Disclaimer: I don't own House, MD, but it owns my waking moments---sigh!

"If each one of us could make just one other happy, the whole world would know happiness." George Simenon

Dr. Allison Cameron was a little worried. Fifteen minutes had passed and House had yet to make an appearance at the conference room of the Department of Diagnostics. Not that Dr. Gregory House was always prompt—when a differential diagnosis was needed, everybody must be present to lob ideas at each other for House to either shoot down or spare and consider.

Unfortunately, Dr. Gregory House was also displaying Evil Knievel tendencies—"He's already got the motorcycle," Chase drawled after making that observation. "All he needs are fifteen buses and ten hoops of acid to pull it off."

Since Stacy Warner packed up her things and her husband back to Short Hills, House was more reckless than usual. Just recently—YESTERDAY, actually—Cameron, Robert Chase, and Eric Foreman all wondered if their boss had some kind of death wish when he injected himself with his rival's untested "miracle" migraine cure and nitroglycerine to "prove a point". Well he proved it—and paid a toll with skull-splitting pain known to the medical practice as a migraine.

Cameron sighed and checked her watch.

Twenty minutes.

She stood up and left the conference room to look for him.

-

If House's present movements were something to go by, Cameron was sure he hadn't gone too far. Sure enough, one of the nurses pointed out that House had made a detour to one of the shower rooms ten minutes ago.

Cameron winced in sympathy after the nurse turned around and resumed her duties. "He's probably trying to drown his migraine out with a cold shower," she thought to herself. "I'll wait for him to get out."

She did an eighth of an about-face when she paused, a saucy grin giving her an impish look.

House was trying to drown his migraine out with a cold shower—hmm…

She's a healthy, curious, heterosexual woman, after all. House was in pain, but that doesn't mean he's going to turn on the shower knob fully clothed, and Cameron often wondered, since she became more aware of him as someone other than her boss, what those vintage t-shirts and wrinkled blue jeans were hiding. She wondered about the contours and finer details of the lean and hard body she was made to embrace for support before speeding off to a patient's apartment on his motorcycle.

"Well, I was looking for him," Cameron mused. Let him wonder if she'd asked around for his whereabouts before entering the shower room. Let his brilliant, migraine-filled mind assume that she just walked in without knocking.

Let him assume that innocent, naïve Allison Cameron won't do anything but the usual.

So she speed-walked for the shower room, slowing down when she's a few feet away, softening the click of her heels when she heard the sound of running water coming from a shower spout.

Excellent timing, Allison, Cameron thought to herself. If she could, she'd have patted herself on the back for taking such a risk. The other risk she took—well, that's not something worth remembering at this moment, pushing it back as a killjoy memory. Looking around to see that she's not being watched, Cameron walked stealthily to the entrance of the shower room.

Cameron took a deep breath and opened the door a crack. There was no steam, as per the cliché movie shower scenes. Summoning up the courage—plus the fact that someone might catch her in the act and spread the rumor of a "Cameron peeping tabby"—she carefully opened the door wide and rushed inside. The moment she was on the other side of the door, she made a swift move to close it as quietly as possible.

The door clicked softly as it closed, yet she reacted to the sound as though it was a crack from a gun. Cameron's heart pumped a bit stronger than usual—the "jump" many a lay person would've described that particular feeling in their chest during moments of intense pressure/excitement. House's present state of health had him almost hypersensitive to sound, yet Cameron didn't hear any bellow or hiss of pain from that quarter.

Oh, now what, you dummy!

Cameron changed her mind and made a beeline for the door before she got caught. Just as she was reaching out for the handle of the door, she heard a moan from one of the shower stalls.

She froze in a sudden state of panic for a split second before some sense of self-preservation returned and made her body flatten its back to the wall separating her from the shower stall and House. She turned her head to the right, her eyes rounder and wider than usual, and her heart pumping blood so fast, her ears were throbbing with the rhythm and loudness of it.

The sound of rushing water stopped, accompanied by the faint squeak of a shower spout being turned and what sounded like a throaty sigh from the person turning it. Cameron closed her eyes for him—and for getting stirred up with the sound.

She heard the soft sound of cloth getting pulled across some surface, some heavy breathing from the person who pulled it, and a click of the shower stall door opening. The erratic pattering of bare, wet feet across bathroom tiles, which stopped for a while—as did Cameron's breathing and maybe her heart—before the pattering continued until it changed to a soft thud and the creak of wood.

Cameron began breathing and her heart resumed beating just as House began to growl. Her eyes flared wide open—how much was he in pain?

Throwing caution to the wind, Cameron leaned forward from the wall and moved to its edge, poking half her head out to see…a lot of tanned skin.

Her cobalt blue eyes widened and her heart stopped beating again for a millisecond before it started pumping like crazy. She felt high, yet she knew she'd disposed of Kyle's party drugs the morning after that one-night, LSD-induced stand with Chase. It was the natural kind of high influenced by hormones gone wild when mixed with the adrenalin produced during her excitement at doing something with abandon.

The kind of high made and felt when you see the man you admire and adore under the layers of rumpled clothing and made to imagine how the both of you would perform that timeless dance of physical intimacy.

For a man in his mid-forties, Dr. Gregory House was quite fit and muscular. Cameron recalled the day she sat behind him on his motorcycle…

She sat stiffly behind him, not knowing if she could brave putting her arms around him or if he'd be that much of a bastard to just rev up his bike and get a move on without making sure she's not going to fly out and kiss the pavement hard before he grabbed both her hands and wrapped her arms around his lean waist. Cameron was too surprised to do anything else—the suddenness of it all—and she smiled in delight at realizing whose waist she was holding on to.

During the ride to the patient's apartment, Cameron dared to lean forward and press the front of her body against his back. She closed her eyes and blocked out the roar of the motorcycle engine, imagining that she could hear his heartbeat through her helmet, savoring the feel of his back through his brown leather jacket on her breasts. She splayed her right hand—the hand actually touching him and not the hand grasping the opposite arm for security—on his stomach, pretending that she could feel him and actually touching him through his leather jacket and her thick gloves.

Her hand moved involuntarily. Was it her or was it House reacting to—something?

Cameron remembered that the ride was too short—and the wonderful moment of close physical contact with a man she was strongly attracted to dissolved into frustration when House was shooting down her theory that the patient had Munchausen's.

The moment of reflection was brief, and Cameron shook it off before resuming her inspection.

The most she could see at the moment was his back—House was leaning forward with his head in his hands—but it was a pretty darn good view. The skin was tanned; it wasn't too rippled with muscle nor was it too soft-looking. After previous experience leaning on it clothed, Cameron had no doubt that it was also long and wide.

Her eyes trailed southward to his arms and chest. The arms were long and muscular, the kind that could either provide some considerable damage or provide some warmth and security in an embrace. Part of his chest was visible—despite the risk of getting caught and made fun of, Cameron futilely willed him to straighten up and provide some more visual—she could see one of his pectorals, the nipple puckered in response to the cold shower, the skin surrounding it covered slightly in dark hairs. Going lower, she noticed how the white towel gave more definition to his leg—realizing it was the bad one, she tried but could not make out any scar. The lower legs she could see were bare, the calves nicely defined and strong.

Her curiosity appeased, Cameron quietly turned around and reached for the door, feeling a need for a shower and a new "personal item" before heading back to the conference room.

"Mmmmm…"

Cameron had just opened the door a quarter of the way when that reached her ears.

What the…? Migraines don't do that!

She recalled her duty as a doctor—to help the sick—and spun around again to face House head-on, but not before she closed the door.

-

House was leaning forward, his head cocked to one side, knees spread wide. He was focused on something on the floor, a look of languorous fascination etched onto his face.

Cameron was shocked, most of her arousal after her secret visual inspection forgotten for the moment. What the hell?

"House, you ok? We've been waiting for you."

House looked up at that. Cameron saw that his intense blue eyes were wide—and looked strangely glassy.

"I'm—hallucinating," he said simply.

Cameron's jaw dropped, then closed shut before depositing her stuff down another bench. She hurriedly approached her boss and checked his pupils. Further badgering with House revealed—although not completely—that the man she was ogling from a distance was quite high.

"You took something—the kid's fighting for his life!" Cameron railed in outrage.

House didn't react to that. He just stared at something in the distance, to Cameron's left.

"Jerk!" Cameron hissed. She rolled her eyes, missing the look of a hungry blue-eyed predator made by the man in front of her.

She was about to storm off, just turned to do so, when a large hand suddenly shot out from the junkie of the moment in front of her. Cameron yelped out in surprise, was about to shriek to high heavens when he yanked her downwards between his legs in a half-kneeling position, and nearly died from the assault of senses when he forced her head upwards and kissed her harshly on the mouth. The shock from the speed he employed in grabbing her arm kept her mouth wide open, and he used this opportunity to invade her with his tongue, tasting, sucking, and entwining his with hers.

Cameron tried to fight him off, at first—they were supposed to have a meeting with the others to discuss the case!—but it was a battle she engaged in willingly, eventually. She gave as good as he did, and as she was caught up in the moment, she ran her hands up his wide, furry, and strong chest to wrap them behind his neck. She moaned in her throat when one of his hands moved to cup her left breast and fondle it lovingly. She groaned when the other hand moved to her back and held her closer to him, letting her have a feel of another hardness in his nether regions.

He nearly spoiled it when he broke off their kiss to say, "This is some kind of hallucination…I'm trying to fuck with Cameron, and its damn good!"

He still thinks this is a hallucination? Cameron thought dazedly. Hurt and anger coming to interfere with passion, she nearly cut the tryst short, but was stopped when he added, "God, its better than imagining me doing her!"

He's having wet dreams—about me?

She wasn't able to dwell on this for long—House leaned in for another soul-sucking kiss. Experienced fingers moved through her hair, undoing her little braid, massaging the back of her head in light strokes.

Somewhere at the back of her head, somehow managing to think, Cameron realized that if House thinks this isn't real—then she should take the chance and go along for the ride to getting laid with her boss and not letting him realize it really happened.

Emboldened with this knowledge and with passion, she reached under the towel, letting her hand glide up his leg to his inner thigh, lightly, teasingly. House groaned low in his throat and deepened the kiss, his hands moving to fondle her under her red blouse. He hoisted her up a bit, seating her up on his good leg, and moved a large hand up and then under her bra, stimulating the nipple underneath.

Cameron gasped, "House!"

She could feel his smile on her lips as he deepened the kiss. She was almost derailed from her own groping, but she managed to continue by trailing a palm down his abdomen, freeing the towel a bit, and sending her hand in to grasp his swollen shaft.

House growled low in his throat. Once again, Cameron had another urge to scream as strong hands grabbed her waist and hoisted her up, breaking the lip to lip contact. The most she did was gasp as House yanked her blouse up, exposing her midriff. He wrapped his arms around her and buried his face into her middle, inhaling, breathing in the scent of her skin, rubbing one side of his face against her. Behind her, Cameron felt his hands—long, tapered fingers with slightly long fingernails, callused palms—caressing her back and squeezing her bare ass. Somehow, House managed to undo her jeans in order to grope her in return. Cameron used this opportunity to run her hands down his back, marveling at the texture of his skin (even though the skin was damp from the shower—House didn't think to dry himself with the towel when he got out of the shower), the breadth of him hidden from her under layers of vintage rock 'n roll t-shirts and wrinkled dress shirts. She appreciated how right she was about his arms—wrapped around her waist and covering her back, she felt so secure and in the right place.

But she couldn't do this—not when his passion was fueled from a synthetic source. It happened between her and Chase, when she was the druggie and he just "happened" upon her during her state of high. The day after that, they couldn't look each other in the eye, much less talk to each other without being reminded of what transpired between them, what it really meant. Cameron was only grateful that Chase didn't go blabbing about it to everyone he met, and an agreement of mutual silence on that incident formed between them up to that moment. Chase had the decency to keep his mouth shut—but what about the unpredictable Gregory House?

She won't take that chance—though the offer was hard to resist.

So it was with regret—as passion raged against common sense and the need to retain her dignity—that she pulled back. She met some resistance when he tightened his grip on her waist and nipped her abdomen, making her yelp in surprise—he used his teeth on her!

"Leaving so soon, Dr. Cameron?" House asked hoarsely against her middle before licking the spot he nipped.

Cameron's eyes opened wide. Time stopped, yet she was able to look down somehow—and managed not to die right then and there as she looked into House's eyes. They lost the slightly glazed look of a man high on drugs, but the intensity of the stare, the slight hooding of those fantastic blue eyes, the continued sensation of long, tapered, callused fingers rubbing her back and her behind.

"I—I thought you were still—," she began.

He didn't let her finish that sentence, just pulled her down for another spine-tingling kiss to finish what they've started.

FIN

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