A/N (1) Previously on Chuck versus The Journey: The previous chapter ended on a cliffhanger, which was pretty cruel as we don't know if Chuck is still alive. After all, being confronted with an almost naked Sarah out of the blue is not for the faint-hearted. To refresh everyone's memory, let's look back at the last few lines of the previous chapter:
She snapped her fingers as she had an inspiration, then briskly walked to the bathroom door and peeked out.
Okay, no Chuck. Now, hurry, girl!
She continued to hum that little melody in blithe anticipation, and only clad in her white panties, strolled out, mirthfully declaring, 'Attention, naked Sarah crossing!' to the empty honeymoon suite.
That was precisely the moment when the door opened, and a buoyant Chuck entered, shoving a jingling tea wagon into the room.
"Darn, Chuck, you shouldn't see that yet!" she cursed aloud for dallying so long until she walked topless onto him.
I can't fight this feeling any longer
And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow.
What started out as friendship has grown stronger.
I only wish I had the strength to let it show.
I tell myself that I can't hold out forever.
I said there is no reason for my fear
'Cause I feel so secure when we're together.
You give my life direction, you make everything so clear.
And even as I wander, I'm keeping you in sight.
You're a candle in the window on a cold, dark winter's night.
And I'm getting closer than I ever thought I might.
And I can't fight this feeling anymore.
I've forgotten what I started fighting for.
It's time to bring this ship into the shore.
"Can't Fight This Feeling" (Cronin Kevin)
Chapter 28: Chuck vs. The Dress Shirt
It was fortunate Chuck decided on a tea wagon and not a tray as he planned initially. The latter would have slipped out of his hands and crushed down the moment he saw a blonde angel – now an unquestionably sexy angel – only wearing silky white panties strutting out of the bathroom and walking directly into his path.
Sarah's skin – and there was so much of it – was daintily fresh and begged to be caressed. The soft sunshine of the early day streaming in from the terrace accurately did that, hugging her shoulders and flooding a warm, faintly golden tone over her figure. Her step featured an elastic bounce that did mesmerizing things to her physique. It distinctively reached those parts of her Chuck avoided to ogle for the past year but could not help to register now as she literally confronted him with the naked truth, albeit not deliberately.
Sarah's arms came up in a wink and crossed over her chest. She felt bold but not that bold as she took the view of his face in. She stared at his open mouth and feverish eyes with an illogical accusation as if the situation was his fault. Well, at least I know safely now that I will have his full attention if I strip naked. Then, like a deer disturbed at a forest glade in the dusk, she dashed off into the walk-in wardrobe.
It was only a fraction of a moment Chuck noticed all that. Well-reared by his older sister, he automatically tried to block the view. Yet, he feared that the few milliseconds he was exposed to her devastating beauty were enough to generate an irremovable mental tattoo he would be wearing for the rest of his life.
But the other reason he looked away - well, not exactly away, but at least avoided gaping at her and instead lifted his gaze - was the upbeat glow on her face. She seemed as if she finally had decided on a crucial issue that loosened her up in a silently happy way. Her look was deep and open. Those blue eyes he loved so much were shining stronger than the floodlights of a baseball stadium.
The moment passed in a flash, and she was gone. Chuck knew it wasn't a daydream when he heard her giggle. Sarah, in turn, heard him puff. She discerned how his short gasps accelerated. As unplanned as this encounter was, she was content with what the view of her figure could do to him.
Still, it will not be OK if he is going to faint out there. I plan to be his lover, not his nurse. It is imperative that Chuckie is not lying on the floor unconscious but... well… stands like a rock. … God, Walker...
She giggled again as she was drawn deeper into fantasies hopefully fulfilled very soon. Cupping her breasts, gleefully aware that she ironically could cause what she would try to prevent, she tentatively leaned out of the wardrobe and checked his endearingly crimson-red face.
"Don't you hyperventilate out there," she told him warmly, shortly considering repeating the breathing exercises he made with her last night. C'mon, Chuck, breathe with me! Relax while you concentrate on the first thing coming into your mind that gives you pleasant feelings. Ha! Take that! She knew that the throaty chuckle that escaped her was not helpful to relax in any way. He pointedly looked in the other direction and waved her away.
"Go away, woman!" he ordered with a shaky sigh that resembled the last gasp of a used car engine, and she obeyed with a snort. She still had to find the piece she wanted to wear for breakfast.
"Oscar-Mike-Golf! You know these warning notices have to be clear and precise," he shouted as he remembered the first words he heard when entering the room. "So that should have run, 'Beep-beep-beep, attention, hot and explosive, naked Sarah crossing!'"
She laughed when she heard his feigned indignation as it meant he was OK, and there had been no lasting damage done to his nerdy brain. A brain that was frantically busy deciphering the hidden meaning behind the other sentence she had said – 'Darn, Chuck, you shouldn't see that yet!'
What does that mean? I shouldn't see what – not yet? Whatever it was, I obviously will see it later. When later? And since all there I had seen was Sarah, what conclusions were there? Was there anything hidden or difficult to understand at all? Or was it as straightforward as she exclaimed it?
Meanwhile, Sarah leaned on the wall of the wardrobe and pondered how she could overcome her Boobiegate.
So much for taking the long and winding road of romance and enjoying all the stops along the way!
The scene she involuntarily created was more a shortcut to a steamy erotic melee than the beginning of an artfully relished love play. While the thought of jumping his bones point-blank was tempting, she was also very much open to dally amorously and crank up the heat bit by bit. She did not want to close the door on the second option, so she had to find a way to cool down Chuck before he would do something she could not say No to. Possibly she should inquire what tasty tidbits breakfast offered.
Besides him, besides me! … Gee, I am impossible!
Her voice rang out. "What did you bring?"
His intonation made clear that he was relieved to return to safe grounds.
"Would you believe-" he began, only to be interrupted by her while she found what she wanted to wear.
"Since last night, I believe everything you say."
The silence returned for a few seconds as Chuck looked at the breakfast selection and digested her words. "On weekends, they go all miniature! You could eat a dozen different things and still be as hungry as a Big Mike before he got his first bite at a donut. From the bread rolls to the sausages to the pancakes to-"
"I get it," she interrupted before he began to list the whole menu. "Does the chamomile tea come in miniature portions, too?" she asked without much hope.
"First, it's chamomile and hawthorn tea. It's good for you. Aside from the fact that it's good for your tummy, it's calming, and hawthorn's relaxing and cardiotonic."
"Sounds as intriguing as the reports Casey writes," Sarah inserted.
"Second, of course, we're going to make a big fresh pot for you."
"My hero," her voice relatively drily came out of the wardrobe. "I hope someday I find ways to make it up to you." And she wasn't flirting this time.
Sarah appeared and stood in the doorframe, raising herself shortly to her tiptoes before lowering to her feet and at the same time sending a slightly wiggling motion through her body. It flowed from her head to her shoulders to her hips, as if she was a puppet on a string and someone just pulled on the strings. She looked cute and frisky and distinctly impish. Chuck held on to the tea wagon until his knuckles went white.
"That's what you're going to wear for breakfast?" he inquired before he answered the question himself. "Of course, you will. Maybe I should drink that tea."
His heart could need all the support it could get if Sarah continued on her brash journey as she did right now, which – he didn't dare to picture a mental image of it – only could end in that king-size bed a few steps away. If he carried her in his arms, with his long limbs, it was only a very few steps away.
"You don't like it?" Sarah asked, her voice pure and chaste, but her azure orbs huge and full of lure. She bit her lower lip before she sighed masterfully disappointed. "Oh well, so I'll take it off."
And began to open the buttons on his white dress shirt she was wearing.
"Wait, wait, no rash decisions," he stopped her nervously. "I like it! I like it! I like it!" he exclaimed.
Sarah stopped her striptease, leisurely playing with the following button as if she still had to decide about getting rid of the shirt. She watched Chuck staring at her fingers with rapt attention. Isn't it lovely how I can see that he would go along with whatever I come up with, helpless to my charms?
She smiled at him, elated.
I'm a woman, I want him as a man - in the simple, straightforward, earth-shattering meaning of these words. Sarah had anticipated breakfast would become a first tentative part of their foreplay, but possibly it would turn into an afterthought. Sarah was okay with both. Whichever way, he'll be mine very soon.
He gestured at her bare legs, trying to calm down.
Oh, yes, he still has a word in this too. Or so he thinks.
"And… is that all you're wearing?"
Now you're talking business, my boy. I assume you want to see the evidence that I wear at least one more piece of clothing.
She coquettishly lifted the shirt with both hands as if she would slightly lift a skirt for a bow. That proved that she wore those white panties that a few minutes ago had been all she was wearing. So, in a way, it was an improvement on the textile situation, even if the sight did not improve the state of his blood pressure that was rising everywhere in his body.
Don't be indecent, and don't look at his trousers. We don't want to come across as needy. Well, I am not. I love him and want to express my feelings, bypassing my inability to talk about them. I have the notion he will forgive me if we don't talk much for a while.
"It would have been sufficient to reply with Yes or No," Chuck fidgety explained, looking somewhere else again. He ran out of options to look at unless he wanted to give the doorknob more attention than Sarah. She knew it would take only a slight shove more to make him not look away again.
That will be when the fun begins, she thought and thanked him silently for having kept the day free of any duties so cleverly. She felt the hour to move from teasingly dancing around each other to passionately dancing with each other was nearing. Will I undress myself, or will he unbutton the shirt and then – she stopped as another kind of nervousness wormed itself between her daydreams.
What's that? That's not… that must not…! I hope this will turn out as the best day of my life and there is no room for… I can't have a panic attack while getting all excited about… I don't want to think about that three-letter-word now as it seems so lackluster for all I have in mind… about making love with the man I love!
"Do you feel uncomfortable if I eat breakfast like that?" she suddenly asked with her familiar voice, everything playful gone. Chuck peered at her, surprised. She had toned down her daring flirt so abruptly that the change from aspiring lover to a good friend was somehow sobering.
"No, not at all," he replied, and as he realized that might sound a bit greasy, he clarified. "I'm looking forward to enjoying our little breakfast in whichever clothes you like to join me."
That didn't sound much better, he found, but she clearly was not offended. Chuck eventually registered that something in Sarah had changed. He scrutinized her eyes, which didn't close up but allowed him to see her yearning promise and her shaky uneasiness. Poor Sarah, he realized. Even super-agents need a bit to overcome something like last night. Let's make it easier for her.
He held out his hand. "Let me guide you to your table, Ms. Walker."
She took a deep breath and smiled at him.
He's putting me at ease as if he knew what went through my head. Sometime soon, we will need to talk about his story. Plus, he calls me Walker and not Carmichael, so I will sit down with Chuck and not with Charles. Thus, all is not lost. Let's stick to our original plan – our plan? – and have breakfast first.
As she sat, he fumbled with the tea ball, explaining that, naturally, in a hotel like this, there weren't mundane tea bags anywhere to be found. Done that, he checked his watch.
"Ten minutes," he stated and explained when she was about to ask. "Yeah, it's a herbal tea doing you good, not just for tasting good. Ten minutes will wring out all the … what's the word-"
"Essential oils," Sarah assisted him while eyeing his preparations with the doubt of a devoted coffee aficionado.
"Right! So that your tea is perfect for you. If you're not too hungry, I'll rush and get a quick cool shower myself, ok?"
•••••••••••••••••••
A/N (2): A short chapter for a change. I did not want to end it on another nerve-wracking cliffhanger. And my next update will come very soon again. Chuck and Sarah are eager to still all kinds of appetite, so we better don't have them wait too long. Most probably, "Journey" will be back on Sunday.
A/N (3): Thank you everybody for your continued support, it means the world. You are a great community.