MIRROR IMAGE
Rating: R—really R, this time.
Timeline: Mid-season 3, at least after "Blowback."
Part II, Act 3
The ride up to the penthouse was silent. Too silent, he knew, but Sydney was too far gone now for it to make a difference. He was surprised she hadn't noticed yet; but it was only a matter of time, now.
She was unsteady as she exited the elevator and he reached out to support her elbow, thanking every diety he could recall. A drugged Sydney Bristow was only marginally less dangerous than the everyday model, and he preferred to transport her passed out body to moving her awake and alert. She always threw such a fuss.
She smiled at him in a manner she must have thought was coy, almost as if she were trying to seduce him. He could only imagine her snow white patriotic thoughts about sleeping with him for the good of her country. Poor girl. She wasn't going to take this well when she awoke. Lucky for him she'd be tied up by then.
"This way, darling," he said, coaxing her down the hall. "Just a bit further."
Her breathing was starting to shallow. He braced her against the wall while he unlocked the door and pushed it open. Inside he traded the key card for the tranq gun he'd left prepared on the front table by the door and turned back just in time to watch Sydney trip dizzily over the threshold.
It was charming, really, the way she stumbled into his arms. Her eyelids fluttered, and all at once she seemed to realize what was happening. Had already happened.
"You—" she began, lurching back, one stunned hand pressed to her mouth.
"Drugged you?" he asked. "Yes of course."
Her legs buckled and he caught her before she could fall.
"You should really be more careful," he chided her as he deadbolted the door, still holding her lip form against his side. Well, Laurent's limp form. No matter.
He dropped her onto the bed and picked up the phone.
"It's done," he said into the receiver. "Tell Irina we're ready."
He was waiting outside for Lauren when she arrived in a cloud of noise and dust, a broad white headlight in the dark. Shutting off the engine, she lowered the kickstand and swung Sydney's long leather-clad leg over the motorcycle seat.
"I absolutely loathe Alaska," she told him, grimacing.
He smirked. "Poor darling."
"Where's Sydney?" She ran her fingers through Sydney's windblown locks and smoothed the tight black tank down over her torso.
"I've had her removed to a secure location," he answered. "She'll likely remain in her current state until morning, at least."
"You've contacted the Covenant?"
"Your faith in me is astounding, really," he drawled, but she ignored him in favor of what appeared to be checking the state of her ass. "We're expected in Tokyo with Ms. Bristow by midmorning tomorrow."
He held the door for her as they entered the hotel, and guiding her by the elbow. "I simply cannot adjust to this body," she groused, accepting his assistance.
"You shouldn't have to. I'm sure as soon as Sydney awakens we'll be able to determine the cause of all this and put things to right."
"Thank God."
"The question," he said, appraising the swing of Sydney's hips as they crossed the lobby, "is what to do with ourselves in the meantime."
"I've had a wretched day, Julian," Lauren warned as he slid his hand along the curve of her ass.
"Which is only bound to improve," he murmured against her ear.
"Maybe later." She brushed him off as the elevator door opened. "Did Sydney provide adequate cover for my disappearance?"
"Of course," he said, and thought of Jack Bristow, who his men had apprehended behind the hotel with a van full of surveillance equipment. He should have expected him—the man had a tendency to oversee every facet of his only child's life, particularly where the CIA was concerned, and of course this was no different. Irina would laugh at his negligence. Sark only hoped they'd captured him quickly enough that he hadn't yet had time to relay the situation back to his superiors, if he was, indeed, operating with their approval. Too risky to stay here much longer in any case, but it would be a shame to waste the room.
He unlocked the door in a curious echo of his earlier movements, and turned on the lights.
Lauren let out a small sound of pleasure at the champagne, the flowers. "Julian, you shouldn't have," she said, and he could have answered, I didn't, but where was the benefit in that? If she was titillated by his artifice, then all the better. He took a fair amount of pride in the details, and Ms. Bristow hadn't managed to stay conscious long enough to truly appreciate them.
He took her in his arms then, pleased by his ability to do so, and kissed her mouth, Sydney's mouth, and it was as if he were kissing her for the first time, and she tasted of cigarettes but also something hot and deep that he knew did not come from Lauren.
"I must admit, this does address a certain . . . proclivity . . . of mine," he murmured, nuzzling her, taking in the scent of Sydney's body.
She let out a short bark of laughter. "Julian Sark! You wicked, wicked little boy!"
"Mmm," he commented. "Of course, Ms. Bristow would never consent to such a thing."
"Never," Lauren moaned as he bit down on her earlobe.
Her always-crafty fingers, moving between them, snaked his belt from his pant loops so fast the leather cracked like a whip. She pushed him away, and stood, belt taught between her hands.
"Now, Mr. Sark," she said, effortlessly Sydney. "Tell me what I want to know."
For one sheerly terrifying moment, he thought he'd made some sort of mistake. That this was the real Sydney Bristow after all and he'd been cleverly, seamlessly played. But the light in this Sydney's eyes was far different as she looked at him.
He laughed. "Dirty girl," he told her admiringly as she backed him up until his legs hit the edge of the bed. "We haven't even opened the champagne."
She regarded him with a steady Bristow stare.
He cleared his throat, intrigued. "My apologies. What precisely do you want to know, Agent Bristow?"
"The location of the Rambaldi artifact."
"I don't have it," he said, and ran his fingers lightly along her bare forearms, her biceps, tracing her collarbone. Oh, yes, he thought, more aroused than he had anticipated.
"I don't believe you," she said, crossing her arms, belt still trailing from one hand. "I think you have it on you."
"You can search me if you wish," he offered, eyes hot.
He skin was flushed as well; he wasn't the only one enjoying their little charade. Curious. He wouldn't have expected that of her. But there would be plenty of time late to think through what that meant.
"I wouldn't touch you if you were the last man on earth."
"Ms. Bristow," he said, "I don't believe you have a choice."
He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her to his mouth, where he tongue met his hungrily, stroke for stroke. The belt dropped from her fingers.
"Screw the champagne," he said, drinking her in.
Her response was to topple him back onto the bed, which gave beneath their weight. Straddling him, she peeled her shirt off, baring Sydney's breasts for his perusal.
He didn't mind Lauren dominating him; expected it, really. Even thrived on it. Poor girl, having to play sweet submissive to CIA boy scout Michael Vaughn. Sark enjoyed strong women, so long as their interference in his actions was limited to token exercises of power. He allowed Irina to control him more than most; she was a remarkable woman, and had proven time and time again that strict adherence to her instructions only served him well. But the sight of Agent Sydney Bristow rising over him, long limbs and dark hair pinning him to the mattress, was the most perfectly, improbably stirring image he'd ever seen.
Her fingers found the button on his trousers.
Somewhere in the middle, he stopped thinking of her as Lauren, and began thinking of her only Sydney. Hard not to, with her eyes closed, voice silent, head thrown back against the pillow.
He was brutal.
It inflamed him, the way she took it, his fingers thrusting into her, into her body, breaking her careful, constructed façade, even if it was Lauren allowing him to do so, Lauren opening Sydney to him the way she'd opened herself to him many, many times. Her skin was damp and purloined against his own, her hair stolen silk, and the nipple he tongued in time to the push of his hand hard and turgid and temporarily his. She was temporarily his, to do with as he wished.
"Julian, please!" Lauren begged, arching against him, reaching for his cock, hard against her opened hips.
"Come for me first," he insisted, driving into her harder, eliciting a startled gasp. He wanted to see it, he wanted to watch her. He wanted to know what Sydney Bristow looked like when she came.
She looked like an angel, lips parted, her amber hair a halo on the three-hundred count white cotton sheets. He kissed the side of her breast, her neck, as her breathing stuttered, slowing, then disengaged his fingers.
"Oh, God," she moaned, and then spread her thighs as he rolled over her to press against her opening. He would have taken her from behind, but he needed desperately to see her face.
One authoritative push and he was there, inside her, transfixed by the arch of her neck and the heat that surrounded him. One woman was much like any other in this regard, but he could not help but romanticize this particular woman and the way she felt beneath him, supple muscle and slick, yielding flesh. Surprisingly not like Lauren at all. Much more as he had always imagined her mother might be.
Gripping her hips for leverage, he began to move.
"You're thinking about her," she murmured, stroking the fingers of one hand through the short hairs at the back of his neck.
"Damn right I am," he more muttered than said. "Do me a favor and please shut up."
Her laugh was full-throated, and she tipped her hips up to receive him better.
"I could always tell when Michael was thinking about her too," she said. "Always."
Sark squeezed his eyes shut. "Lauren, please—"
"Oh . . . oh Sark," she pitched in Sydney's voice, a perfect blend of shock and arousal, and it was quite embarrassing but he came at once at the sound of it, pistoning into her, finishing hard and deep and collapsing over her waiting body.
"All right, Julian?" she asked after a few long moments in which he found himself nearly irresistibly drawn towards sleep.
"Very," he answered, pulling out of her with regret and, eyes still closed, rolling them both over onto their sides.
He kissed her shoulder, and smiled at her contented purr. A marvelous bedmate, Lauren was, whatever body she wore. Their association had proven to be a boon on several fronts. Too bad it would soon be ending.
He pulled her back, snug, against him, double checked the glock under the pillow, then, finally, let himself drift off into dreamless sleep.
Tomorrow would be dealt with. No need to concern himself with it until it arrived.
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A/N: Sorry for the delay; hope the result was worth it. :) And thanks again for any and all reviews. Particularly, this round, Mrs.JulianLazerey, for pointing out how not explicit bits of the last part were as regarded Sark's plan to get Sydney unconscious. When I get a chance, I'll definitely go back and clear some things up! Happy Thanksgiving. . . .
