A/N1 Well, folks asked for it and I had (more or less) planned it.

Thanks for the responses to the last chapter.

You can think of this as Chapter 15b, the other side of the cliffhanger.

(For David Carner)

Don't own Chuck.

Chutes and Ladders

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Follow the Leader

Sarah pulled Chuck into her apartment. He had been standing, staring, a statue. The look in his eyes: astonished desire.

Sarah enjoyed a satisfied inward smirk. My dress: a direct hit.

"Do you like it?" She twirled slowly in front of him, careful not to spin fast enough to cause the skirt to lift, at least not much. All she had beneath it was the lacy black underwear - and there was very little of it. That was a coming attraction. To let him see it now would be like reading him the final pages of a detective novel first. Sarah had been looking forward to Chuck's detective work, despite the fact that she knew what he was going to discover. She was so looking forward to him discovering it and to enjoying his reaction when he did.

Sarah gave Chuck a look, tucking her chin down and pushing a lock of softly curling hair back behind her ear.

"So, Chuck, what do you want to eat?" She kept her tone angelic but enjoyed her devilish question. Chuck opened his mouth to answer, then closed it. He opened it again and it just stayed slightly open. He made no sound.

"Chuck? Eat?"

Silence. Then, finally, a struggle, a sound. "Pp...eeeeezzzaa?"

"Was that an actual word, Chuck, or a yawp?" She could see him trying to redirect his gaze, to stop staring. He finally turned himself around and faced her closed door, his back to her. He put the wine bottle on the floor.

"Pizza, Sarah. Pizza. And I am sorry. I am usually more respectful…"

"What are you doing, Chuck?"

"I am trying to compose myself."

Sarah giggled, soft music, traceries in the air. "Why? After I went to all this trouble to discompose you?"

"The way you look, Sarah. The way you...I can't bear it. I think my heart is going to leap out of my chest - and that might be okay, 'cause as far as I can tell, all my blood has gone somewhere else, anyway…"

Sarah stepped toward him until she was pressed against his back. She leaned against him, pushing her chest into unmistakable contact with him. She felt herself respond, the telltale tightening, hardening, the increase in sensitivity. She breathed against his neck, her breath warm. She saw the blush rise on his neck. She slipped her arms around him, low, around his waist, clasping her hands just below his belt.

"That is not helping my blood relocation, Sarah. Not at all. Um...nada."

She licked her lips and put them lightly against his ear, a butterfly flutter. "I was hoping to encourage the relocation."

"But...what about dinner?" He turned in her arms and they were front to front. She was able to more fully enjoy his blood relocation. Her blood followed the path of his, flowed toward his; her center became liquid heat.

"I can wait for food, Chuck. I can't wait for you."

That seemed to free Chuck from his partial stupor. Immediately, his arms went around her and he pulled her closer to him, pushed himself against her.

They stood like that for a moment, each enjoying the feeling of the excitement and expectation that gripped them. It was not that their feelings simply coincided, two. It was that they were gripped by the same feeling, one - their attraction to each other was something real, something more than the sum of the individual feelings of attraction, something bigger than both of them.

A single dream that housed them both.

Sarah leaned back a little, both so as to look Chuck in the face and so as to press her middle against his harder. His brown eyes were banked hearth fires, smoldering. But he took the moment to step back from her and to let his gaze envelop her.

ooOoo

"Silk?" Chuck was able to ask, noting the way the fabric, intensely black, wrapped her body in highlights and shadows, graphic lines along her curving form. She was so lovely he could not breath; she was so desirable he could not think. He had no earthly idea why such a woman would want him - but she did and he was so grateful he had to blink back tears.

She noticed. Her blinking smile in response was wonderful - a reciprocation of his reaction to her. She twirled for him again, unbidden, and faster this time. He caught a flash of narrow lace and the swell of her hips. She looked at his face, delighted by his reaction, then she was back in his arms, kissing him with raw hunger, full demand.

Her hand snaked down the front of him, to his zipper, and then inside his pants. After a moment of determined exploration, he was in her hand. He was unsure if it was her hand scalding him or if he was scalding her hand. Frankly, the math did not matter. He slipped his hands below the short hem of her skirt and slid them up to grasp her hips, enabling himself to feel her and the lacy panties all at once.

She leaned her head against his shoulder and moaned with a deep, quiet intensity. "Take them off me, Chuck."

He did as she asked and, after getting them below her hips, he knelt in front of her and inched them down her legs and carefully around her heels.

"My shoes, Chuck."

He unbuckled the straps around her ankles, taking his time with the small silver buckles and the thin straps of leather. She shifted her weight so that he could remove one, then the other. He slid each off and ran his hand along the bottom of each foot as he did. He felt her tremble. He stood back up, one hand trailing along the inside of one bare leg. Her blue eyes were aflame. He had seen them ice over: this was the complete opposite. His hand came to rest beneath her skirt and her breath caught.

She stepped back. "So you like the dress?"

Chuck nodded vigorously. She laughed. "I've been saving it for a very special occasion. This is a very special occasion, Chuck."

"You look beautiful, Sarah. I have no adequate words, none."

"So I have reduced the articulate detective to inarticulateness?" She gave him an impish grin, so sexy and suggestive he almost fainted. He nodded again. She looked down at him, his open zipper. "Well, maybe not complete inarticulateness…" She stepped to him and took him in hand again. "I would say this is eloquent."

He slid his hands along her jaw and back into her long blond hair, pulling her to him and kissing her. He felt her squeeze him and felt her tongue caress his at the same time. He moaned, unable to stop it, not wanting to. He pulled the zipper of her dress down and then lifted the hem of her dress up. She let go of him long enough to lift her arms. He took the dress off her, the silk flowing like water.

She unbuttoned his shirt and took it off him. She ran one hand down his chest. He traced the lacy edges of her bra slowly, listening to her labored breathing and his own, then reached around her and unhooked it. It fell to the floor and she pressed her bare chest to his.

After another long, searing kiss, tasting one another, every moment becoming more dear to each other, striving for more perfect union, Sarah took him in hand again.

"Come to my bedroom, Chuck. Make love to me."

She gave him another squeeze then turned toward the bedroom. He could not remember how to walk. She looked back over her shoulder, her eyes teasing him. "Well, Chuck?" She started walking. He finally reestablished a connection with his feet and followed behind.

She stopped in the doorway of her room and turned back again.

"If you're enjoying the view," she said, her voice soft and Bacall, all To Have and To Have Not, "just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Chuck? Just put your lips together and...blow…"

Chuck had no thought after that but her.

A/N2 Okay, so this was all fun and no danger. And it was less a chapter on its own than the continuation of the last chapter. Still...it seemed worth a stand-alone entry (ahem) in the story. More soon. Chapter 17, "Risk".