The Trapped Assassin
By SarahsSupplyCloset
Author's Note: Thanks for your patience. I was told people on a Chuck fic Facebook site were talking about my story and even nominated it for an award. And in case any of those people are still here, I wanted to thank those of you who talked about me on that page. That is really encouraging for me. I am still working on this fic and don't have any intention of stopping, even if it takes a while to get a chapter out. Thanks for thinking of me though, and for supporting me even where I can't see it. Hope everyone enjoys this chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own CHUCK. I don't make money writing CHUCK fan fiction.
It was while she was waiting for her fourth wave of the early morning that she thought she spotted him.
She was peering out towards the sea, just taking in the sight of the sailboats gliding along the surface of the water, turning her eyes towards the docks down the shore where a few yachts were moored out in the water, awaiting their filthy rich passengers. And then she turned back to look at the shore, eyeing the nearby tall hotel that she was staying in on the CIA's dime. She was still technically an employee until that meeting with Graham, and so he'd foot the bill. At least she hoped so. Maybe it was selfish of her. She wanted to leave, but she didn't mind seeping just a little more benefits out of them before she went.
And then she'd seen a dark curly haired guy slowly ambling along the shore, alone. It was hard to tell if he was tall from way out here, floating on her rented board. She turned to paddle past an incoming wave, not wanting to get flipped because she wasn't paying attention, but then she straddled her board again and looked back to the shore.
He plopped down in the sand and was watching. She could tell it was him now. Maybe it was the way he wore his clothes, or his shoulders. Who else would spot a blond surfer far out in the water and decide to watch but the guy who recognized the blond surfer?
Or maybe he didn't recognize her.
She didn't know.
Either way, she decided to give him a bit of a show before she met him there. Something about the patient way he sat there, laying out on his back, propped up by his shoulders, made her think he didn't expect her to come in right away. Maybe he thought she wouldn't even see him there anyway and he just wanted to watch, enjoy.
She was okay with that.
She'd slept with him last night. Ellie never contacted either of them, which was a clear sign she'd found something better to do with her and Devon's night. And so she and Chuck had continued what started at the bar.
And at dusk, they'd wandered out to swim in the ocean together. She hadn't enjoyed swimming that much ever in her life. Especially when he'd stepped on a piece of seaweed, thought it was a jellyfish, and swore he'd been stung. Their argument over it lasted for a good 4 minutes straight, as he kept pulling his foot up and staring at it over and over, asking if the bottom looked super red to her. It was too adorable for her to actually be annoyed by it. But once he'd calmed down, they'd wrestled, he'd hoisted her up on his shoulders and tossed her into an oncoming wave when she'd least expected it, and she'd let him have it.
After she'd showered post-swim and changed back into clothes, they'd wandered the nearby streets of Nice, ate some food, went back to the hotel, and fell back into bed together.
Sarah snuck a quick look at the beach, taking him in again as he lounged, looking completely at his leisure. And she turned back to watch the incoming waves, rare as they were this far out. She gently paddled just a little further in.
She had realized in a hazy half-asleep stupor the night before, lying in his bed, that this relationship they seemed to be having could've easily fallen into a pattern. And perhaps if it was some other guy, and some other girl, it would have. They had a lot of sex. And it was almost habitual at this point. It could've become a pattern—sex before bed, sex in the morning when they wake up, or sex after this or that. It's getting late, we should probably have sex now, because that's just what we do.
That just wasn't the case.
She was addicted to him, but nothing about her need was habitual. There was no pattern. Nothing about the deep physical attraction was robotic, something they did just because…they had to. Because they were there. Together.
Instead, Sarah felt the buzz of excitement every single time, an electrifying desire, and like yesterday after their little game at the bar, sometimes there was even a desperation in the lust she felt towards him. Nothing in this felt like something she had to do.
She wanted it every single time. Needed it, even.
And then there was the comfortable intimacy in between those bouts of desire.
The men she'd slept with before, maybe she might've fallen into a pattern with them if she'd stuck around long enough, if either of them had wanted to be in the same place for longer than it took to get off and then get dressed.
As good as the sex was with Chuck, though, the way it made her body feel, she'd started discovering that she didn't just have sex with him for the physical pleasure. Being with him was even better than that. Sex was sex. Sex with Chuck Bartowski, however? That was something way more powerful than just the body high.
She'd woken up early this morning with half of her body asleep because he'd rolled onto her at some point in the night, his head pillowed on her chest and his arm slung over her. She'd just had an urge to get out on the water again so she snuck out, went back to her room to put her still kind of damp suit on, and rented herself a board for some early morning fun in the French Riviera.
Sarah spotted a good wave started further out in her peripheral and turned her board a little to get a better look at it. Oh, that was a good one. She couldn't help eyeing Chuck on the shore as she pointed her board at him, moving onto her belly and starting to paddle, waiting for the wave to pick her up. He was watching. At least, he was looking out in this direction.
Good.
She'd show off a little.
She was only human, after all. And since meeting him, she was a lot more human than she'd ever thought.
Carefully but quickly pushing up to her feet, she sliced her board through the water, bending her knees to grab the slippery edge and arching the tip of her board up, drawing an arc and carving back in again. She carved back across the face of the wave one more time, causing a spray to shoot up behind her, and then she settled again and ducked out of the wave altogether, tipping her board and purposely diving under another incoming wave.
She came up, grinning at how good that had felt, the adrenaline still pumping through her as she hoisted herself back onto her board and paddled out again.
As she continued catching waves for the next half hour or so, she'd peek over at Chuck watching her on the shore. He'd ended up sitting up to watch her eventually, his body language pretty clear. He was riveted.
That mischievous voice in her head chirped Good again and she decided the incoming wave would be her last one for the morning. She made a point of saving her best trick for last, something she'd worked on over the years. And it was the perfect sized wave for it.
When she dropped in, she steadied herself and cut to her right before carving back in the other direction, drew an arc to send spray off the back of her board, and bring it back around in a sort of figure 8. She cut back again and rode the wave in, standing straight, and finally just swerving out of it to gently drop off of the board and into the water before it got too shallow.
As she slowly trekked through the water to the shore, she finally looked up and let him see her catch sight of him. She grinned, pushing her hair back from her face with the hand that wasn't holding the board. He held up a hand in a wave and she waved back, ambling up to him.
"Hey!" she called out, not stopping until she was in front of him.
He'd since scrambled up to his feet, smacking the sand away from the back of his board shorts. "Hi."
"How long have you been sitting here?" She was only a little ashamed of the fact that she was seriously acting like she hadn't seen when he showed up. She'd been showing off, sure, but he didn't need to know that.
"Long enough to know you're super good with that thing." He pointed at her board. "Is there anything you can't do?"
"Plenty," she said, widening her eyes. "Trust me."
"Well, surfing isn't one of them. Just when I think you couldn't get any sexier." He blanched then. "Sorry, I let myself get too comfortable. I shouldn't just say stuff like that."
She giggled and shifted her board so that it was standing up. She slammed it down so it was sticking out of the sand, and shook her head at him as she did so. "By all means, keep saying things like that."
"Oh?" He raised his eyebrows.
Nodding, she sidled up to him and went onto her tiptoes to peck his lips.
"And no wetsuit. That's extra impressive. You are brave."
"Yeah, well…it didn't feel necessary, really. And besides, I didn't wanna pay for a rental that wasn't gonna fit me anyway." Then she looked down at the slight redness to her torso between her bikini top and bottoms and shrugged. "This'll go away soon enough. It's from the board."
She could feel him surveying her, and as she looked back up to his face, she saw that he was letting his eyes slowly drag down her tall figure, and back up again. When he realized she was watching, he cleared his throat and cast his eyes to the side, scratching behind his ear.
"Yeah, I can see that. I mean it's not that cold out there, I'm sure. Ahem."
"God, you're cute," she breathed, giving his shirt hem a teasing tug and giggling. "Is this how you're going to react every time I wear a bikini? You've seen me naked. You realize that, right?"
His grin went full-blown cheeky. Maybe her blatant flirtation was giving him confidence. "Oh trust me, I do realize that." He stepped up close and leaned in so his lips brushed her ear. "I haven't just seen every last inch of you, I've also tasted it."
The way he then dropped his lips to her neck just above the tie of her bikini then. Oh, she was in way, way too deep with this guy. She had every intention of letting him take her even deeper though.
"I'm dripping wet from being out there in the surf, otherwise I'd shove you back down into the sand and show you my appreciation."
"I'm literally in swimwear. So feel free."
She laughed. "I have a better idea."
"What's that?"
"Come in with me."
He furrowed his brow. "In where? The water?"
"Yeah." She shrugged. "Come in with me."
"Uh…okay yeah. Sure." He stepped back, pulled his shirt off, and dropped it into the sand next to her board, emptying the pockets of his board shorts and wrapping them up in the shirt before letting her take his hand and lead him back down to the water.
"This feels a lot safer during the day."
She snorted and gave him a teasing look. "Scared of jellyfish?"
"Haaaaa. Super funny." He gave her a flat look.
Giggling, she maneuvered herself in front of him and backed into the water, pulling him along with her hands tucked into his. "It's what you deserve after throwing me literally right into a wave last night. That was fucked up."
"I didn't know the wave was coming!" he tried, but he was still laughing and she glared, before she laughed with him.
"But I won't do it again. I promise. Just swimming."
As they hopped a wave and waded further out until they were waist deep, she sent him a significant look, then let him see her checking his naked upper body out. "Hopefully not just swimming."
And when she got him out to where the water went up to just beneath his chest but covered hers, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and leaned up to kiss him slowly. She took her time, feeling the water lapping at her shoulders, and she was reminded of how tall he was.
When she finally pulled back, she sent him a teasing raise of her eyebrow and braced her hands on his shoulders to lift her legs and wrap them around his slim and sturdy body, kissing him more, even pushing her wet fingers into his hair.
"Mmm, my hair," he muttered against her lips. "You're getting it wet."
She made a face at him and chuckled. "You're literally in the sea right now."
"Oh. Fine. Okay. Might as well go all in then, huh?" She was only given a split second of warning, not nearly enough time, before he dunked both of them down beneath the water. When he popped back up, she was laughing, sputtering at the water streaming down her face, her hair matted and pressed to her features uncomfortably.
"Oh my God, you jerk," she giggled, and she used her grip with her thighs around his midsection to arch her back and dip her head back to fix her hair away from her face. But as she leaned back, she felt Chuck's lips press to her torso. She squeaked and laughed, grabbing his shoulders and pulling herself back in against his chest, sinking a bit lower so her chin was grazing the top of the water. "Taking liberties."
"Oh, excuse me, I'm so sorry."
"You should be," she replied, smirking. And then she leaned in to kiss him under his jaw.
"That my punishment? Because, like, not to be that guy, but I feel it's my duty to inform you that is more of a reward than a punishment." She smirked and kissed him a bit lower, on his neck. "That, too."
"I'm not punishing you. Get over it."
He cracked up. "Welp. Can't get any clearer than that."
A little impatient but mostly amused, she pulled back and put a finger against his lips. Then she glanced over to the shore and scanned it. "It's still early. No one's out here. No one's on the shore…"
"I wouldn't even be out here if I hadn't woken up on a fluke and found you missing."
"How'd you know I'd be out here?"
"I didn't know. I decided to see what everybody was talking about with the whole early-morning-walks-on-the-beach thing. For once. I typically sleep through those hours on vacation." A crooked smile spilled over his handsome features and she smiled back.
"So you just happened to see me out here, huh?"
"Yeah. I thought it was you. Blond and tall and super hot."
Sarah shook her head and giggled, and then she cupped the back of his neck and pulled him in for a kiss again. And when she felt his hands grab her thighs and squeeze, before slipping down to cup her ass, she kissed him that much harder. When they broke apart for air, she found they were both panting a little.
"This keeps happening in the strangest places, doesn't it?" she asked between breaths, nuzzling his nose with hers.
"You said no one's on the beach. You mean that?" She nodded. "I'm just going to have to trust you on this…" And he dropped his lips to her collarbone before she felt him tug her lower half into his. And then he thrusted against her and a shiver went through her body.
"Chuck…" she whispered. "In…in public?"
"They can't see anything," he muttered, his lips dragging up to her neck and then to the place where her jaw met her neck. "I want you."
She moaned quietly, starting to meet his thrusts with her own. She could feel that tingle between her legs as he rubbed the bump at his front against her.
"Don't feel like…getting arrested for public indecency…I don't know about you," she whimpered. He'd tucked his fingers down the back of her bikini bottoms and squeezed her ass.
"What if I told you I'd gladly chance it if it meant I could be inside of you again?"
God, the desperate quiver in his quiet, deep voice. He was getting bolder, the more they found themselves in intimate situations. But this time they were literally outside. Sure, the water would mask most of it. But if anyone wandered out to the beach, it wouldn't be that hard to figure out what the two distant people moving strangely out in the water were doing.
And yet, she still reached between them and tugged at the ties of his board shorts, ripping at the velcro to get access to him. When she finally felt him against her fingers, she curled them around his cock and slowly began to stroke up and down his length.
He groaned and pressed his face to her neck, hardening even more under her touch.
She pecked his lips and peeked to the side. They were still very much alone out here, with no one having wandered down to the sand, so she kept going. But then he caught her by her wrist and let out a harsh breath.
"Careful…I'm-I'm close…"
Oops…
Smirking, she dropped her feet down to the floor of the sea and got on her tiptoes to kiss him some more, before she shifted the front of his swim trunks around to try to release him from the confines of the clothing.
Even as she did that, she turned them so that Chuck's back was to the shore. It would be easier to hide if all they saw was the back of his head poking out from the water. Nobody would be able to see—for instance, the look on Chuck's face right at that moment. There was a heat there, his jaw clenched, nostrils flared, and he looked like he was ready to devour her on the spot.
Instead of doing that, though, he moved her hands away from his front and shoved his trunks down, before she felt his fingers at the ties on the sides of her bikini bottoms. "Wait," she gasped, slamming her hands down over his. "Wait, don't take anything off all the way. We'll lose something and that's definitely not something we want."
Chuck laughed and shook his head. "Good point. Getting a little ahead of myself maybe."
She giggled but found it stopping quickly in her throat when his fingers wandered away from her hip to slide in between her legs then. She whimpered as she felt him applying pressure immediately, and she spread her stance, slipping even lower in the water so that her mouth slipped under the water. She breathed hard through her nose as he kept going, and when he tucked the material of her bottoms to the side to slide his fingers inside of her, she moaned, her eyes fluttering shut.
The rest of the world faded away. It was just the comforting sounds of the water lapping up against her and Chuck, and the sensations he was sending through her body as he moved his fingers in her, slowly and methodically.
She didn't know how much time passed as she just stood there enjoying the way he touched her, but when he finally slipped his fingers out of her again, she tilted her head back to lift her lips out of the water and whined his name, making him chuckle.
"Anybody on the beach yet?" he asked, and she blinked her eyes open, pushing herself up a bit more against his body and glancing over his shoulder, scanning the beach. "We're still alone."
"Good. But just in case…" His hands fell to her waist and he made her turn around, pulling her back against his front. "This might be less suspicious."
Not at all, she thought to herself. It would look just as suspicious if someone saw them facing out towards the sea, with her in front of him. But she was going to let him have it. She had a sneaking suspicion this was just what he wanted. The potential risk of this situation was maybe getting to him, but in the best way. She was going with it and she wasn't looking back.
Okay, maybe once she'd look back. Just to make sure nobody was on the beach or out in the surf yet. They were still in the clear.
But then Chuck tucked her bottoms out of the way again, and she felt him at her entrance. His chest dragged against her back as he sunk lower in the water and kissed her right between her shoulder blades. His fingers tightened at her hips as he slowly eased himself inside of her, and she found herself having to reach back and clamp her hand down on his forearm to hold on, biting her lip.
He kissed her shoulder and muttered, "Okay?"
"Yes," she gasped.
And when he was as deep as he could go, a shiver of pleasure wracked her body. He thrusted once and bumped her right in the sweetest spot immediately. And then his arm slid around her lower stomach, his other hand holding onto her thigh. Turning his face into her neck and kissing her there, she felt his hot breath fanning the cool, wet skin of her neck as he began slow, earnest thrusts into her center.
"Chuck," she moaned. He was rubbing her g-spot over and over as he moved, and as he continued, she found that her toes were no longer scraping against the sand beneath them. Without her realizing it was happening, he'd hoisted her off of her feet and held her tight against him with the arm he had wrapped around her and he was started to thrust faster.
He groaned against her, opened his mouth over her skin, and she felt his tongue stroke her even while he sank deep into her with one quick thrust.
"Oh!" she whimpered, draping her own arm over his and tightening her fingers over his hand to hold on for dear life. "Nnng, oh my God, Chuck!"
She felt the fear that someone on the beach might see them fade away then as she concentrated on the pleasure rocketing through her body. He was touching her in all the right spots, entering her at the perfect angle. Nothing else mattered.
Sarah curled her feet back around his calves and leaned her weight back into his chest, making the position that much better and she used her free hand to brace on his hip so that she had leverage. As good as his deep, long thrusts felt, she knew at the back of her mind that this couldn't last forever. It had to be quick. Really quick. Or they'd definitely be caught.
So she started bouncing on him, just shallow, quick bounces at first.
"Sarah!" he gasped out, his voice strangled. "Oh, oh God, you're amazing."
She bit her lip and shut her eyes in determination, whimpering through her nose as she really went for it, bouncing her hips harder. She didn't care what it might look like from the shore. She just wanted him. She wanted to hear him say her name like…
He cursed. "Sarah!"
God, like that.
The pressure was mounting behind her belly button, moving to between her legs. And the sex was getting good enough that she was losing control of what she was doing. She decided to let him take over then and he slipped the hand that wasn't wrapped around her to the back of her thigh. He forced her to bend her leg so that her knee was at her chest and he held it there, thrusting as fast and hard as he could under water.
All she could do was hold onto whatever part of him she could reach, whimpering and gasping, letting him carry every last bit of her weight.
He let out a harsh breath against her jaw then and slowed down, making his thrusts deep and long again. "I'm almost there…need to slow down," he gasped.
"No," she panted, reaching back with her hand to thread her fingers in his wet curls at the back of his head. "No, please. Keep going."
"I'm going to—"
"I don't care," she cut him off breathlessly. She wanted him to let himself climax. Her own finish was secondary to her and she didn't dwell on the importance of that. She couldn't. Because he immediately started up again. "Oh, yeah!" she whimpered. "Harder, baby…"
It felt different, strange under water, but she knew by the strangled sound of her name at her ear that he'd released his seed inside of her. His body shook behind hers as he whimpered, breathing hard, thrusting to empty himself all the way.
She thought he would pull out, but then he let go of her thigh to let it drop back down to the floor and she felt his fingers clumsily shove the material of her bikini away from her clitoris so that he could cover it with two fingers and press down, churning it in quick circles, his cock still buried in her from behind.
Whimpering out a curse, she clenched her lower body and pressed her sex against his fingers, shutting her eyes tightly, staying there for a good 30 seconds or so until she felt her orgasm spill through her.
She shivered in his arms and panted out his name over and over, grinding herself back against him to make the sensation last.
He finally pulled out of her and they fixed their suits, both of them turning back to the shore.
God, it was a miracle they were still alone. And it was also a miracle that her legs still worked well enough to get back to shore. Chuck's seemed to still not be working great, however, because as they got to waist-height waters, he tipped over and fell face-first into the water.
Or maybe she'd accidentally given him a two-handed shove to make him fall, resulting in her having to run the rest of the way to shore laughing and squealing as he chased her.
Somehow they'd ended up covered in sand, standing against her surfboard she'd stuck into the ground, their arms wrapped around one another, making out, and she finally pulled back, feeling that needy sensation coming back.
She didn't know if he was just that good at kissing, or if it was the lust from the sex they'd just had out in the water carried over. Either way, she grabbed her board and took his hand, pulling him up the beach with her.
"W-Wait, wait! Wait, my stuff!"
"Ugh, fine!" she groused, teasingly, waiting for him to scramble back to grab his shirt and everything he'd bundled into it.
She pinned him to the wall right beside the door that led into the bathroom, the reality of the situation hitting her right in the chest.
They were covered in sand that crusted into their wet suits and hair. And as much as she wanted to shove him onto her bed, climb on top of him, and continue what they'd started out in the French Riviera, she had to sleep in that bed later. Sand, sea water, sunscreen, and sweat would be all over her sheets and pillows, and … just no.
So instead they were here, at the entrance to the bathroom, and she was preparing herself for the unthinkable. She was…thinking about the unthinkable. Would this be the moment she let the barriers really crumble and let him in when she was most vulnerable?
She'd been falling asleep beside him now, willingly, eagerly even. And gone were those days in the beginning when she had to keep her guard up just in case he was sent after her by someone—whether the CIA or an enemy organization. She knew he was just a video game company owner, a guy who created and played games on consoles, read comic books, and protected his family. He was just a guy on vacation. And a reason, though not the biggest reason, for why she was leaving the only job she'd ever known—the only life she'd ever known—behind.
But this was still a step forward in this…relationship… that filled her with terror. Legitimate terror.
Maybe it was the time she'd been attacked a few years back. She could still remember his face as he ripped open the shower door, gun in hand. She'd gotten cocky, and she'd allowed herself to be followed back to the motel. And in a scene that was way too Hitchcockian, she'd had to battle against an armed man while naked and dripping wet. The sickening implications of that night, on top of then having to figure out how to handle the dead body on the floor of the motel bathroom, had left an unmistakable imprint on her memory.
The idea of having someone in a shower with her…
It was her safe space.
Could she do it? She wasn't sure.
And yet, she was scooting towards the door with her lips still pressed to his, reaching back to hold onto the tie of her bikini top, ready to let the garment fall away. She knew what came next. The shower would go on, she'd pull him in with her, and she'd have to push past the nerves about showering with someone else.
But just before she pulled the bikini top off, a loud ringing sound went through the bedroom and made them both jump.
"Shit," Chuck muttered against her lips. "I'm expecting this call."
"The Joystick thingy?" she asked, pulling back and smiling in understanding.
"Yeah. I think so. I'm so sorry…I'm—" He let himself drag his eyes down her body and back up again, miserable reluctance on his adorable face making her giggle. "Go ahead without me. I'll take mine when you're done. I've gotta answer the…"
"Go! It's okay…"
He scrambled towards his phone that was still wrapped up in the shirt he'd dropped on the ground at some point when they hobbled into the bedroom still making out a minute earlier.
"H-Hello? Hi! Yes, this is Charles Bartowski…"
Sarah ducked into the bathroom by herself and let out a long, relieved breath, rolling her eyes at herself where Chuck wouldn't be able to see her. She'd been so close to just biting the bullet and pulling him in there with her. Would she be stiff, skittish? Would he think something was wrong? He'd probably think he'd done something and he'd feel guilty or she'd hurt his feelings.
God. Saved by the ringing phone, she'd been.
She turned on the water and got into the shower, stripping inside where she could let the shower water run over the bikini and rinse the sand out of it, then she set it to the side and made quick work of her shower.
Part of her was a little nervous he'd finish his phone call and come into the bathroom to climb in with her anyway. She wouldn't blame him if he felt that was okay, but it'd be even worse than her having to drag him in at the beginning. At least she wouldn't be surprised.
She was an assassin.
She hated surprises.
You could ask the asshole who'd tried to shoot her in the shower a few years back.
Stepping out of the bathroom with a robe wrapped around her long, sinewy figure, still squeezing the water out of her blond waves with a hand towel, she saw that Chuck was still standing out on the balcony on the phone.
He turned to come back inside.
"Yes! That's great! Man, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it, Deacon. Anytime you need me, or-or SOLO, you just let me know, okay?" He paused when he saw her standing there, and a giant grin swept over his face. "Yeah, I'll look for your email. You said his name was Frederik?" Another pause. "Alright. Thanks. Yes! I appreciate the hell outta ya. Okay. Catch ya later."
Chuck hung up and thrust his hands out towards her, the grin on his face somehow getting bigger. There was excitement spilling out of him.
"You win the award?" she asked, widening her eyes.
"Huh? Oh! No, no no. Better!" She raised her eyebrows at that. "Well, uh…The award has more of a long-term…importance…maybe not better, but perfect for right now, while we're both enjoying this vacation."
She was very confused, and he must've been able to tell because he shook his head at himself and just explained.
"Deacon Eubanks just called me." Was she supposed to know who that was? He sounded fake. Deacon? "When SOLO was first starting out, after we put out our first game, a mutual acquaintance of mine and Deacon's contacted me, knowing my background with the Buy More and being the supervisor of the Nerd Herd. Deacon's bank in New York was dealing with some really bad hacking. They didn't want media getting wind of it because folks would come pull their money out if they found out there was a security breach. It would ruin everything, and he knew how good I was with computers, so Luther called me up and asked if I could take a look."
She must've made a face because he chuckled and shrugged. "Not to be immodest, but when I say I'm good with computers, I mean I'm…really, really good with computers. If something could be fixed, I fixed it. I had a perfect record at the Buy More. I could unhack the worst hacks. Destroyer of viruses." She giggled and shook her head in awe. Just when she thought he couldn't impress her more. "Anyway, Deacon trusted Luther—they'd been best buds since they went to Dartmouth together in, like, the 80s—and he flew me out to his bank in New York City. Within the next 10 hours or so, I massacred the hackers, blocked them out of his bank's system, strengthened their security, and rescued his whole operation. The FBI pinpointed where the hack came from and without the press getting even a whiff of anything, the threat was neutralized, the hackers arrested. Shaboom."
Sarah gaped at him. "You did all of that?"
"Yes. But that's beside the point. Deacon did the whole thing where he feels he's indebted to me for life now. He loaned me the dough to really get SOLO's operations going, helping me build the groundwork. I paid him back in full of course. And now he found out that I'm here in Nice on vacation thanks to my assistant answering the phone when he called my office, and he wants to offer up the usage of his private yacht that's docked here."
Sarah felt her jaw hit the floor practically. "Private yacht?"
"Private. Yacht." He did a dance with his eyebrows. "I mean, I'm really hooking us up here…" His voice drifted off and she realized her face had gone blank. "Unless…you don't want to? That's okay if you don't want to. We-We don't have—I just thought I'd invite you because…I don't know. It could be romantic. You know?"
She closed the distance, holding a hand out. "No, I'm just shocked, that's all. I mean, a private yacht. That's…I never thought I'd ever step foot on one of those," she said with an excited giggle. Sure, she'd just lied. She'd been on yachts. She'd blown up a yacht almost two weeks ago, hadn't she?
That wasn't something he needed to know about.
"I was thinking tomorrow night, maybe? If you're okay with that. We can get all fancied up. Ellie and Awesome can come. It'll be the coolest double date ever…on a fuckin' yacht!" he exclaimed. "The pilot will be on there, of course. And we'll have a waiting staff too. Deacon's setting the whole thing up. A guy with a boat will wait for us and he'll drive us out to where the yacht is…parked?" He winced as she giggled at him. "Whatever the term is. We'll climb on, and basically have a feast and a party."
"I'll only go if there's a live quartet," she teased with a straight face.
"Aw. Damn. He stopped short of that. Well, okay." His shoulders slumped. "I'll just third wheel with Ellie and Captain Awesome."
Sarah threw her head back with a laugh and cupped his face, kissing him. "Meeting you has been pretty incredible, Chuck Bartowski. I mean, as if you weren't enough, I get to spend a night on a private yacht?"
She was trying to figure out how any of this was real, and she decided she really couldn't.
She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him longer, feeling that heat starting to ramp up again, but then he pulled back, putting a few feet between them. "Hold-Hold on. Let me shower. Hang onto that…that drive, that need, the…that. Stay with the…don't move, don't breathe. I mean, you can do both those things, but let me just take a shower. Five minutes. At the most."
"Okay," she giggled, and he raced away from her to lock himself in the bathroom.
It was six minutes, but she wasn't really counting.
He emerged from the bathroom with a hand towel wrapped around his head the way she did sometimes when she was too lazy to dry her long hair immediately, and he wore a bath towel tied around his hips. She let her eyes drift down to that tan spot beneath his belly button, feasting on the trajectory his angular hip bones took until they disappeared under the cotton towel.
Thankfully, he distracted her from it right then by leaning his palm on the doorframe and giving her a crooked grin. "Why, hello," he hummed in a deep voice, ducking his chin, looking up at her through his long eyelashes, and smoldering with his lips and nostrils a bit.
Sarah giggled and shook her head. "Very elegant updo, Chuck."
"Oh. Thank you. It really solidifies my curls when I do this with the towel."
Laughing, she shook her head and leaned against the wall where she was scrounging through her suitcases to figure out what she needed to send to the laundry and what she could afford to wear again. "I do like those curls, whether they're, uh…solidified or not."
His face finally melted into a grin and he ripped the towel off of his head, instead using it to vigorously rub at his hair. He glanced over his shoulder at the glass door she'd opened to the balcony. "It's getting warm out there, huh? Feels good."
She tossed a blouse back into her suitcase and shut the lid before closing the distance and leaning into his side so he'd direct his attention back at her. It worked. "Mmm. There's been a bit of a chill out there the last few days so I thought I'd let some warm sea breeze in this place."
"Good idea."
He moved away from her with his hand towel to put it back in the bathroom, most likely to hang it up because he was neat and a polite guest, but she didn't care about the towel at the moment.
He'd asked her to "hang onto that drive, the need, the that" and she had. She'd felt it building as she heard his voice in the shower, some old jazz standard floating out of the cracked bathroom door. Something she'd probably heard in movies or TV shows before but couldn't place. It didn't matter. The feeling he'd awoken in her out in the waves of the sea, how eager he'd been to continue to third base in spite of technically being in public, how he'd had to persuade her to go through with it, was adding to the building pressure between her legs.
And then he'd shown up like such a dork, a goofy look on his face, the towel wrapped around his head. She didn't really know if this was who she'd always been and it was just hidden deep inside, or if she'd changed in the last few weeks, but she never could've imagined being even more turned on by such a ridiculous showcase.
Maybe it was the way he could make fun of himself without shame. There was a security in the way he behaved sometimes, and yet it wasn't ego. There were moments of self-awareness and a lack of self-esteem. But she thought these past few weeks with her had hacked away at that lack of self-esteem a bit. If what he did to her out in the water this morning was any indication…
Sarah reached out and snagged the hand towel from him before he could leave her side, tossing it away, not caring where it landed. He got the hint right away because she didn't even have to pull him back to her, he charged her, making her squeak and let out a breathless giggle with the way he lifted her up and threw her onto the bed. She landed and beamed up at him as he crawled onto the bed over her, slinging his arm under her body to pull her to the edge of the mattress as he kissed her neck, slowly moving aside the material of the robe to make room for his lips.
She let him run his mouth up and down her chest between the slit the opening robe created, and then she found she couldn't take anymore and she reached down between them to pull him up a bit and grab onto the tie of his towel.
Chuck caught her hands quickly with a, "No ya don't!" then pinned them to the mattress up by her head. He lowered his feet down next to the bed standing on the floor and leaning over her. "Keep your hands right there."
She raised her eyebrows at him as he let go of her hands and quickly pulled the sash of her robe and pushed the cotton away from her front. He leaned down even more and places a few hot kisses to her abdomen, teasing her bellybutton with his tongue.
The look he gave her, their gaze meeting over the hard planes of her fit body, made it pretty clear he intended to do that again. A shiver went through her, and she shivered yet again as he lowered himself to his knees beside the bed and held onto her hips, pulling her in so that he could cover her entrance with his mouth.
As she felt his tongue swipe over her, she gasped. It was a reflex, one that went against the selfish voice in her head screaming at her to just accept the gift, enjoy it, but she reached down and slipped her fingers into his damp curls, pulling his head back, his mouth leaving her as he sent her a questioning look. Those sweet, innocent brown eyes of us that were tinged with lust.
"Chuck," she panted. "You don't always have to focus on only my pleasure. This is just for me. But we can have sex in a way that we'll both get something out of. It doesn't have to be this as often as it is…Not-Not that I'm complaining. I'm really not complaining," she rushed out, lest he think she didn't like when he ate her out.
Chuck blinked, and then he smiled. Or maybe it was more of a smirk. "You think I'm not getting anything out of this?"
She blinked back, not really knowing what to say.
"Well, you're just going to have to deal with it, Sarah," he said then, his voice deepening. And when he licked his lips, she thought the bed and everything else had disappeared out from under her and instead she was in a pit of fire. He was definitely smirking now. "Trust me. This isn't just about your pleasure."
Sarah took a deep breath. "You trying to say pleasure begets more pleasure?"
That made him laugh, and then he lowered his mouth to her again, and he spent the next several minutes performing exquisitely. She eventually lifted her legs and propped her feet on his shoulders, letting her legs fall wide open for him, and she had to twist her fists in the covers up by her head to hold on and keep from grabbing his head, breaking his rule about keeping her hands away.
It felt so good in fact that she found it difficult to keep her breath, her chest heaving. And when his lips left her for a split second to most likely figure out his next plan of attack, she heard him breathe her name so reverently that a trigger went off inside of her.
And when his mouth fell to her sex again, she began to roll her hips against his face, making him growl and chuckle. It sent a delicious tingle through her body and she whimpered in ecstasy. And when his tongue slipped inside of her, she moaned his name.
That must've set him off or something because the slow sensuality of his ministrations was replaced by…the only word she could think of was that it felt like he was ravenous. He held onto her hips tightly and buried his face between her legs.
Sarah arched her back off of the bed and squirmed in pleasure, opening her mouth with a silent moan, squeezing her eyes shut tightly. She stopped thrusting to meet him, she couldn't concentrate. She was getting so close. She could feel it building quickly now.
"Chuck! Oh, God… Chuck! Hnng!"
She came and twisted her fists in the covers again, turning her face into the mattress beneath her and crying out. It pulsated through her system, making her head throb—not in pain exactly, but in a way that made her feel every flare and buzz in her brain, every rush of blood through her veins and vessels, and oh God, how did he do this?
But he wasn't stopping. He didn't stop. He just kept going, even as she broke the rule and reached down to grab onto his hair.
The second orgasm was coming much quicker than the first, but just as she reached the very edge, close to spilling over it, he pulled his mouth back and lifted her feet from his shoulders, gently easing her legs back down to hang off of the mattress.
Right as she blinked her eyes open in confusion, she saw him climbing up to his feet. "Sarah, the pillows…" He gestured to the pillows of her bed and she understood, sitting up and scooting to the head of the bed, in the meantime shrugging her robe off and kicking it out of the way.
Chuck followed her and as she leaned back comfortably against the pillows so she was sitting up a bit, he tugged at the tie of the towel and tossed that away. Maybe he was right about her not being the only one who received pleasure from him performing oral sex on her. Because he was able to lower his hips to press against hers, and he slipped inside of her easily.
He held onto the headboard above her with one hand and buried the other under the pillows she was leaned against. Then, dropping his face into the crook of her neck, he began his slow thrusts.
Sarah gathered him up in her arms and held onto him as if he was a lifeline, and maybe he was. Maybe he had been this whole time.
Bracing her heels against the mattress, she dug in and began meeting his thrusts.
"Oh, Sarah," he groaned into her neck. "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah…"
She turned her face and smiled into his hair, before she moved her lips to his ear and played with it between her teeth to make him unleash a breathless chuckle against her skin. It sent a shiver through her to feel his breath, the heat of his mouth and teeth grazing against her shoulder then.
Sarah Walker, the once deadliest assassin the CIA had at their disposal, thought in that moment, as this man moved above her, buried inside of her, that she wished she could have this always, this sensation—not just from the way he was touching her, but with the way every last bit of her was flooded with light. And maybe there was something intoxicating about the way he wanted and needed her. She'd feel a little selfish and greedy if she didn't want and need him just as bad, if not worse.
They both knew it…and yet they hadn't talked about it.
If she dwelled too much on that fleeting thought that she wanted to feel this way specifically with him for the rest of time itself, she'd freeze, lose her rhythm, go cold…maybe she'd even run away from this.
But he didn't give her time to dwell because he chose that moment to thrust his arm under the small of her back and roll them both over so that he was the one propped against the pillows and she laid draped over him. She gasped in surprise and blushed, grinning shyly in the perfect spot beneath his jaw where he couldn't see her do it. She didn't really know why she was hit with shyness at that moment. Maybe the overwhelming obviousness that Chuck Bartowski genuinely loved when she was on top and took control had done it.
She overcame her shyness and grabbed onto his shoulder, using her grip to push herself up to sit in his lap at an angle. She shifted so she could brace her knees on either side of his hips and began to ride him with a gently lulling roll of her hips back and forth. His eyelids fluttered and he bit his lip, getting a little more comfortable against the pillows and resting his large hands on her thighs.
Sarah loved this. She loved that he so eagerly willed her to take the reins like this, laying back and letting her have her way with him. It wasn't just trust in that he felt safe with her, she felt like he trusted that she would make him feel good. He trusted that she was good at this, that she knew exactly what she was doing.
There was something so sexy about that. And sure, it stroked her ego just as surely as her hips were stroking his.
She moved her hand that wasn't gripping onto his shoulder and took one of his away from her leg, directing him to hold onto one of her breasts. He took direction very well, this self-proclaimed nerd. And she hummed deep in her chest as he began massaging her, squeezing and rubbing, playing with her nipple between his fingers. She felt that tingle where they were joined and gasped, a satisfied smile stretching slowly over her face.
Letting her fingernails lightly stroke along his abdomen, up to his chest, and back down again, she enjoyed the delicious grumble of pleasure he emitted and began to thrust faster, and then faster, faster still, slowly building up speed.
She'd been so close even before they'd joined, and with a few sharp jerks of her hips, she climaxed, her head falling back as she moaned, her body shaking over his.
But Sarah didn't stop there.
She grabbed onto the headboard behind him with both hands, spread her knees a bit, and began to bounce on him.
Chuck's eyes snapped open wide and he gaped up at her. His hands fell away from her to the bed, and he held onto the covers for dear life. "Oh my God," he breathed. And then he groaned, his brow furrowing in awe, jaw still slack. "S'incredible! You're…oh shit…"
She started going faster, whimpering his name.
And just beneath the sounds of them voicing their pleasure she heard the bed springs complaining under them. And still, she kept going.
Her legs aching, she didn't let up, not even for a moment.
Not until Chuck's hands desperately grabbed at her hips and pulled her down heavily into his lap, holding her there tightly. She gasped, sending him a bit of a look, but then he jerked his hips into her a few times and she felt him release.
Her eyes fluttered shut at the warming sensation, humming quietly and then draping herself over his chest so that he could hug her close, breathing hard into her hair.
"Holy…shit," he panted, his chest heaving under hers. She slipped a hand between them to lay flat over where his heart was, feeling it pounding relentlessly against her fingertips, and she giggled. "Feel that?" he asked. "You're going to be the reason why my heart just, like, explodes one of these days. God, you are so good."
She hated how often she'd blushed in the last half hour, and yet this was just so…nice. And new. And everything she'd never thought she would get to experience ever in her life. "I could say the same about you," she panted back. "Actually, I do. I do say the same about you."
He chuckled, then took a deep breath. And then she felt him tense under her.
"What?" she asked, a little concerned. She used the little bit of energy she had left to lift her head from where she'd pushed it into the nook under his jaw to look down at him.
Chuck groaned and shook his head. "All I have is a sandy, sweaty shirt, wet, sandy trunks, and nothin' else. How'm I supposed to…go to my suite and get some clean clothes?" He rolled his eyes. "There I go thinking with my…er, not my head at least."
"Well, a different head."
She laughed hard at the way his eyes widened and his jaw fell open, amusement all over his features.
"Woooowwwww, that was raunchy."
She laughed harder and he chuckled with her, running the backs of his fingers up and down her waist even as they shared a laugh. It was such a warm and intimate thing for him to do, and this time she didn't push it aside or ignore it. She let herself melt a little.
"It's okay, Chuck," she finally said, pressing her lips to his cheek, then to his jaw. "You can wear a towel."
He laughed. "Uuuuh, no."
"Fine. I have an extra robe. Or you could wear mine," she said, biting her lip saucily.
"That was just very hot the way you did that but I'm going to pass on that as well."
A mischievous thought occurred to her then and it must've shown on her face because he gave her a suspicious look to match it. "I could always just ring up your sister. Ask her to grab you some cl—" She squealed and threw her head back in laughter as he rounded her with one arm and tried to tickle her again. "Nnnno! I've told you about the tickling!" she said through her laughter.
He chuckled and held his hands up, listening immediately. "I don't want to end up in a choke hold."
"Damn straight," she said, still laughing. She heard him make a quiet sound of reluctance as she lifted her hips to ease him out of her finally and she bit her lip to keep from smiling proudly about it.
"Where you going?" he asked then, and she made a show of looking around the room.
"Looking for your phone so I can call Ellie about grabbing your clothes."
"No you don't!" He sat up and grabbed her arm, chuckling, warm in his eyes. "You realize how mortifying that'd be, right?"
"I dunno. I think it would be kind of funny," she said, shrugging as she let him pull her in towards him.
"You do, huh?"
"Mhm." She giggled as he dove in and kissed her neck. "You can have her bring up one of those nerdy T-shirts of yours. The one with the 1950s space alien maybe? Or the Nintendo one."
He chuckled. "You like those?"
"No, I've just seen you wear them."
He burst into laughter as she stuck her tongue between her teeth and gave him a cheeky grin.
"Here, I'll get your phone and I'll call her." She dodged the swipe he made for her, yelping and cracking up as she hurried off of the bed and sprinted to where he'd left his cellphone.
She was interested in the fact that he didn't follow her. And she gave him a dubious look as she slowly reentered the bedroom. "I'm calling her right now," she chirped, "and you don't even have a lock on your phone. You're nuts for that, just fyi."
"I usually do. But my phone was acting up so I took it off for a bit. Hey, what are you doing?"
She gave him a duh look as she pulled up his address book and started scrolling through it. "Wait, why isn't Ellie in here?"
"Because I have her under Sister Ellie."
"What? Why?"
"I had an acquaintance also named and it made it easier for me to call the right one to call my sister 'Sister Ellie'. Then I deleted the acquaintance Ellie off of there because she…"
Sarah didn't catch the mumbled part at the end. "What?"
"She broke it off."
That was unexpected. "Oof. Dating a girl with your sister's name and then she does you like that? Do you want me to go find her and slap her?"
He laughed and shook his head. "Nah, it was, like, years ago. And she wasn't that great. Gave Ellies everywhere a bad name. We only went on two dates. No big."
"Why are you letting me just stand here with your phone? Seriously, I'm about to call her," she teased. "Tell her you're in my bed with nothing on and need some clothes."
He shrugged. "I don't believe you're actually gonna do it, that's why. And also, I like the view from here."
She glared, biting the inside of her cheek to keep him from seeing her amusement. And maybe she'd blushed a-freaking-gain. She went back to the phone to punish him a little, scrolling towards the S names, but then she had to stop. Because there was a name in his phone—Lou Sandwich Girl—with a smiling face emoji. If she respected him less and lived by less of a moral code, she might try to sneak and see if there was any correspondence between him and this Lou Sandwich Girl, and if so, what was it like? But she did respect him…a lot. And she also knew that would be screwed up.
"What? Why aren't you calling?"
Clearing her throat, she brought the phone up to her ear. His eyes started widening. "Hey, Ellie! No, this isn't Chuck. It's Sarah," she said, having not even clicked on Ellie's name yet, let alone called her on the phone.
"Are you really—Is she on the phone right now?"
"No, I just wanted to ask you a favor," she continued, taking a step back in case he tried to come after her and end the faux call himself.
"Did you seriously call her?" he hissed, looking gobsmacked.
"Yeah, well… Chuck took a shower here in my suite and forgot to grab fresh clothes from his suitcase so he's stuck wearing a towel right now. He was wondering if you could—Oh, Ellie, that's great! Thanks!" Sarah made a show of covering the phone and wrinkled her nose at him. "She's laughing at you."
"You actually called her, didn't you? Sarah!"
"Well I'll tell you what happened," she continued as if he'd said nothing. And she gracefully propped one knee on the end of the bed. "We went swimming and while we were out there, your brother insisted we screw each other senseless." She tossed the phone onto the mattress between them then, screen facing up so that he could see she hadn't actually made the call, and then she laughed.
She let him yank her back down onto her bed, and they ignored the phone and just about everything else for a while, instead screwing each other senseless.
I only just now realized, years later, that my manual page breaks have been disappeared by the site so I had to change them to make them more obvious. It'll be inconsistent but oh well. Thank you for reading. Excited about the yacht double date! Please review or DM if that's more comfortable for you. Thanks!
-SSC