Not every couple (even married couples) can talk their problems out or be healthy and "right" in their behavior all the time. Ross and Rachel certainly were not one of those couples, so they won't be illustrated as such in this story. If that bothers you...sorry :-)
The overall tone of this chapter is going in another direction. A less cheerful one, I guess, but backed by no less love.
This chapter RATED R.
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Ross woke to the feeling of a hand gliding across his back. He opened his eyes and saw Rachel sitting beside him on the bed, smiling down at him and rubbing his back and shoulders.
"Wake up, Sweety. We've got to get going," she yawned, rubbing the sleep from her own eyes.
As he watched her walk towards the bathroom, he searched for the strength to call out to her to wait for him, but he just couldn't muster it. As if she could read his mind, she stopped, turned, and cocked her head at him.
"You coming?" she asked, leaning against the door frame.
"Mmmm," he answered, nodding his head a bit and begrudgingly rolling off the bed.
He shuffled to the shower like a little boy, dragging his feet with his face turned down in a pout from having to be up so early on a weekend. They slipped inside, not having to deal with the chore of removing clothes because they almost always slept naked, and turned on the water.
"You okay?" she asked, noticing he wasn't talking or even really looking at her.
"Uh huh," he answered, nodding convincingly. And he was okay. He'd just woken up with remnants of last night's thoughts still rattling around his head, and they were making him a bit uneasy. He didn't want to be feeling this way. He wasn't even really sure what 'this way' was. It wasn't necessarily bad. It wasn't contesting his feelings for her. Not in the least. There was a hesitance, though-- a restlessness to it-- that had him confused.
"You sure?" she asked, tilting her head to the side concernedly. She didn't seem convinced. He nodded and leaned down to kiss her neck, holding onto her hands casually at their sides. She backed up against the wall and moaned a little-- not sexually, but from relief and acknowledgement. She patted his back. "Good," she whispered.
Just then, a song began softly from the radio on the bathroom counter and it brought an instant smile to Rachel's lips.
Rhiannon rings like a bell through the night,
and wouldn't you love to love her? She rules her life like a bird in flight, and who will be her lover? All your life you've never seen a woman taken by the sky.
Where would you stay if she promised you heaven? Would you even try?
Shortly after they'd reunited and moved into their penthouse, they'd been doing laundry together out in the living room and the song by Fleetwood Mac had begun playing on the radio. Remembering how Rachel had made love to this particular tune with some miscellaneous stranger on Monica's couch who wasn't him, his competitiveness had gotten the better of him and he'd taken her right there on top of the pile of clean clothes.
"Do you remember this?" she asked, smiling roguishly and wrapping her hands around his middle. He nodded and forced a smile. 'She's promising me Heaven...' he thought to himself.
Once in a million years, a lady like her rises...
'That's true. Once in a million years...'
...and your life knows no answers Your life knows no answers.
Suddenly, he jolted away from her and slipped out of the shower, leaving a very confused Rachel standing behind in shock.
He grabbed a towel from the rack and draped it around his waist, shaking his head to remove excess water and to clear his thoughts. 'Get it together," he thought, as he turned the radio to another station. He heard her turn the shower faucet off and exit the stall, standing naked and wet and perplexed before him.
"What the hell was that about?" she asked, her voice full of concern. She folded her arms across her chest but didn't even move for a towel.
"Nothing," he answered lamely. "I just, uh, I didn't like that song. I wanted to change it."
"What?" She seemed personally offended by his statement. "I thought you loved that song. It's one of our songs." Her voice softened on the last sentence and she sounded almost shy.
He watched the beads of water fall from her skin and hit the tile floor. One from her nose. Her eyelash. They slid over her hips and breasts, and over the flat plane of her stomach. He watched them in a mesmerized state, rendered speechless thought he wanted to answer her. He couldn't.
"Ross? What's going on?" she asked bluntly. This time, she sounded more scared than shy. This broke his concentration on the water dripping from her body and brought him back to reality. Shit. What was he doing? He couldn't let something as stupid and vague as this get blown out of proportion right before their vacation. He stepped closer to her and lowered his head to burrow into the niche between her neck and shoulder, kissing her there. He encircled her in his arms and slid his hands up and down her waist and back, feeling her melt into the embrace.
"I'm sorry," he sighed deeply, shaking his head. Another kiss on her neck.
"Is this about last night?" she asked, afraid that it was as she buried her face in his damp chest.
"I think so, yes," he answered honestly. "But it doesn't mean anything, Rach. It's just me thinking."
"That means something, alright," she only half teased. This earned her a chuckle from him and another small kiss on the neck. She patted his back a few times. "I just don't want to have to worry about this right now, you know?" she asked, seeking some sort of sympathetic understanding in him. And she found it, because he didn't want to worry about it anymore either.
"I know," he nodded. "I don't either, but you don't have to worry about anything," he assured. "I'm not going anywhere." He rocked her from side to side and kissed her nose to emphasize this point.
"Never letting me go again, remember?" she whispered.
"I remember," he conceded. They stood there for a moment, naked and dripping with water, swaying to the song that was playing on the station Ross had switched it to. The song was slow and beautiful, accompanied by piano and back-up violin.
You're the magic that holds the sky up from the ground...
Ross closed his eyes and let his uneasiness wash away.
I saw you last night dance by the light of the moon;
stars in your eyes, free from the life that you knew.
He bit her earlobe and let his hands roam down to her ass, squeezing it and pulling her up against his groin, suddenly feeling a flash of hotness burn throughout his body. Something inside him wanted to make love to her--not fuck, but make love-- right now, though he knew it was impractical. Emma was up and they'd have to leave soon if they wanted to get to Vermont in time to finish out the day, but he didn't want to let her go. She felt so good. She was warm, though still dripping wet and naked. She felt...honest. He just hoped that's what he was being with her...and with himself.
"Ross..." she moaned, feeling his hands kneading into her flesh. He bit down on her neck, unable to stop himself. Sometimes he felt like making love to her was the only way he could really let her know wholeheartedly and with 100 conviction how much he needed her and loved her. When he tried to tell her, he usually just messed things up...like now.
"I know," he whispered, licking and nipping at her jaw line. "Just 5 minutes...I'll be quick," he promised.
She groaned when he walked her backwards and her back hit the glass shower door, and again, this time a little more softly and sensually, when he moved one hand up to cup her breast. Their soft moans and sighs intermingled in the steamy, stagnant air between them and reverberated off the echoing walls of the bathroom. In the backs of their respective minds, they hoped to God that Emma was upstairs in her room.
"God, Ross, please," she begged, tangling her hands in his hair when he bent his head to kiss her neck and chest. He picked her up by her ass and she wrapped her legs around his waist. With little care and what was actually approaching the opposite of tenderness, he thrust himself inside her, causing her to bite down on her lip and throw her head back.
They both knew this was irresponsible and a bit insane-- that there wasn't enough time. It probably wasn't even for the right reasons. The way they felt about each other was too deep-- too needy and almost sick, sometimes, in its magnitude-- that there would never be enough time to harness it and express it neatly and logically. That's why moments like these were sometimes necessary. If they couldn't operate on reason and rationale, they do it based on deprived passion. They were both scared of these new feelings and this new situation-- so desperate to put it behind them-- and they didn't especially care how right. They'd talk later. They'd always have that-- the words and the analysis and the dissection. Right now, they had this. And this was enough.
"Open your eyes," he pleaded. She'd been biting her lip and moaning and stifling yelps for at least a minute, now, and he knew that always meant she was close to the end. "I want to see you when you come."
This was the most essential component of make-up/needy sex, especially with them. When words wouldn't suffice, looking into each others eyes when they brought one another to climax was the closest either of them had ever come to truly understanding what they meant to each other. When words weren't adequate, they had each others' eyes.
"Gahhhh," he moaned, spilling indecipherable mumblings from the back of his throat as he spilled himself inside of her, all the while looking directly into the blinding sapphire of her eyes.
She combed her fingers through his hair and cupped his cheek and cooed "shhh" while they both regained their composure. Then she kissed his forehead and lowered herself from his hold, her back sliding down the cool glass and her feet hitting the slippery tile floor.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, shaking his head in embarrassment. He knew-- as did she-- that what they'd just done hadn't been entirely right. He'd all but forced it on her, and that's what he was really sorry for.
"Don't," she commanded, taking his cheek in her palm and bringing his eyes to lock with hers. Her face was stern and she shook her head. "Don't be."
He nodded and forced a smile, grabbing her hand a giving it a squeeze. He watched her gather up her clothes and exit the bathroom, waltzing out into the cool air of their bedroom and dropping them on the bed as she toweled off. Her back was to him, which seemed appropriate.
What they'd just done had not been derived from any ill intentions. It had been rash and reeked of reckless abandon, but it had come from love. Always. Still, he couldn't shake the feeling of uneasiness. He watched her dress herself as he stood there alone in the bathroom, still wet and sweaty and smelling like their sex and he felt naked in more ways than one. There was still a barrier between them; an almost tangible one.
Love was not the question. It never had been, and the act had only sealed that fact, but there was still something hard and unforgiving between them and it plagued them both.
They got dressed and packed the car with their luggage and their daughter, heading off towards a badly needed retreat from their lives with nothing both coffee on their breaths and a heavy aching in their hearts. They didn't speak until they hit the state line.
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End Chapter 5. Continued in Chapter 6.