Rating: MA, NSFW
Spoilers: Blind Spot, Siren Call
Trigger/content warnings: descriptions of abduction, references to torture, physical pain, dead bodies, PTSD symptoms, angst, fear, weapons, being held at gun point, suicidal completion, oral sex (fem receiving), fingers in v, p in v sex, internal orgasm
A/N: Before Law & Order: Organized Crime debuted, my second-greatest L&O love was Law & Order: Criminal Intent. My second-greatest (hetero) OTP love of L&O is *still* Goren+Eames/Goreames. I have been on a long, leisurely binge of L&O:CI for a few weeks now, and I am swimming in my Goreames feels. 💓 I never had the time to write any LOCI fics when the show was still airing. So, here I am 11 years later, working out some Ship emotions. I might or might not be the only LOCI fan … or Goreames fan still alive and kicking. But if not, I hope whoever reads this enjoys it. 😊 There is more of my Goreames phase to go through yet. - M
Forever & No Time at All
It can be scary, you know, when someone goes away. Especially someone that you love so much. - Robert Goren, "Blind Spot"
Bobby wasn't sure when it had happened. Like a habit you're unaware of until someone else points it out, it had simply become alongthe way. Stealthily, without words of acknowledgement, it had rooted and grown up, hardy and alive between them, despite being ignored.
Until it had been threatened, nearly taking him out at the knees.
If looking for an excuse, you could take your pick - he wanted to respect her dead husband, he was married to his job, people were afraid of him, he'd make a shit husband …
But she wasn't.
Afraid of him, that was - not Eames. She'd called him an acquired taste. Despite his towering over her, his darkness, his Schizophrenia, his mother, Alex had stayed. She trusted him.
He had opened his cell to text her that he would try to put Ross off a little longer, if she wanted some more time.
The icy cold grip that had clutched his beating heart when he'd read the text telling him Eames had been taken, was without words. Everything he knew, every scrap of education or training or natural skill, it had all flown to fucking hell in that moment. All he knew was that he wanted her back, and that this was all his fault.
Then Declan was telling him Eames was dead, and Bobby was some kind of unhinged giant, melting on the New York sidewalk in the same suit he'd had on for two days. He wanted to scream, wanted to throttle Gage for even suggesting something so logical. Goren, whose reputation was for being detached, calculated, calm … and yes, scary, was none of those things anymore. Sweat poured from him, damped the back of his suit jacket, stung his eyes as he tried to play Declan's games, tried not to think about how Alex was probably bleeding and in pain.
Fear.
He had said it himself, to the first victim's lover, hadn't he? It can be scary when someone goes away … especially someone you love so much.
Someone you love.
Along the six years that they had been partners, Bobby had done the one thing he never did: he fell in love. Goren flirted. He wined and dined. In his younger years, he had profiled some women right into his bed … but it was all just games. Bobby did not fall in love.
Because everybody left him.
People were afraid of him, remember?
Until he found himself standing in front of the trunk of Alexandra's car, Bobby hadn't dared name the emotion that had gripped him all the long hours of her absence. But faced with the bloody sheet he knew he would have to lift, he embraced it like an old friend.
Terror. Sheer, unimaginable terror, that underneath would lay the only person that he couldn't afford to lose. He felt the shreds of his sanity teetering on the lip of the world as numb fingertips performed the awful unveiling.
His gaze settled, not on Alex's blonde hair, snub nose and hazel eyes, but on another victim. Suddenly he could breathe again, if shallowly, and he hated himself for it.
Monster, or surrogate Father? Whichever Declan was, the man was cuffed to the table in interrogation, leaving Bobby undecided.
Professionalism was running low with every moment that dragged on. He just wanted someone - anyone - to tell him where Eames was, the rest of it bedamned. Wherever she was, he should have been; should have been there in her place when Sebastian had …
"Breasts intact? No trophies?" Gage asks him, surprised.
Goren has to harness every ounce of his waning patience not to break Declan's fingers. If anyone touches Alex, he thinks, so help me God …
But he knows that God is simply a construct, who doesn't bet on the races.
He attacks Declan for the third time, so exhausted and adrift that he is finally struggling to keep tears at bay. Bobby knows that if he wants him to beg, he will beg.
Having her back is his only imperative.
Somewhere in the city as the sun begins to go down, his partner is saving herself, while he is being held hostage by his need to believe in his teacher.
.
.
The sharpened tip of what must have been shear blades were the only thing that had kept Alexandra from screaming out for Bobby when her cell phone rang.
Of all the times of year to get abducted, she had thought to herself ruefully, as sweat soaked her burgundy tank and streaked her skin.
There had been not enough time to react before getting knocked out, followed by far too much time to think after coming to consciousness. All night she listened to the poor woman just feet away being tortured incessantly, knowing that she would only be able to maintain her own dignity for so long if her turn came.
Somewhere out there in the city, Alex knew that Bobby was blaming himself. For not driving her home. For not making her stay at the precinct. He would never admit it, but he liked thinking he was her knight in shining armour - and most of the time, she let him. But this wasn't his fault, and job one if she made it out of this alive was to make sure to kick him for thinking it was.
Time drew out sharp, painful, as the victim's cries behind her had wound down. Her arms were numb with the ache of them being suspended for so long, her toes burning hot in her boots from keeping her weight from pulling. Eames had pillowed her head on her sweat-clammy bicep and considered that she should have told Bobby Goren that she loved him.
Any reasoning behind why she hadn't told him seemed inane then. Her dead husband? Hadn't stopped her from dating while she had been carrying Nathan. Not mixing work and pleasure? She really wasn't that straight-laced.
The truth of it was, Alex liked what they had. Their easy intuition of each other made the absence of sex bearable. Bobby was smart, handsome, funny (in his own, intense, cryptic way), loyal - there were no drugs or heavy drinking to worry about, no cart load of baggage that he pulled behind full of ex lovers, save for his relentless pursuit of Nicole Wallace.
She liked him more than any guy she had gone on an actual date with in the last five years. Along the way Eames had accepted that meant trading dating for staying at home on Saturdays, thinking of Bobby's broad chest and big hands while she got her own self off. Hanging from a hook on the ceiling, though, wondering if a killer was going to cut off her breasts with a pair of shears really had a knack for making her regret not making love to Bobby.
Realizing that it had been quiet for far too long, Alex had raised her head, making the decision to rub the tie blindfold down and off. If Sebastian had been there, he was gone by then. She looked up at the hook she was attached to, blinking sweat from her lashes, heart pounding.
Righty-tighty, lefty-loosey she thought to herself, let's get this show on the road.
Eames is only 5'2" to Goren's 6'3 and a half, but she saves herself - mostly. In the end it's a dog and an old man in the alley.
"NYPD!" she tells them, "Please!"
Get me out of here, I gotta kick my partner's ass.
.
.
Danny Ross wasn't a complete fool. He was unwelcome in a unit that had lost their longtime Captain, and though he would never admit it out loud, he was afraid of Robert Goren.
Keep him in check, he'd told Eames.
Because she was the only one who could, of course. Now she was gone and hell, what a tits-up they were all in; Goren was an angry bull, galloping at anything he perceived might be a threat. None of it had given them any answers, however, and if Gage was right - if Eames was dead, well, Ross might as well call off the renovations in the Captain's office. The game would be tilt.
When the message came crackling over the radio that Alexandra Eames had been rescued from the basement of some old pile of cement, it rose the hairs at the nape of Ross' neck.
Rescued, not recovered. Thank God.
It should have relieved him, should have been a respite from the last 16 or so hours, but mostly it just fried what was left of his nerves. A firing squad wouldn't keep Goren still now, and who else was going to pull a confession from Declan Gage, the psychotic burnout?
When Ross stepped from his office into the bullpen, he caught nothing but the back of Goren's impossibly tall figure, headed for the hallway to the elevators.
"Goren!" he shouted after him, but never got a wave or even a middle finger in acknowledgment. Not like Ross wouldn't know where to find him - the entire NYPD could guess where he would be in just a few minutes.
Ross hoped, for Gage's sake if for noone else's, that Alex wasn't harmed too badly.
.
.
It was amazing, how still all the chaos went as soon as he laid eyes on her. Even with a glass door and the nurse between them, just the image of Alex that close was enough to stop his mind from spinning. Bobby didn't feel clammy, or panicked, or lost anymore. All of that was replaced with gratitude, with his guilt and his anger that someone had hurt her. His chest felt stuffed and thick with so much emotion.
Ross could bring down the whole One Police Plaza to fire him if that's what he wanted - nothing else was happening until he got in that room. Anyone who tried to stop him would no doubt find out the hard way why he was deemed scary.
Once the nurse had settled Eames into the bed, Goren couldn't pace the doorway any longer. He let himself into the trauma room and hovered, imposingly, until the nurse noticed him. The nurse's gaze flickered to the chair next to the stretcher, and that was all he needed.
"Five minutes," she told him firmly. "She'll probably conk out in four."
Bobby's gut knotted at Alexandra's anxious breathing. "What? That sound?"
The familiar, comforting timbre of his voice unlocked her fear, and so she started telling him. Some he already knew, but not all of it. He should be ashamed, he told himself, to be so filled with joy just sitting there, ashamed to be drinking in her features so eagerly: the snub nose and hazel eyes he had been so terrified he'd find in that trunk.
"I'm sorry." His apology spilled out of him like sacrificial blood onto an altar.
Eames shook her head and fixed him with a look that made Bobby want to bubble up with laughter. It was her, Don't be an ass look. It filled him with a ridiculous, aching pleasure.
God, how he loved her.
She glared at him as best she could from under her lashes and he prayed that there would be glares just like it for years to come.
Just minutes later she was sound asleep. Briefly, he allowed himself the transgression of touching her hand, knowing the medication would keep his secret. He could go home now - he could take a shower and put on a clean suit and tie.
Now he could breathe.
.
.
"You look like hell."
Alexandra was washed over by an incredible sense of safety the minute all six feet and three and a half inches of Bobby's frame filled the chair at her bedside. She was too tired to kick his ass, but not so tired that she couldn't drown him in sarcasm in the meantime.
And he did look like hell. For a minute she could almost feel sorry for Ross, who'd had the task of trying to keep the sweaty, haunted giant before her leashed for the last 18 hours. But, Bobby was her sweaty giant, which was all that mattered then, in her drug-addled mind.
The soft look that followed his apology filled her eyes with hot tears, thankfully not open enough for him to notice. Alex's glare attempted to wither him, praying that she would be out of bed to kick his damn ass the next time she saw him.
No more Saturdays alone, Bobby Goren, she thought as she lost the battle with sleep. Visions of Bobby naked under her hands followed her down into Morphine's soft oblivion.
.
.
Jo was barely in lockup before he was gone. He didn't even remember the drive to the hospital, was aware of nothing, really, until he was sitting at Alex's bedside again. Then Bobby was still, his head was quiet.
There was just her rhythmic breathing, the hum of machinery, the muted lighting of the trauma room. He was sort of dozing with his eyes half-open, chin nodding at his chest, when Eames stirred.
"Bobby?" she whispered, her eyebrows knitting together, "You should go."
He realized that she thought it was the previous day, thought she had only drifted off for minutes and that he was needed in the office. For a moment, it was so like his mother that Goren felt choking anxiety envelop his throat. Then he smiled, falteringly, and leaned forward in the chair.
"Sick of me, are you?" he teased, patting the blanket over her leg. He swallowed. "Don't worry, it's all over. You were asleep for a while." She eyes him as though she doesn't entirely believe him, so he holds up his tie as proof. "See? Different suit. I'm clean, too."
Recognition seeps into her features then, and she takes a deep breath, nods. Her muscles twinge sharply, aching, and he sees it even though it is the minutest of shifts.
"You want me to get the nurse?"
Alex forgives him this, knowing that the setting must knee-jerk reactions out of him that are normally reserved for his mother. When she only stares at him in response, Bobby goes back to the subject of work - that place where his mind is the most organized.
"It was Jo," he confesses softly, and controls the wince that rises when her eyes widen in surprise. "She confessed - to me - and she's in lockup now." Anticipating the next logical question, he goes on:
"Apparently Declan was a shit father, who ignored everything human in her their entire lives, while he chased what little humanity there might be in serial killers. She wanted his attention … wanted him to love her, the way he loves his work. So sh - she became the work."
"And … what? She was jealous of you, so she wanted me dead?" Alex frowned.
"Kind of," he concedes, giving her one of his patent head tilts. "Declan put all his focus on me when we got the case. She decided to frame him, to - to involve you, so that I would lose both of you if he were convicted." Bobby cannot bring himself to say to kill you, even with her just two feet away.
Her silence draws out then, long enough that even he isn't sure what it means. Shifting restlessly in the chair, he suggests that he can go home, if she just wants to sleep. Fighting the drowsy flutter of her own eyelids, she says his name again:
"Bobby … " He leans forward so she doesn't have to speak up. "Don't go," she tells him. "Please."
Goren inches the chair closer to the bed.
"I won't."
.
.
The next time he wakes, the bed is empty, and he startles so hard from the position he had slept in that he nearly sends the chair toppling.
"I'm right here, Bobby."
Her voice carries from the other side of the curtain divider, and the rush of adrenaline that had started to soar in him relented.
"What're you doing up, Eames?" he sighs, moving toward the end of the stretcher. "You should'a woke me." He doesn't have the nerve to get close enough to the curtain to risk seeing anything. He hovers.
"I made bail!" Alex calls back. Goren can tell she's making the effort to sound cheery so he won't try to make her stay. "You mind drivin' me home?"
She appears on his side of the curtain, dressed in hospital-vouchered sweatpants and a t-shirt, since her own clothes had been taken as evidence. He is painfully aware of how small she seems in the moment, barefoot and swimming in grey cotton.
But Bobby wants to return to whatever passes for normalcy between them, just as badly as she does. He nods, smiling at her softly.
His thought when they climb up the steps of her place is, This is where I should have been. He doesn't spend long enough on it to probe if he means for the attack or more than that.
Then the door opens and Alex lets out a sound that send his fingers straight to his sidearm.
He swallows dryly and relaxes, just enough to let out a string of swears. Her apartment was no longer a crime scene, but they hadn't bothered to send anyone in to tidy it up once it was released. Blood still on the floor, Paulie's empty cage - Goren was livid.
"Let me," he says firmly, stepping past her through the doorway and inside. He went to work erasing the signs that Jo had been there, trying not to dwell on how he was responsible.
He cleans up as best he can with what Alex has on hand, moves the bird cage out of sight to the spare room. His partner watches him with sleepy eyes from the sofa as he sweeps up her living room. She is amused at any hint of domesticity in him.
"If you want, I could get you a new bird," Bobby suggests casually, crouching down with the dustpan.
A sad smile tugs at Eames' mouth. "That's okay. Maybe I'll take this as a sign to branch out and get a cat."
"You just want to see me eating cat dander again," he jokes, and waits for her to recall the case he's referencing.
She rewards him with a giggle, but it makes her muscles ache. Immediately, he is at her side. "You should take some meds and get more rest."
"Do you fuss over your mother like this, too?" Alex eyes him from under her lashes. "No wonder she complains."
And just like with his mother, he ignores her and ushers her in the direction of medication and sleep. When she's tucked in and still, she startles him by grabbing him by the hand. The touch is like fire, every nerve shutting down except where their skin meets.
Its intensity shakes him.
Please, Alex, don't do this now, he silently begs.
She lets go of his hand and asks meekly, "Could you stay? Just … til I fall asleep, even?"
He cannot deny her. Won't.
So he stays, but he doesn't sleep. Checks on her, several times through the night. Four AM and he's in her bedroom doorway, arms crossed over his chest, watching her silently.
What does it mean, Bobby?
The voice in his head is Declan's, and Bobby is all out of answers.
.
.
Alexandra wonders how long it will last. Not just his guilt - he would hang onto that forever if he could, but this subtle change in him; the way he treats her as fragile now, seems to startle and fret over her.
She had seen it in his hesitation when she wanted to get back to work. Then again in the way his eyes had darkened when he'd busted the window at Raine's to make Wiznesky stand down.
And hadn't her hands been shaking?
She would deny it, even if Bobby asked her straight. He was already insisting on dropping her and picking her up from the mandated therapy sessions; Alex would be goddamned if she'd let him see another weakness in her so soon.
Then they're on their way to Wiznesky's, and just like having to relearn how to sleep alone in her own home, she feels the nerves start up again. Eames shoves the feeling as far down as possible, tries to keep on top of her body language so that Bobby can't read it and start changing any rules.
Wiznesky has a gun.
She knows it before the door even closes behind them - the hairs standing on her forearms and the nape of her neck in primitive warning, her nostrils flaring at the electric feel of the air. When Wiznesky turns the gun on them, Alex sees that subtle change again, this time up close. So close she can feel it - the anxiety in her partner as soon as her breathing thins out.
Not again, this soon, she thinks tiredly. For both their sakes.
"You need to take the gun off her, and put it on me," Goren tells the cop.
Jesus, Bobby. She wants to tell him that it's no better, to offer himself up. His guilt is just self-flagellation.
Instead, she says practically nothing, allows herself to be let go from the room. Alex finds relief and guilt fill her equally.
.
.
There is a lot of himself to restrain when restraint is required - and the amount Bobby requires when the gun levels at Eames is monumental. He is a beat away from throwing himself on her, or on the gun, when he hears his own words.
Negotiating her life for his. Anything to get her out of the room.
She's not even through her therapy completely, and here they are again. He thinks it must be some kind of statistical anomaly - even in his panic he is driven to seek logic.
Once Alex is outside the office, he breathes with relief. Almost relaxes, for a moment. Until he is struck by both the situation at hand, and the futility of giving up his life too easily. What will happen to his mother? What if Eames needs him after he's gone?
There were still amends to make.
He volleys from relieved to angry when Wiznesky tosses him the cell. Opting to push all his buttons at once, he calls out to the daughter, to his partner. He breaks all the rules. Sometimes he thinks that's the only thing he's truly good at.
Still, Goren neutralizes the situation. They can leave, and both his mother and Wiznesky's daughter have who they need.
I have who I need.
The thought fills up his head as he glances at her on their way to the car. Evening light is getting ready to shift over the street. He opens his mouth to say something casual, something to break the tension to make sure she is okay.
"Gun! He's got a gun!"
They swarm the lawn like ants on a pheromone charge, but the shot rings out anyway, and every cop there knows its too late. Even Wiznesky knew it, as the bullet went through his head. The wife and daughter are sobbing, the cop is dead. A step forward and three back.
A dark cloud settles over Goren. He lets Alex drive.
.
.
She is struck by the most absurd thought as they drive: For such a big man, he has such small ears.
Deep in the pit of her stomach, though, the feeling that fills her is not absurdity, but tenderness. Alexandra aches with it. She has watched six years of what he does to himself - the loathing, the sacrifice, the blame. She's run out of capacity for it; she wants to give him all the things that she had given Joe, before Joe's death had cut it all short.
If only she could understand how to start.
"Are you alright?" This is what she asks him at last, because she can't take the silence and she has to say something.
Bobby rolls his head in her direction, but doesn't give her any answers. She lets it slide for a few more blocks, until the weight of it all squeezes a reaction out of her. Alex pulls over in an angry swipe of the SUV, nearly glancing the curb with the tires as she shoves the vehicle into park.
"For Christ's sake, Bobby - talk to me!" she snaps, throwing her hands up from the wheel. His wide-eyed surprise simply spurs her on: "What? Nobody ever told you that not everything is your fault? Come on - what happened back there was going to happen, whether on the lawn or tonight in a locked cell somewhere!"
"He had a gun on you," Bobby pointed out, his own anger rising. "He could've killed you!"
"You know who else could've killed me, Bobby?" She can see his mind immediately shy away from the idea. "Jo Gage - and that wasn't your fault, either!"
"Like hell it wasn't!" he grits through his teeth. "If I had stopped for one second to consider the coincidence of Sebastian starting again just as Deck was in the city - "
Eames is staggered by the fact that tears are audible in the choke of his voice.
"- instead of being flattered and googoo eyed at some old teacher, I would have put it together!"
"You're not God!" she cries desperately. "Jesus, Bobby, you don't have to solve every puzzle, every time, alone, at record speed. Nobody expects you to be some kind of infallible savior!"
Goren takes this in, watches her chest heaving with her frustration. He looks out the window, demands of himself not to break down. Not here. Not now.
"If I … " he clears his throat, "if I can't save my mother," he frowns, "or Frank … if I can't at least show up and keep you alive?" His dark brown gaze caught Alex's hazel one, searching. "Then what good am I?" he asks her. "What am I even here for, huh?"
His voice cracks, and something inside of Eames breaks lose. She turns in her seat, finds herself reaching across the console. There is no premeditation, no clear decision. Only one thought as her hands grasp Bobby's jacket and pull him toward her like a woman gone mad:
I'll show you what you're goddamn here for, Bobby Goren. Just watch me.
.
.
This must be what happens when flame ignites gasoline, Bobby thinks wondrously.
Everything feels on fire: his body, the SUV, the city street where Fate has decided this begins. All the things that clutter his own mind, they cease completely the moment Alexandra closes the distance between them. It has been a long time - such a long time - since he has touched a woman this way at all, and it drives the breath from his lungs in surprise and hunger and wild relief.
He resists the urge to scoop her up entirely and dump her into his lap, opts instead to tangle his fingers in her dirty-blonde layers. The kiss is open-mouthed, wanton, giving and taking everything simultaneously. Years he's wondered if she tastes as good as she smells.
Yes. The answer is yes.
She doesn't stop pulling, her fingers trying desperately to pull him closer even when there is no 'closer' left. Any minute now, her digging fingernails will be scratching through his suit, into his skin, and he can't swear he won't let her try to wear him if she wants.
"Eames," he mumbles against her mouth. She hums but doesn't budge. "Alex … " It comes out as a pant, and she is so unused to the sound of her name coming from him that it stops her at last.
The look in her eyes is naked and plain: Bobby, if you call this off, it's over. For good.
He blushes faintly, but smiles. "Take me to your place," he requests.
The drive to her apartment is forever. The drive to her apartment is no time at all.
He used to think of himself as suave, once upon a time - Robert Goren, the intimidating charmer. Eames makes him nervous, knocks all of his senses askew. He feels unwieldy, out of joint like he had before he'd grown into his height.
She drove him to the brink of desperation, and somehow left him feeling clumsy, not smooth at all. So they stumble as they enter her apartment, Bobby managing to just catch her by an elbow before one of them topples over a piece of furniture.
It makes her giggle, and he thinks it might be the most incredible noise he has ever heard from her - so far. He reaches for her, kicking his shoes off as they back insistently in the direction of the bedroom. They leave a wake made up of shoes, socks, jackets, shirts so that when their bodies at last bump the edge of the bed, he is barechested above his pants, and Alex is down to her bra.
At work, she always has fashionable boots or shoes to wear. With them off, he can't help but be struck by their height difference. He wants so badly to pick her up and let her wrap her legs around his waist - but if there is a leader in this, he knows without a doubt it is not him. Even seeing her like this is disarming - shucked of the power clothes, the heels, the work version of herself that is always between them.
Then her tiny hands are reaching for his belt, and the edges of the world go fuzzy as he holds his breath.
.
.
Bobby Goren has neither a bare chest, nor an overly hairy chest, and it suits him perfectly. Alexandra works his belt with one hand and raises the other, letting her knuckles ride the hollow dip above his belly button and up between his pecs.
If he's as hard as I am wet … she thinks, licking her lips.
He takes over as the belt comes loose and she likes it; doesn't take her eyes off him as he unbuttons and unzips his pants. Underneath she sees boxers - exactly what she expected. What else she sees, though …
Bobby!
Her pupils dilate as a rush of shivers go through her. She should have guessed, she supposes, that he would be a … proportionate … large man, but -
He lets his breath out in a sigh, and she realizes that he might be interpreting her staring the wrong way. She won't have him backpedal, hell or high water, so she uses both hands to pull the boxers down. When her hand finally works around the girth of him, her partner closes his eyes and sucks in another ragged breath. It's been a long time for her, too, and her strokes are light and curious.
Goren lets out a soft groan that goes straight to Alex's soaked center, precum beading at the tip of him, the start of what she imagines will be a slick mess. She swipes him with a thumb, then brings the thumb to her lips, throbbing at the idea of finally knowing what the genius tastes like. When her gaze meets his, thumb still in her smirking mouth, another groan escapes him and this time he does pick her up long enough to lay her on the bed.
Bobby's hands are gentle with getting her bra off. He's nothing if not a multitasker: his mouth works one nipple to an aching point while a hand drifts to the waist of her pants. So many points of contact have Eames squirming, and she is biting out his name as he finally slips a hand down her lace thong.
Big man, big feet, big hands, big fingers. When his middle finger slips into the center of her wet cleft, her hips rise with the fullness of it. She whimpers in a way she hasn't in bed for years, feels wild with relief that Bobby's guilt doesn't have a place here. She can heal him.
"You're perfect," he breathes warmly next to one ear, finger still stroking as his mouth kisses down her belly and tongues the line of her pants. "I need these off, though."
She lifts her ass for him when he pulls the pants down and off, then the infamous Bobby Goren rolls between her legs and settles there, like he has an exam to write that he has been studying for all these long years.
And maybe he does. Maybe he has.
.
.
His cock is pinned to the mattress so tightly that Bobby assumes it will probably go numb. He can't think of any other moment in his life where it mattered any less to him, either. In front of him, his tiny partner is spread. Some part of him assumed her fearlessness would be no different in this place - had no reason to think otherwise.
So when he realizes her thighs are trembling, he is both surprised and moved. Kissing her inner thigh, he breathed deep of the smell of her skin, her arousal, her heat. Above him, Alexandra exhaled heavily, her legs restless against the sheets.
"Eames," he says reverently, then opens his eyes, waiting to be rebuked for not calling her by her first name.
But in the dark of the bedroom, the word sounds like magic to both of them. Alex just arches and sighs, "Jesus, Bobby, just touch me."
He kisses the rest of the way up her thigh and across the rise of her mons. Like with everything he expects himself to be good at, he is steady, concentrates and listens, reading her body like a diary. His tongue flutters, tastes her like a sommelier aerating rare vino. A shudder of want goes through him to mark the milestone, his trapped erection aching to remind him of its existence. Goren moans, surprising himself with the depths of his passion for the step they're taking.
He smiles wildly when Alex sits at the waist, a whimper leaving her as his tongue licks broadly through the slippery trail of her wetness. But like anything important to Bobby, he is fixed on it, relentlessly. Even when she slots her fingers into his greying hair and uses it to anchor herself, Bobby keeps his focus. Soaked, she is soaked, and he is merely adding to it - Alex listens to the sound of what he's doing, it turns her on more intensely than she remembers from her younger years and she feels herself dripping for him.
He sucks in her hard clit and pushes a finger into her, then another. She has his hair in a death grip and he's leaving a puddle of precum on her sheets.
Then Eames is coming for him, against him, and Bobby can't believe that they haven't been doing this all along.
Alexandra melts into the sheets and swears that there'll never be another dry spell so long. Should have known he would be a perfectionist at that, too, she thinks, closing her eyes to stars behind the lids. Undaunted, Bobby is moving up over her immediately, cradling her small frame into his large arms. She kisses him eagerly, cupping the line of his jaw as she tastes herself from his mouth.
"Oh, you'll be doing that again," she chuckles against his chest.
"Right now, or - ?" He moves as if to slide down her body again and she stops him, laughing harder.
"That's not a terrible idea," she allows, "but I have ideas of my own, Bobby Goren."
"Mm. You always have," he rumbles to her.
She wipes the grin off his face by reaching between them. He's as hard as ever, hot and now slick, sliding easily through her grip.
"Alex," he whispers shakily.
She stretches up, nips his bottom lip between her teeth. "Yes?"
"It's been … been a long time, for me," Bobby confesses.
Eames locks her arms around his neck and smiles. "Then we best not wait too much longer."
He kisses her as he moves his weight between her thighs again, opening her so they can fit together the way she had always wondered if they would. Tiny hands press into his ribs and he's filling her mouth with his tongue while he's lining his cock up with her entrance. She sheaths over him.
It is exactly the opposite of every other time for him. Their difference in size doesn't have him focusing on how she makes him feel large - on the contrary, Eames minimizes him, compacts him, humbles him with her concentrated strength and ability to handle him better than anyone. They are both alive, and together, and all at once Bobby can't think of anything else he could want.
.
.
He's bigger inside of her than even she had tried to imagine on those long Saturday nights, but there is a gentleness to him that Alex doesn't expect; like the physical incarnation of the gaze he gave her in the hospital. Filling her slowly at first, he studies her face, memorizes just what she responds to. As his pleasure overwhelms him, he buries his head against her shoulder, expels hot pants of breath in time with his rhythm.
"Fuck, Bobby … " It's the closest she will get to passing comment on his size. She cradles her hips even wider, relaxes, feels him thrust even deeper. "All of it, she whimpers, "please, I want - "
Acquiescing immediately, he draws back and fucks her hard, fully. Neither of them is managing complete breaths finally, wrapped around one another, gasping. The futility and darkness that had pushed them to this place has faded, leaving only security, only salvation.
Bobby pulls her hips down hard with both hands, holds her there as he spills into her. It is erotic and warm and satisfying, to take all of this from him, Eames decides. She knows he doesn't let anyone else see him so deconstructed. He feels open, raw, fragile in her arms. A privilege.
After his orgasm, he continues to thrust eagerly into her, his lips open slightly over the pulse in her throat. Between them, his thumb fights for the space to cover her clit. When he finds it, she moans encouragement.
Who ever could have guessed how incredible it would be, to hear Goren's gravel deep voice murmuring filthy pleas?
"You're so wet, come for me Alex. Come on my cock," he growled. How could she resist? She clamps and throbs around him and he is kissing her again, mumbling against her skin: "I can feel you - ah, fuck, Alex … yeah, so hard."
They are exhausted.
A six year floodgate has blown open and left them weak, walls shattered. They hold each other, half-drowsing, for a while. Eames strokes fingers through his curly hair.
At last, it's Bobby who speaks first: "I thought I had lost you," he confesses. "I was terrified."
"So you thought jumping in front of a loaded gun was the right answer?" she teases.
"This was a much better idea," he grins, lazily mouthing one of her nipples.
"I meant what I said, Bobby. It wasn't your fault, what happened to me."
Silence draws out like a blade, giving him time for her words to sink in.
"I'm - " he sighs, holds her tighter, "I can't lose you, Alex. You're every good thing I have."
An ache goes through her. She presses a hand to his cheek. "I'm so sorry that you had to go through that, for me. But I'm fine. I am not going anywhere."
Bobby kisses the palm of her hand, already aware of his cock twitching again, faintly, against the curve of Eames' body.
"You are relentless, Bobby Goren," she gasps, brushing back against him, pleased.
"God, you're the only one who makes that sound like a good thing," he chuckles, and lets his fingers do the walking, back down over her pelvis to the welcoming peace of her warmth.
FIN