Victory
Jack McCoy was making notes from a deposition. Claire stood silent in the doorway of his office and watched as he drove his pen over the paper, leaning his cheek on his fist. The ring on his hand caught the light from the desk lamp and as she watched he put the pen down and rubbed his eyes wearily.
He looks so tired, she thought, and a tender pain twisted in her chest, a sweet ache that told her, finally, irrefutably, that she was past the point of no return.
As if I needed any more telling. Claire'd thought all afternoon about the celebratory dinner she was sure they'd be having,, about the possibilities for brushing her hand against his as she reached for a spring roll, about the way Jack looked when he'd loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves and his hair was falling forward over one eye –
I'll have to give you a raincheck, he'd said, and walked away. And in the elevator to the parking garage Claire suddenly found tears running down her cheeks. Tears, and her Claire Kincaid, A Student (except in Art). Tears from the woman who'd fought back against Judge Thayer – and won – just because Jack McCoy was too busy to eat eggrolls and rice off a laminex table with her.
She'd sat in her car for fifteen minutes sniffling into a tissue and feeling sorry for herself and feeling like a fool and then she'd pulled the rear-view mirror over to fix her makeup and looked herself dead in the eye.
Maybe I thought everything could keep going the way it had been, that it would all be fine, Claire thought, but I have been fooling myself.
Jack knows. Jack knows we can't keep going like this – standing here at the edge of the cliff.
He could push me over with the right word – but he doesn't.
I could push him over with the right word – but I don't.
I've been waiting for him to jump. Instead, he just stepped back from the brink.
Claire had sat in her car and taken a good hard look in the mirror and stared down into the chasm of the dark unknown and unknowable future in front of her.
Then she'd got back out of the car and headed for the Happy Dragon.
And now she stood in Jack McCoy's doorway with a plastic bag full of Chinese takeaway containers in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other.
Just jump, she told herself. Just jump.
The little twisting ache in her heart told her she was already falling. Falling in love. Too late for parachutes.
Before she could give herself the chance to back out, Claire rapped on the doorframe.
Jack looked up. " Claire?" he said. "I thought you'd gone for the night." Her stomach swooped at the sound of his voice and she had to pause to steady herself before she took a deliberate step forward, then another.
She saw his eyebrows go up as he noticed what she was carrying. "I decided that if the victor can't go to dinner, then dinner should come to the victor," she said. "Come on, make some space."
Jack moved a couple of law books and some papers and Claire put the food and wine on his desk. She busied herself unpacking the cartons, careful not to look up, afraid of what he'd see in her face, of what she'd see in his.
"I got kung pao chicken and egg rolls, some beef," she said, aware that her voice was a little too high and she was talking too quickly. "Those vegetables, you know the ones with vermicelli? And the pork. But I couldn't find anywhere to buy champagne glasses, so –"
"I don't mind," Jack said softly. Startled, Claire looked up. Their eyes met. Claire felt it like a physical touch, as if he had reached out and put his hand flat over her breastbone, just above her heart. Her hands shook and she dropped the bamboo chopsticks she was holding. Jack smiled, a slow, lazy smile that Claire felt all the way down to the soles of her feet, and stretched across the desk to pick the chopsticks up. He took her hand in his, placed the chopsticks in her hand and curled her fingers around them.
"Thanks," Claire whispered, staring down at her hand clasped in both of his.
"You're welcome," Jack murmured, releasing her slowly, fingers trailing across the back of her hand as he let her go. He turned to fish a couple of scotch glasses out of his desk drawer and set them on the desk. "What should we drink to?" he asked, working the cork on the champagne loose.
"Victory?" she suggested. Great. Totally lame. 'Victory'. Jack raised his glass. Claire held up her hand. "Wait, wait. No. To – to the triumph of hope over experience."
"I can drink to that," Jack said.
Claire couldn't taste the champagne but she drank it anyway. She considered sitting down, possibly a very sensible idea since her knees were close to giving way, but that would put her on the other side of the desk to Jack and stuck in a chair, and that wasn't the plan.
You can't jump off a cliff when you're stuck in a chair.
Casually, she took a step to the side and around the edge of the desk, sipping at her champagne. Her hands were still trembling. She got a little champagne at the corner of her mouth and swiped it away with her tongue, heard Jack's breath catch in his throat. Deliberately, she did it again, looked across the desk to see his gaze fixed on her mouth. "Are you hungry?" she asked. " Jack?"
"Pardon?" he said hastily.
"Are you hungry?" she asked again.
"Not as such," he said carefully. "You?"
"Not really." Claire took another step closer to him. "So much for the victory dinner."
"I promised you a raincheck," Jack reminded her.
"Can we go somewhere nice?" Claire said.
"What's wrong with the Happy Dragon?" Jack said, pretending injury.
"Somewhere with tablecloths?" Claire asked, taking another step towards him.
"Somewhere with a wine list?" Jack said. He put his glass down on the desk. Claire put her glass next to his and took the one last step that brought her to him.
I am going to kiss Jack McCoy, Claire thought. I am about to kiss Jack McCoy. Her heart gave an excited bound, almost exactly the way she had felt seeing her mother trying to sneak a cherry red bicycle with sparkly silver wheels and streamers on the handlebars into the house unseen two days before Claire's ninth birthday.
I am about to kiss Jack McCoy.
She reached out and brushed his hair back from his forehead and Jack closed his eyes at her touch, turning his head to follow her fingers. She could see the pulse beating in his neck, the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. His desire gave Claire courage. She put her hands on his shoulders and bent forward.
I am about to kiss Jack McCoy.
She touched her lips to his, the least amount of pressure that could still technically be called a kiss. For a moment neither of them moved, Claire leaning over him, Jack with his head tipped back, her hands on his shoulders, his on the arms of his chair. Then he sighed softly, his breath whispering over her lips, and Claire lost her balance.
His arms came around her and he pulled her into his lap and she was still falling, arms around his neck, the world whirling around her. She could feel his hands running over her as if having started to touch her he wanted to trace every inch of her body as soon as he could, she could feel his body beneath hers as a strong warm still point in the tornado that surrounded her, but it was all secondary to the feel of his mouth against hers, his tongue following the curve of her lips and then flickering against the roof of her mouth, every contact setting of a cascade of sparks that lit up every nerve ending in her body.
I am kissing Jack McCoy.
She was still falling as Jack ran his fingers through her hair and cupped the nape of her neck, his other hand sliding up her thigh. He broke the kiss and pressed his lips to her cheek, her jaw, her neck. Claire shivered and gasped, liquid heat building inside her, as Jack's lips moved lower and his fingers crept higher. He pulled her back to him, his kisses growing more urgent. Claire moaned against his mouth and felt him arch beneath her. His breath was coming as quickly as hers, and when she shifted and squirmed in his lap he groaned her name.
"Jack," she said, and the sound of her own voice saying his name intensified the storm within her, so she said it again and over again and heard him saying her name in return, hips bucking against her, and then there was nothing for her in the world but Jack's hands and Jack's voice and Jack's lips and she was falling and falling and crying out his name as she fell over the edge, over the cliff, into the light.
