Chapter 6 - Navel
...
"Hey"
House welcomed Cuddy with a light smile as soon as she appeared on his hospital door. Technically she didn't see that smile on his lips since his face was partially hidden by the magazine he was reading, but she saw it mirrored in his eyes. It was something weird for House, both being somehow "happy" and being "so happy to see her". But it was probably because she was his last certainty, the only steady-point in his past and present life.
"You should be resting" She said in a serious tone, taking the New England Journal of Medicine from House's hands with a scolding look, looking at the paper he was reading, then closing it and putting it on the bedside table.
"It's not a porn magazine, mom," He replied following her moves with his eyes and just resting his head better on the pillow as she turned to look at him again, with a half reprimanding-half amused gaze "Even if there's probably an erect penis on page 20, I heard there's a review on Viagra," he added giving her a mischievous look that let her foreseeing that a joke or something similar was going to come, "You know, FDA approved it for pulmonary hypertension but I'm still more interested in its so-called secondary effect"
Cuddy let a chuckle at first, shaking her head lightly, then she suddenly stopped and her smile faded as she moved closer to him.
"You heard?" She asked unable to hide the concern in her own voice "Haven't you read it yet?"
House just looked back at her with a questioning gaze.
"I would have read it if you hadn't snatched the magazine from my hand, you evil cunning woman"
She stared at him, swallowed, dampened her lips and inhaled deeply before speaking. If it weren't for the bright light in her eyes he would have been frankly worried.
"Viagra's been approved in late '90s," she said "and FDA approved it for pulmonary hypertension just a few years ago. If you haven't read it just now, this... this is a memory, House. It's... it's great!"
He just stared at her with a serious look despite the way in which her eyes lightly moistened and relieve softened her features.
"Great?" He said definitely with no enthusiasm in his voice, giving her an half glare "My only recent memory is about an impotence drug! Do you really think it's great ?"
The look in his eyes turned off the happiness from hers and she opened her lips to reply, but he was quicker.
"Maybe Viagra is so necessary in my routine that it's indelibly carved in my mind, Lisa".
"No need to freak out" she said in a calm tone.
"I'm not freaking out. It's a statement of fact. I'm a cripple. Addicted to Vicodin. A chronic high dose of opioids can lead to erectile dysfunction," He met her astonished gaze, "Pharmacology. Third year subject," he pointed out before she can reply.
She swallowed and looked down just for a second than locking eyes with him again.
"I definitely don't think so," she said in a low and firm tone.
"How do you know, Dr. Cuddy?" House replied, as this time a glimpse of light passed in the blue of his eyes. The mischievous and smutty look he gave her soothed the air between them, sign that he didn't want to keep going on that route and he was definitely instead more curious about the way that conversation was taking.
Cuddy's lips parted but she couldn't answer and just let out a chuckle, shaking her head. She obviously had her clues and just dampened her lips again then biting the central point of her lower lip in an attempt not to smile wider. Fruitlessly. And the bare memory of the bulge she was able to cause in his jeans every time they argued in her office was her answer to his question. That vibration in the air between them and that sort of electricity moving through their bodies left her sometimes with the need to finish herself and, undoubtedly, to him to jerk off.
She blushed.
And he noted it.
"Well, maybe when I have fewer opioids pumped in my veins I'll know if you're right, Lisa" he said, lightly lifting the arm still connected to the drip in order to stress his own words and then closing his eyes for a second before opening them again to look at the ceiling and finally at her again.
She stared at him with a thoughtful gaze, then gave a look at his folder and checked the label on the phleboclysis.
"It's two days you're not on morphine anymore," she said "it's just 2% hypertonic saline. Recent studies have shown that it's a more effective osmotic agent than mannitol for controlling the increase in intracranial pressure," she added, more for delaying the silence she could foresee was going to come than to really giving him a medical lecture.
He just looked at her, fixing his blue eyes in the grey-blue of hers and then nodding.
"Well, that's definitely something wrong then," he replied emphasizing his own words "since I can't feel my leg"
Cuddy gave him an half worried half embarrassed look, and opened and closed her lips twice before words could exit.
"Er... I'm sure you don't have to worry about it now, er... it's surely a temporary dysfunction and..."
She stopped at House's amazed look and at the way in which one of the corner of his mouth curled up. And her eyebrows lifted in a questioning way.
"For once I didn't mean that leg" he said in a teasing tone "I literally meant it. My leg doesn't hurt"
On the last word he moved the sheets uncovering his naked legs and his hand touched the scar on his thigh.
-/-
"The lumbar MRI is clean" Foreman said looking at House and then at Cuddy, who had just entered the room "and there's no change in the brain MRI"
"That translated means 'I have no fucking idea what's wrong with you'," House replied as Foreman rolled his eyes, then uncovering House's right leg without a warning to examine it.
"Hey, hey, be careful, bro," House scowled him, grabbing his hospital gown to prevent the doctor from uncovering his groin too "Little Greg here is not ready to meet the lady yet" He added with a smirk meeting Cuddy's look as she rolled her eyes at him instead.
"There's no motor damage, House. No paresthesia. Reflexes are ok," Foreman continued ignoring him.
"It can be a minor damage in the neurons in the primary motor cortex," House said, locking eyes with Foreman "The same damage which cause my amnesia anyway"
Foreman replied just with a "maybe" then repeating again that without both motor and sensitive damage there was nothing to worry about.
"For once, just enjoy the lack of pain" He just said with his serious and unexpressive face, then exiting the room.
House's look stared at his back till he disappeared beyond the door, then looked at Cuddy, who had approached instead his bed.
"You sure he's your best neurologist, right?"
She just replied with a smile putting a hand on his knee, more in a reassuring way than in a sensual one.
"Maybe it's not a central injury," Cuddy said looking at her own hand on House's knee "You had a polytrauma. It can be an injury of a sensory branch of the femoral nerve,"
House moved his own hand on his thigh and a little under his hospital gown, stopping on his femoral triangle, just an inch from his groin, and his fingers touched the anatomical region of the upper third of the thigh and the triangular depression below the inguinal ligament. Skin, superficial fascia, and deep fascia.
The gown moved just enough to let her see the purple and violet hematoma on his hip and upper part of his leg. Maybe his thigh didn't hurt for chronic pain but surely his full body ached like hell at every move. Cuddy looked at House's fingers as he touched his own skin, pressing lightly on it at first and then deeper looking for something compressing the nerves or the vessels below it.
"Wait," she said softly as his fingers stopped their medical examination. House looked at her as she took the ultrasound machine from the corner of the room, then approaching the bed again.
"You still forget I'm a doctor, don't you?" She ironically said with a smile as he smirked.
He watched the ceiling, shivering as soon as the cold gel touched the skin of his upper thigh and groin, then looking at the white and black images on the screen.
Blue and red spots fluttered on the screen as she checked the blood flow in the superficial branches of the femoral artery with accompanying veins, and the upper part of the great saphenous vein. There were no sign of compression of the nerves, from the femoral branch of the genitofemoral nerve to the branches of the ileoinguinal nerve.
She moved the probe toward his groin to examine the superficial inguinal lymph nodes and he looked away, swallowing harder than he would as he realized she was following a specific order in her examination.
After twenty years she probably wasn't aware of it anymore. Her cerebellum controlled her moves now, and she didn't need to think about every single step anymore.
Nerve. Arthery. VEin. Limph. The Femoral triangle contents from lateral to medial. Another mnemonics.
He closed, then opened his eyes again trying to prevent the incipient memory forming in his mind. He would probably have succeeded if he hadn't met Cuddy's gaze.
Nerve. Arthery. Vein. Limph. 'NAVEL'.
Cuddy stared at him for a few seconds, then bending her neck by side, looking away and swallowing before meeting his eyes again. And House could bet she was trying to erase the same memory from her mind.
-/-
# "You smell so good," he whispers on her skin as his lips linger on her belly, on the spot between her navel and her pubic bone. Citrus and coconut. He stops there for a few seconds then stopping the descent of his mouth and coming back up to her navel. He teases it with the tip of his tongue and she arches her back in pleasure and moans.
His hands grasp her flanks and he looks up at her as the blue of their eyes meet.
"There's another mnemonics we can't miss" He says on her skin, kissing her navel again and then tracing a line of light kisses from there to her pubic hair.
He stops on the last inch of skin, and she stops breathing, just releasing air as soon as he moves his mouth toward her right leg instead of her sex. He smirks on her skin but doesn't look up at her again and his palm finds her knee pressing it down and stretching her leg apart. He kisses the skin over her inguinal ligament and moved down on the outer part of her thigh. His mouth stops on her femoral triangle and savoured her skin again, moving from the lateral to the medial part of that anatomical region. He can feels her femoral artery quick pulse under his lips and he can't avoid smirking again.
"Navel" he says "Nerve, Artery, VEin, Lymph" #
-/-
"There's no sign of nerve compression, House," Cuddy said in her best try to keep herself professional. She swallowed and run her tongue on her lips, bending her head by side almost imperceptibly in an attempt of ignoring the incipient flash on her cheeks. She cleared her throat lightly "no artery obstruction, normal venous return, no lymphadenopathy"
House suddenly covered himself more with the hospital gown, clearing his throat and avoiding her gaze, looking at the ceiling instead.
-/-
# "Navel" he says "Nerve, Artery, VEin, Lymph"
His mouth sucks on her skin. One hand on her hip, preventing her from moving and the other hand on her abdomen. His thumb lightly teasing her navel in a way that sends a shiver right down to her lady parts, which throbs in anticipation.
His mouth doesn't move but his hand does, slowly moving down from her navel to her lower abdomen. His fingers linger on her opposite inguinal ligament and even down this time as her hand moves in his hair at the same time. It's the approval he needs and he doesn't need to be told twice. His fingers move through her slickness, finding her even wetter than he expects and he grunts his approval against her skin. One finger finds his way inside her, then a second one and she arches her back in pleasure. He knows it would be enough to bring her to orgasm that way since he can already feel the incipient throbbing of her walls around his fingers. But he can't resist the temptation to savour her. His mouth moves on her most sensitive spot and his lips just touch her lightly. At first. Then his tongue finds her and as soon as he sucks on her he knows she's already caught in the vortex of sensations that leads her to the edge" #
-/-
Cuddy looked up at House this time while he continued to avoid her gaze instead. His eyes still on a fixed point on the ceiling till he closed his eyes whispering a clearly embarrassed 'I apologize, I didn't mean to...'
She didn't need to ask out loud for an explanation to his sudden weird behaviour. The bulge on his groin was clear enough and it looked like the more he tried to think about something else, the more his erection tried to have his (or her) attention.
"I really apologize," He said again, opening his eyes but not meeting hers, ignoring the reassuring smile she gave him this time. How could he explain to her that his mind had gone back again to their night together and he wasn't thinking instead about her giving him a blowjob or a hand job, right now, in her white coat.
"Don't," she replied "At least it looks like you had an answer to one of your questions"
She chuckled and he gave her a dirty look that turned in a smirk just a few seconds later as he couldn't resist her genuine smile.
She gave him another smile, not the same reassuring smile of a few moments earlier, but a lightly mischievous one this time. He met her teasing eyes and a shiver hardened his cock even more at the realization she knew exactly what had come to his mind a few moment earlier, awakening his impulses.
He smirked.
Yeah, he had at least a couple of certainties right now. First, he didn't need a treatment for erectile dysfunction yet. And second... it didn't mind it had been twenty years ago, the memory of their night together was still clear in her mind too and... it could still affect her.
"Haven't you some useless administrative stuff to care about right now?" He playfully mocked in a clear attempt to change the subject and having an exit from an embarrassing situation.
She gave him a piercing look, holding her eyes from glancing at House's groin. She run her tongue on her lips as a little smile played on her face.
A week earlier she would have asked him if he needed a couple of minutes alone with his hand. And he would have probably replied with some sort of innuendo about how he could finish her with that same hand in less than a couple of minutes. It was impossible to have the last word with House, not on that subject. Cuddy swallowed at that thought. Right now it was a dangerous path and she definitely didn't want walking on it.
She nodded and glanced at her watch.
"Just rest" she said softly
"Am I allowed at least to have a sex dream with a charming Dean of Medicine?" He asked with a smut and piercing look.
"If you're referring to Dean Andrews I'm definitely asking for another MRI" She replied with a teasing smirk.
"I'm not sure he had your ass-...er...as-tonishing body" he joked as she rolled her eyes to his pun.
"Oh..." she smiled and lifted both her eyebrows "thank you for the use of past tense anyway" she said smiling.
"Andrews's 'astonishing' body is probably six feet under now. Yours on the other side..." he gave her a smut look "I volunteers to check on it"
Cuddy smiled lightly and bit the inner part of her lower lip.
She really needed to go and yet she was like glued to the floor of that room. House's comments had always been sharp and sexist and often embarrassing. She was used to those and she had learned how not being affected by them. How not being affected by him. Now... now it was like being courted... pursued in a romantic and at the same time intriguing and sensual way. She kept repeating herself that it was because of the head trauma, or maybe because of the lack of chronic pain to his injured leg. But in both cases she wasn't sure she could be indifferent to this... to this version of him.
She swallowed and gave him another light smile before leaving the room.
...
...
Thank you for reading. Let me know if you like this 'new' (or old) House. Thank you again.
