Coming Home

Alexis felt as though her entire body had turned to stone. Her heart and mind refused to accept what she had just heard, but she felt as though she could not speak or move. She was entombed in stone. Or ice. Bone chilling, soul numbing ice that sheathed her heart and had her go mercifully numb.

She never noticed when Sonny had begun to move. But she sensed him as he moved toward her, then past her. Alexis could not even summon up strength enough to follow him with her eyes. His voice came to her from what seemed a very far distance and it was a few minutes before her mind actually registered what it was he was saying.

He wasn't speaking to her, but into the phone. "....That's right, plans have changed. I - don't ask me." he was saying. "Just - they have their money. I don't want to hear from these people."

Sonny came to stand before her. His head dipped before he looked at her. "Aren't you going to thank me?"

Alexis thawed slowly out of her deep freeze, her voice unbeliving." Thank you?" Despite the relief pouring through her that turned her muscles to little more than water and threatened to weaken her knees, she managed to stand upright and face Sonny head on. "Ahem, you should be on my hands and knees thanking me because not only did I save you from first-degree murder, I risked my career, my principles and everything I value for you."

"Why?" His eyes burned with a strange intensity.

"I don't know."

"I think you do." Sonny's words held an unspoken challenge.

A challenge Alexis had no answer for. If he didn't know - if her words and actions tonight hadn't told him everything that she couldn't put into words...

Sonny was talking again, his eyes never leaving her face. It was almost as though he were seeing her for the first time. Or maybe he was willing her to see him for the first time, in a brand new way...
"You know what you are to me now? Someone who matters, someone I need too much to push away. What am I to you? I mean, what are we to each other?"

"You're like a dance, Alexis, and I'm not talking about drunk on rum in Puerto Rico." The memories that his words evoked in Alexis sent a rush of feeling through her, of a longing for that long-ago magical night that she couldn't deny. "You -- you -- you like to dance around me, and that's fine because I -- I like to dance with you, too. But not tonight. You forced me to choose, and I -- I chose you. I wonder, if the positions were reversed, would you choose me?"

Alexis could only stare at Sonny wordlessly. As many times as she might have fantasized about their friendship moving to some new level, never in her wildest imaginations, had it come about in such a way.

"You're a great lawyer and a great friend." Sonny said to her. "We can keep it that way, or we can keep dancing indefinitely. All you gotta do is walk out."

Involuntarily, Alexis glanced at the door, knowing in the same moment that it was no option - and never had been, not even for the merest split-second. Her eyes turned from the door to meet Sonny's. There was no guile in them, the chasm between them had closed in the space of a single heartbeat - hers and his. His words had done that. HIs actions had done that - everything that he was, the need to protct him, the need to be what the world saw him as - he had laid all of that aside. For her.

And now the honesty and yes, the vulnerability in his gaze staggered her beyond words. The wild swing of emotions that had swept through her in the last little while had rendered her of nothing but the barest of emotions. Yes, they'd been in a dance, with first one then the other advancing, then retreating, circling each other but never more than that, until tonight. But the dance was over. The time was now.

She saw it in Sonny's eyes, not realizing that it was just as plainly reflected in her own. But she watched, fascinated, as Sonny moved towards her slowly. And then like it was the most natural thing in the world, they moved into one another's embrace.

As he felt Alexis' arms come up to embrace him, Sonny breathed a silent heartfelt prayer of thanks. Everything in him untangled and he felt at rest for the first time in a very very long time. Sonny felt himself let go of all doubts and fears, just like he let go of his need for revenge and rage - all in the same breath, it seemed - it had disappeared when faced with the choice of that or watching Alexis wlk out of his life forever, as he gave into the desire, the want and need that had been haunting him for months. All the his demons in his soul were at last laid to rest.

As he sank into Alexis' embrace, Sonny came home.

After a space of mindless eternity, they drew back briefly from one another. Then it was their mouths, touching tentatively at first, then in a deepening hunger, clinging together as their bodies pressed together in a moment of undeniable need. Time ceased to exist once again and never before had Sonny felt this sense of mutual want and desire. The sense of equlaity, of fulfillment had never been present before at this moment for him. Ever.

One hand rose of its own accord to cup Alexis' face, tilting her face to bring her lips into deeper communion with his own. Sonny's own senses thrilled as he felt her repsonse to his need for her; her long slender fingers came up to slide sensuously against his neck where his skin was bared above his shirt collar as a sigh of desire escaped her lips.. Sonny trembled at the simple touch and felt an answering chord ripple through Alexis' body

Then somehow, without either one of them quite knowing how they got there, they were upstairs in his bedroom, still without having spoken a word. But that didn't matter; each kiss and caress they shared spoke more eloquently than words could ever do.

Sonny found himself lost to conscious thought, he was nothing but pure feeling as his lips trailed a path down the long smooth column of Alexis' throat- a sharp thrill of pleasure shot through him as he felt her body shudder as his mouth found the soft spot at the base of her throat. She murmured incoherently in pleasure just before his lips found hers once more. She pulled back slightly to gaze into his eyes. At long last, he saw everything she must have been feeling for him all this time, and it awed him, the depth of feeling he found in the twin deep dark brown depths of her eyes.

He broke the kiss, moving slowly and purposefully to the edge of the bed. He sat, turning to see that Alexis hadn't moved. He held out his hand to her, an unspoken plea in his eyes. Alexis moved towards him slowly, almost hesitantly.

Didn't she know there was nothing to be afraid of anymore for either of them, no fear, no doubts, no barriers, that this was the beginning of no more dancing between them ever again? Didn't she know that he realized what she had done for him tonight, that he didn't recognize the sacrifice that she had been willing to make - all for him? Or what Aleixs had done to him, for him - what nobody had been able to do in quite the same way - brought him back from the edge of darkness and into the light?

Alexis came to sit beside him. He could feel the slight tremble that went through her, and sensed her hesitation. He slipped a comforting arm across her shoulders.

"This is just a llittle...." she began. Alexis' sudden shyness endeared her even more to Sonny, if that were possible.

"It's right, it's right..." he hastened to reassure her.

Alexis looked at him. "It's sudden...."

"Hey, hey," he whispered. "....Not for me." His words seemed to dissolve the last of her fears. Sonny swept her into his arms and another embrace entwined with a lingering kiss that left them both breathless and wanting more.

Alexis drew away from him, to the edge of the bed. Sonny didn't move. Whatever she wanted, whatever she needed, Sonny was content to let her decide. Even still, he ached for her with everything that was in him. please... he breathed a silent prayer to himself let me be the man she needs.... If this was too soon for her, then he would wait, Sonny would not let his own selfish desires move him tonight; he was determined to be whatever it was she needed him to be. Sonny watched as Alexis shifted until she was balanced on her knees a short ditance away from him. Then very slowly, very deliberately, Alexis unbuttoned her jacket, revealing the dark satin camisole slip beneath. Her eyes never left his as she showed him what her choice was.

Alexis had chosen him.

She leaned back towards him, into him, with body, mind and soul, and then together, Sonny and Alexis sank backwards into the softness of the bed beneath them, allowing themselves to be led into the dance that was as old as mankind.
Then there was no more thoughts, nothing but feelings revealed and shared as hands and then lips uncovered and caressed the hard enticement of chisled masculine curves and sweet soft hollows of flesh. His hands reveled in the smooth feel of her skin beneath his fingertips, even as she joyously surrendered to the insistance of his body covering hers.

The power and intensity of his feelings as their bodies fused into one almost scared him. Almost, but not quite. As one, they gasped at this most intimate of contacts. Gazing down at her, in her eyes, Sonny found a peace and sureness that had never come to him before at this moment. Too often, with the first intimacy with a woman, there was a sense of ownership and pride, of conquest complete. But not now. Now Alexis' true beauty shone up out him through her eyes. Now there was a sense of joining and completeness - of rightness - that he had never expereienced before.

It humbled him.

Sonny brought her hand to his lips, caressing the palm with his lips briefly, then pressing it to his heart in an unspoken declaration of tenderness and caring. He watched as Alexis' eyes filled with tears at the heartfelt gesture.

And then he was kissing them away. His mouth traveled across her heated flesh, tasting the sweetness of her. Their mutual sounds of pleasure were a benediction, a chant of desire, a prayer… Senses became lost to one another, all sense of self surrenderng to the ever-expanding white hot core of pasion that drew them into one being as they reached for the ultimate pinnacle of pleasure… they lingered willingly at the brink of desire fulfilled until it became almost unbearable. Together Sonny and Aleixis reached the plateau where neither of them could tell where one ended and the other began.

From the depths of their passion they soared into the blinding white-hot of the sun, into the place where two souls became as one; they were hurtling together over the peak, to tumble down at last into one another's arms.