The frantic tempest within him is reined in nearly as soon as it is let loose, but I cannot find any will to complain when Tuesti eases his initial assault into a more thorough exploration. Not one naturally inclined to passivity, I am surprised that I am perfectly content to allow his tongue to press between my lips and stroke along my own without offering even a token showing of resistance. It is almost like a dance, the way he leisurely probes and twists that adept muscle, enticing me to match his movements with subtle advances and withdrawals, and I surrender to his lead. He maps the inside of my mouth with a delicate intensity I can't recall ever being subjected to, gentle seeking flicks with the tip before flattening the appendage for broader contact and caress. He seems to gauge my reactions, however minute, to his attentions of every slick area he can reach inside of me, testing, tasting, alternately retreating and then revisiting. I feel as though I am being laid bare to him, all without removing a single article of clothing or touching anywhere other than my hands curled around his wrists, his legs a solid presence along my thighs, and his mouth, that exquisite mouth, torturing me, opening me, stealing the breath from my lungs.

It isn't enough.

Abruptly, I drop my hands from his arms and seize his hips, forcing his legs further apart as I roughly jerk him to me. The evidence of our arousals collide and then grind together as I simultaneously arch up beneath him and bodily move him to rub against me in fierce delectable friction. His worship at my mouth ceases with a deep groan, but only briefly, and he is quickly back to methodically undoing any logic or sense that has ever taken up residence in my mind. My submission starts to fray at the edges and I return his kiss with more fervent strength, seeking to overthrow the tenderness he bestows with the burning, unforgiving waves of my lust. I shove it into his mouth with my tongue, no longer compliant, no longer simply accepting his talented oral ministrations, but demanding that he succumbs to my passion, that he bends to my control.

He breaks from me with a gasped, "Tseng!"

I growl in response and immediately set to attacking the soft skin of his neck with my lips, but he leans back further out of range and my complete focus shifts to where we are still connected below the waist. My nails dig into his hips with bruising pressure as I maneuver him in an unrelenting rhythm, thrusting and pulling him to slide over me. My sight is fixated on his face and I watch his eyes roll close, a shuddering moan drawing out from his throat. He wrenches himself upright suddenly and then forward to grasp my shoulders. A burst of victorious satisfaction singes a blazing trail through my body, but it is momentary when I realize he is trying to escape, now pushing and fighting my hold.

"Tseng!"

My name is an urgent command this time, but I shake my head wordlessly and maintain the frenetic pace of our joining, angry at the composure I see settling into his features, furious that he possesses such great restraint when I have none.

He tangles a hand into my hair and yanks my head back sharply, painfully enough to penetrate the haze of desperate longing strangling my rational thought, before leaning down to put his face in front of mine and ordering in a hard tone, "Stop! Right now."

My conditioning to obeying immediate orders without question reemerges and I release him, stilling the essential violence I had forced into our movements against each other. Reluctantly, I allow him to rise up and put distance between us, when all I want is to crush him back to me. Dazed and aching from the denial, I shut my eyes to block out the sight of him, which hurts far more than the stinging in my scalp. He looks irresistible with the blush of color lighting up his skin, the swelling to his lips from the punishment they had endured, and the darkened shade of his irises that is at odds with his projected calm. As I struggle to find self-control, to reassert the reasoning and higher functioning skills of my brain, he loosens his punishing grip on my head and then massages the spot gently in silent apology.

"You are going to drive me insane," I mutter quietly, more to myself than to him.

He makes a soft consoling noise and his hand begins to run through my hair in slow, soothing strokes. "I knew it was a bad idea, getting close to you. You don't deserve to be toyed with like this."

"Why…?" I hunt for words to give voice to my bewilderment. "Why did we have to stop? Why is it so important that… that we don't fuck? For fuck's sake, Tuesti, it wouldn't be the end of the world!"

Watching the gravity in his expression war with amusement fails to provoke my customary irritation, emotionally drained and bereft as I am, and he eventually answers haltingly, "Because… I am afraid."

"Why?" I ask again, and then lower my tone in warning when I bite off in a rush, "And don't try to pull some sort of 'virgin' or 'inexperienced' card. Not after that display. I won't buy it."

He chuckles. "No, I'm not going to try that. It's you I'm afraid of, not sex."

"Me?" I scoff and shake my head. "Try again."

"Yes, you, Tseng. You terrify me, although probably not in the way you are used to causing fear," he says with careful levity, and I don't need to look to picture his sheepish smile. "But that doesn't matter. I thought you didn't come here for this?"

"It does matter, and I've changed my mind."

With a musing hum, he brings both of his hands up to cradle the back of my head and then brushes a light kiss to my forehead, causing my brow to furrow, before removing himself from the couch. I open my eyes to him approaching the sofa to my right and smoothly sitting down, his countenance as serene and affable as though we had been engaged in nothing more significant than a conversation about the weather. While I still respect his ability to appear unaffected, I can sense the stirrings of loathing for it in that moment.

"Be that as it may, allowing ourselves to become distracted by something of such little consequence could very well prove fatal for me."

Irrationally and selfishly, I want to dispute the claim, but I recognize the truth of it and I instead decide to address what the flavor I had detected in him signifies, nearly buried beneath the tang of coffee and mint, now that I am thinking clearly enough to do so. I am comforted by the annoyance I feel at the oversight, for having failed to piece together the other symptoms, even as concern seeps into my awareness. "How long have you been receiving the broad spectrum antiviral and antivenin cocktail injections?"

He stills for few beats of a second, and then responds casually, undaunted by any surprise at my assessment, "Close to five months now."

"Commissioner!" My shocked alarm is instant and intense in its potency, blotting out all other thought for a breathless moment where I feel my heart stutter in my chest, and I stare at him incredulously.

"I know it's not exactly… safe to take in the long-term, but it has already saved my life on more than one occasion and I assure you that it's a necessary risk."

"'A necessary risk'?" I repeat back mockingly. "The trials were discontinued due to the high fatality rate from a single dose."

"I'm aware of that, and the trials haven't been discontinued, not completely. There have been several breakthroughs with the testing the public doesn't know of yet."

"I am not the public. You have been testing it on yourself," I accuse scathingly. "Even if your scientists have managed to mitigate the chances of sudden heart failure, which you won't know for certain until you are dead, the damage done to your internal organs will probably take years, possibly decades, off of your life!"

My hands clench tightly into fists when he merely nods thoughtfully at my angry words, and says, "True, but again, it's necessary, and believe me, not something I decided on lightly." He suddenly flashes an innocuously charming grin at me. "I am a bit disappointed to be losing my boyish good looks so soon, though."

If he were closer, I would be throttling him right now, and it is with greater difficulty than I would like to admit that I resist the urge to rise from the couch and make the violent imagery playing out in my head a reality.

"You are absolutely stunning when you're thinking murderous thoughts, you know," he states while studying my face avidly when I remain quiet, and I can feel my blood pressure climbing to further heights.

"You need to shut up this instant, Tuesti, or poison and biological warfare will be the least of your worries."

He ducks his head in a bashful manner, likely to conceal a smirk, and then has the gall to admonish me with, "You are overreacting. Surely you never believed I would live to a ripe old age, not since I took up the mantle of leadership in a world still roiling with turmoil, and this changes little in the matter."

"With all due respect, which isn't much at the moment, Sir, there's a lot of difference between the probabilities of something happening and making sure it will occur."

"I know," he replies neutrally and regards me with a gaze I can only describe as pitying.

The bubbling ire within swells, but I shove it down as I choose another track. "You're not afraid to die and you expect to in the near future."

"…And?"

The wariness in his simple question mollifies me somewhat, but I know that the smile curving up my mouth is unpleasant with an edge of bitterness to it. I declare with even finality, "And there is no valid reason for us not to have sex."

His abrupt, delighted laughter fills the air, echoing throughout the room, before he asks with open glee, "That is your conclusion regarding my impending demise?!"

"Yes."

He shakes his head several times, chuckling, and then says, "Tseng… You are honestly a treasure, but as I have already told you, the distraction-"

"Would be far greater in continuing to resist our attraction," I finish for him. "If we get it out of the way, both of us would think clearer."

Checkmate.

After staring at me for a lengthy period of time, obviously nonplussed, he finally responds with, "That might possibly be the case…" He pauses briefly. "For myself, at least."

I frown and ask sharply, "What are you implying?"

He raises a hand up to absently run his fingertips over his beard as his eyes lose focus and he gazes blankly out into space.

"Tuesti," I prompt in a clipped tone and he looks back at me, but his expression remains distant.

"There is no need… for you to get hurt in all of this. Not any more than you already have been, anyway," he adds on wryly.

"I can handle myself."

"And exquisitely, I know, but I've always suspected the reason you don't allow anyone to be near you in any meaningful way, except for your fellow Turks, and maybe the President, is to protect yourself."

"As many people protect themselves."

"Yes, but the problem is I think you might care more than most do. When they show… your emotions are rather explosive."

"Really," I say flatly, putting as much contempt into that single utterance as I am able to show what I think of his accusation.

"Really," he confirms.

"You think I can't keep a professional distance if we become intimate."

"Yes."

"…I'm not sure I have ever been more insulted in my entire life," I counter evenly and he bursts into hearty laughter at my statement. I am beginning to notice that he seems to laugh more in my presence than in that of any other, a realization that sinks into me uneasily. "And I disagree with you completely."

"Of course you do, but that changes nothing," he replies brightly. "Now, moving on-"

"No, we're not finished with this."

"Tseng-"

"No, you have said your piece, now let me say mine."

He sighs wearily and then inclines his head in my direction. "As you wish, but allow me to remind you that the hour grows late."


(A/N: There, that's a little better. They've been doing unspeakable things up in my mind and IT HAS BEEN HIGHLY DISTRACTING.)