He almost winced when he saw the two telltale signs that she was about to let him have it in her own special way.
"You were the one that asked me to give you a reason for this distance between us. Maybe since I don't seem to be getting the story correct, you can enlighten me to the real reason why you don't want me."
Even though he knew she would probably deck him in about two seconds, he couldn't hold back and let out a small laugh. "That is the biggest lie I have ever heard, the idea that I don't want you." She made a move to talk, but he held his hand up to her lips in an attempt to silence her. "Syd, I've been going near crazy this past few weeks from wanting you. Having you so close to me but still not being able to pull you as close as we once were is killing me. You're killing me."
"Oh."
"Oh is right. There are memories constantly flying through my head of what we once were." He smiled to himself. "You love it when I kiss that soft patch of skin you have right where your neck meets your back."
He couldn't resist it any longer. He had to touch her in some way. Reaching out he brushed the very spot he was speaking of. It pleased him to feel her shiver slightly. She might have a strong resolve to go through with this "break-up", but he was beginning to realize that what's going on in her heart might be fighting it out with what's going on in her head
Continuing with his explanation, he said, "You loved the fact that no matter how tired I was when I came home, I still couldn't get enough of you. I had to have ever inch of you." He smiled a little wider when she shivered again. "I can remember how it felt to have you shivering in my arms and see that look in your eyes and know that you were exactly where you wanted to be. I can remember the way you would claw at the sides of my arms when the excitement was too much." He reached over and turned her head so that she was staring him right in the eye. "I can remember how much you hated when the moment was over and my body left yours."
Bowing out of his touch, she felt a blush creeping over her cheeks and fought to hold it back. She scolded herself for acting like she was a teenager. "I remember all those things, too. But it just doesn't explain why you and I are both so afraid." She felt him stiffen at the mention of fear and was almost afraid that she had gone too far. She chanced a glance over at him and saw his temper flare.
"I'm afraid that I'll hurt you," he confessed slowly. It pained him to admit a weakness, even when that weakness was as drop dead gorgeous as Sydney Bristow. "But mostly I'm afraid that if I let us go back to that physical level we were once on, you won't believe me when I tell you that I love you. Because I do. Love you."
Her breath caught in her throat, and she felt herself raise a hand up to her mouth in shock. He hadn't said those words to her since the day he forced her to erase her memories of him during their two years together. At least he had never said them in this way. They had been thrown around casually between them, almost like they were words they had been saying to one another for years. This time was different though. She could feel it.
"I… I…" She fought to find the words to respond to him.
"Screw it," he hissed. She barely had time to react before he was yanking her into his arms and lowering his lips to hers.
It was a kiss with a purpose. He wanted her to not only hear what he was saying but also to feel it. So he threw off every last barrier he had constructed to keep her at bay and gave everything he had into that kiss. At first, it took her by surprise, but she felt herself give in rather quickly to the passion she could see reflecting in his eyes.
She felt him lift her slowly up off her feet, and almost by instinct, she wrapped her legs around his back. They never broke their kiss. Both knew that if they stopped at any point, rationality might poke its way through the haze of emotion they were currently feeling.
His mind was so focused on keeping her in his arms that he didn't even noticed when she snaked her hands down to his shirt and pulled hard. Buttons went flying everywhere. "I thought you didn't want us to continue down the road we're heading."
"In your own words, screw it," she said before lowering his mouth to his right nipple.The move was so unexpected that he almost dropped her on the spot. Luckily he was used to surprising situations and managed to reestablish his grip. "I always knew I was smart."
She pulled herself up so that her mouth was right next to his ear. After nibbling lightly on the lobe for a little while, she leaned in and whispered, "Plus, the way I figured it, my reasoning was based on the fact that neither one of us want to be intimate." She ground herself against the rising bulge in his pants. "Looks like I was wrong on both counts."
"I'm holding you to that," he answered back. Not wanting to waste another moment talking, he found himself carrying her into her bedroom while trying to keep himself for losing control. Somewhere along the way, she had managed to unbutton his pants without him noticing.
He threw her down on the bed and just stood back to gaze at her. Sydney felt herself begin to blush as his shameless stare. This was something almost primal about the way he was gazing down at her, and it almost made her lose it on the spot.
"Come here," she growled at him.
Losing any last bit of control he had maintained before, he obeyed her command, but not in the way she expected. Grabbing her outstretched hand, he yanked her up so that her body was pressed down the length of his. Relishing the opportunity, he let his hands feel their way through territory that was so familiar and yet so foreign at the same time. She pulled him into another kiss; this one so rough that it would leave bruises. He could feel her nibbling at his bottom lip until the salty taste of blood mingled between them. This was a new side to her that he slightly remembered but wished to relive for the first time this very night.
Figuring he would return her earlier favor, he ripped her t-shirt off of her body forcefully. Her teeth dug into his shoulders slightly as he reached around her back to unhook her bra. It fell to the floor beneath them.
He reached his hand out and stroked the bottoms of her breath, making her giggle. "That tickles," she whispered. Before she could let out another laugh, he was leaning down to take her nipple into his mouth. The difference in sensation practically had her orgasming on the spot.
She had enough sense to know that she couldn't support her weight for much longer. Backing up slightly, she felt the pressure of the bed against her knee and let Sark push her down on top of the bed. The mattress let out a satisfying squeak.
In no time at all, he had managed to throw off every single article of clothing from her body, only ripping one or two more articles in minor places. Having made this decision to finally act on the attraction he had been holding back, he didn't have the patience like normal to take extreme care in every move he made.
It was at this moment, feeling herself lying completely naked against the man she loved, that Sydney had a revelation.
She knew every line of bone to this man, every play of muscle, the shape of ever scar. His body was as known to her as her own. She could feel the taste of his flesh and the quick scrape of the stubble he had not had time to shave as it rubbed against her breast.
She knew every startling thrill to him.
He was rough. She made him rough. There was a switch deep inside of him that turned him from the cool, calculated man who was the epitome of civilized into a more primal man who craved feeling her next to him. The hunger they felt towards one another bordered on pain. They lived on it.
There was a desire deep inside of him to mate with her, hard and fast without any thought. She wanted it that way, and he knew it. He wanted to invade her, burying himself into a place he though he would never be again, feeling her wriggle and writhe beneath his body.
The years of separation drove them to an almost frantic pace. The denial and need gathered inside of him almost like a painful wound until every single part of his body hurt. Everything inside him ached.
And she was the answer. She had always been the answer.
He reached down and slipped one finger deep inside of her. She felt herself bucking against his touch, not wanting him to stop but at the same time wanted him to forget foreplay. She couldn't wait any longer than she already had.Reaching down, she frantically unzipped his pants and reached her hand inside until she grasped him in her hand. She rubbed up and down the length of him with the same rhythm that he was teasing her. Within seconds, they both let loose loud moans and fell into each other, dazed.
"That was not how I imagined this," Sark whispered as he nuzzled her breasts with both his hands and mouth.
"Mmm hmm," was all she managed to spit out, still lost in the haze that he put her through.
As he licked and teased her back into a frenzy, Sydney felt a familiar pressure against her leg. Suddenly she was frantically pawing at his jeans with the knowledge that the pent-up energy between them wasn't keeping him out of the game for too long. The momentum of her frenzied activity had them falling right over the side of the bed and onto the floor with a thud. But nothing was going to stop them from finally being together in every sense of the word.
Having freed him of his confines, Sark wasted no time in driving into her.
She cried out, a short, shocked sound, and felt her legs wrapping themselves around him. He held his position for a moment just relishing the feel of him inside her.
Quickly, the feeling of her got to be too much, and he felt himself thrusting into her over and over again. She didn't want him to stop and was stunned to realize that she couldn't stop. She couldn't speak. She couldn't even breathe.
Each violent thrust fired its way through her blood until she was ready to scream. She clutched at him, her hips pistoning against him, while her vision blurred.
The orgasm tore through her from head to toe. For an instant, her eyes locked onto his face. His eyes were nearly black with desire, and they were fixed on her with a kind of intensity that seared her to the bone. Even as they glazed over, as she knew that he was losing control, they stared down at her.
She knew that no matter how strong of a woman she was, she couldn't give this up.
As another orgasm tore through her body, she heard him groan and finally join her in release. Not wanting to be separated from him yet, she pulled him down on top of her to ride out the waves.
No, there was definitely no way she was giving this up.
