Chapter 25 – Cuffed
Lauren paced back and forth in the hall. She found herself back in front of her room door, fingers at the handle, ready to open it. "Damn," she whispered to herself as she pulled away again, leaned back against the wall, and repeatedly hit the back of her head. The paintings shook in their frames. "Damn, damn, damn."
So far, Lauren hadn't heard any yelling coming from inside the room. There was the occasional raised voice, but no yelling. She supposed that was a good sign. She couldn't make out what was being said, but she recognized Bo's voice.
Lauren felt horrible. She felt like Lord and Mistress of the Royal Fuckwads. She should have warned Bo that this was going to happen as soon as Dyson told her about it. Bo would have had time to prepare at best, and run away at worst. And now she was inside, undergoing who knows what kind of interrogation from two Fae police detectives and a fairy queen. Lauren shook her head and bit her lip. She wondered if she should have stayed in the room and tried to control the situation – or if hearing Bo's answers would have just made things worse.
She wanted to believe that Bo was on their side. She desperately wanted to believe that simple fact – but really, what proof did she have? Bo could be playing Lauren, using her instincts and Succubus charms to make Lauren feel more important than she actually was. This could all just be one massive long con. For better or worse, questioning Bo under the power of truth-inducing handcuffs would settle things once and for all. "Damn." She smacked her head again, feeling guilty for even entertaining the thought.
The abasylr had dug into the deepest recesses of her brain, and pulled out everything she had been trying to supress since the she and Bo's first night together. Now that it was out, it was all she could think about.
The door opened, and Lauren straightened her posture. Hale and Ciara slipped out. Hale gave Lauren a cheeky wink; Ciara nodded and added a quick "I'm sorry. We'll talk later." They headed off to their respective rooms. Dyson was last, and he emerged with a big smile on his face.
"Okay. I'm satisfied," he stood next to Lauren.
"You're a dick."
"I'm a satisfied dick. We can trust her. She was a good find Lauren, nicely done."
"You're a colossal, elephantitis infested dick. And you might trust her, but she's never going to trust us again. Not after this. I'll be lucky if she'll ever even look at me again."
"I asked her if she was still interested in joining us, and she didn't say no. She said she wasn't sure. Of course, her words were more colorful than that. I think the handcuffs do more than make you tell the truth – I think they make you more articulate too…"
"Did she punch you when you uncuffed her? I hope she did. Hard. In your…"
"In my elephantitis infected dick, yes I get it. You're pissed off." He sighed. "I'm sorry Lauren, but if we hadn't cleared this all up, there would always be that nagging doubt. You wanted us to be a team, now we can be. I didn't ask her anything inappropriate, it was just a little bit about her past, about her partner, and the simple question, 'can we trust you?' Everything will be fine. She'll hate me, but she'll forgive you." He scratched the end of his nose, nervously, as he passed along one last bit of news. "I haven't uncuffed her yet."
"What?" Lauren slammed Dyson into the wall. "You left her in there tied to the damn chair?"
"She asked me to." Dyson straightened the collar on his vest. "She said she wanted to talk to you first."
Lauren froze, her hand still on Dyson's shoulder. She frowned. "Why?"
"I didn't ask. It's none of my business." He grabbed her shoulders, spun her around, and lightly pushed her in the direction of the door. "That's for you two to work out."
Lauren took a deep breath, and slid into the room. She was afraid to meet Bo's eyes, but she couldn't help taking a brief glance in the Succubus' direction. It was long enough to notice that Bo, secured as she was with her hands behind her back, was displaying some truly impressive cleavage. Lauren felt guilty and turned on at the same time.
Bo easily picked up on the latter. "Funny. I wouldn't have pegged you for the bondage type."
Lauren noticed the coldness in her words. There was no trace of humor. "I'm not. I'm sorry for my inappropriate response."
"The body wants what the body wants. I say 'body', because we both know it isn't your head or your heart that wants me, is it?"
Lauren flinched. She pulled a chair away from the desk, placing it backwards in front of Bo. She crossed her arms on the seatback, and placed her chin on her hands. She had no idea what to say, and no idea where to even start.
Bo glared daggers back at Lauren, not bothering to hide or disguise her fury. An alarmingly large lump appeared in Lauren's oropharynx. She didn't need to be Fae to feel the rage coming off of the Succubus in waves. She tripped over her words but managed to stutter out, "Bo, I…"
"What?" Bo snapped. "You what, Lauren? Spit it out, because I have better things to do than listen to you sputter through some half-assed apology."
"Like what?" Lauren asked, without thinking.
"Like find Kenzi and book us two tickets on the next flight back to Toronto," Bo's answer was robotic.
Lauren had forgotten about the handcuffs and their effect. She could ask Bo anything, and be told the truth. "Bo, I really am sor-"
"Fuck you." Bo lunged forward as she tugged against her restraints. "Fuck you, and fuck your apologies." Bo's voice dropped and she looked away from Lauren, instead focusing on a cigarette burn on the carpet near Lauren's foot. "I trusted you, without questioning it. Trust doesn't come easy for me. And this is what I get for it."
"Bo…"
"Look. I know how we started, with the bickering and the competition and the flirting," Bo began. Her voice had no hint of the monotone – Lauren realized that this was Bo being honest, and the words were her own. "I know it hasn't been that long. And yeah – I'm a Succubus. And yeah, I want to have sex with you. Like…all the time I want to have sex with you. Constantly. Any second of the day I'm not touching you feels like a wasted opportunity."
Lauren couldn't help but feel a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth. Wisely, she suppressed it. "It's your sex drive. It's who you are."
"Except it isn't!" Bo snapped back. She rolled her eyes in frustration, unable to find the right words to express exactly what she was thinking. An idea occurred to her. "Lauren, just ask me how I feel about you," she said. "Be direct, and maybe these damn handcuffs can be good for something."
"No," Lauren's voice was firm, hiding the fear that was rising up from the pit of her stomach.
"What do you mean 'no'? Ask me the question! I want you to understand why I'm so pissed off at you right now!"
"I don't want to know." Lauren frowned. She should just end this now, before things got worse. Before things got too deep. Before anyone really got hurt.
Bo kicked her heel against the chair leg in frustration. "Okay." She took a deep breath to summon up some courage. "That's too bad, because you're going to hear it anyway. You were, are not just another shag. The first time I saw you at the museum…the first time I felt you, when I tapped into your aura? It was electric – amazing. I hadn't ever felt anything that strong. And I didn't understand it at the time – I just knew I had to find out more about you, and see you again."
Lauren shook her head, and sighed. Bo didn't stop.
"And we did the whole back and forth thing, but all that teasing was killing me. Ask Kenzi – I was a mess. But when it finally happened, when you let me into your apartment, and your bed, and your life it kinda felt like…like…" she struggled. "Oh fuck it, it felt like home. I never thought – Lauren you don't understand, I never thought I would have that. I didn't even know that I could. I'm a Succubus, and we aren't built for romance. But you were everything. And it was unexpected, and overwhelming, and wonderful because I didn't realize what I didn't have until you were already in my life and I could see how empty it was before. And I felt so strongly – well, I guess it was okay that you didn't feel the same way because I could want it enough for the both of us."
"Bo…"
"I trusted you. I wanted us to be real. Don't try to defend yourself – if you felt the same way about me as I do about you, I wouldn't be handcuffed to this fucking chair."
"It wasn't my call! It was the only way Dyson and Ciara would agree to take you and Kenzi on – if they were allowed to question you under these circumstances. It was the only way I could get them to trust you…"
"And what about you?"
Lauren didn't answer right away. She was trying to formulate a coherent response, trying to find a way to make Bo realize that this wasn't at all what she wanted, when Bo interrupted her speeding train of thought.
"Just put me out of my misery, Lauren." Bo's eyes pleaded with Lauren as much as her words. "Rip the Band-Aid off, tell me we're done, tell me you don't want me. I don't want any of this slow motion torture."
"I can't!" She lost her cool.
"Why?"
"Because it would be a lie," she replied, weakly. She dropped her head into her hands and ran her fingers through her hair, as all traces of badass Lauren Lewis were stripped away. Bo slow-blinked, but said nothing. They sat in silence for what felt, to Lauren, like years. She finally worked up the courage to look up at Bo – the Succubus' eyes had softened considerably.
"That's what I wanted to hear." Bo went as far as to smile.
Lauren rubbed her temples. "If I let you go, do you promise not to attack me?"
Bo's face screwed up, as her mind fought the unbearable urge to tell the truth. "Define 'attack'."
Lauren's face finally broke out in a grin. The spell on the shackles was apparently lenient enough to allow arguments on semantics. "If I uncuff you, will you cause me physical pain?"
"No."
"If I uncuff you, will you cause me physical discomfort?"
"Probably." Lauren caught the flicker of blue in Bo's eyes, and it made her heart do a medically abnormal and heavy *thud*. She gulped.
"Probably, huh?"
"Yes."
"Is it the kind of physical discomfort that I might come to enjoy?"
"You have it backwards. You'll enjoy it. Then you'll come."
Bo's eyes smoldered. Lauren made a noise that sounded something like, "hurzyfrry". She tried to cover it with a cough, and patted her chest to try and legitimize the acting job. It wasn't fooling anybody. "What's your plan?" She managed to ask.
"Short term?"
"Yes," Lauren said.
Bo couldn't have lied even if she wanted to.
She didn't want to.
"You're going to come over here, and uncuff me. I'm going to stand up, stretch my arms, and act like everything is okay. I'm going to reach out and pretend like I'm giving you a forgiving hug. But really, I'm going to lift you up by those delectable thighs, and tackle you onto the bed. Before you even realize what's happened, you'll be naked, on your back, with your arms over your head. You see that bedpost?" Bo's eyes flicked toward Lauren's double bed.
"Yes," Lauren croaked.
"I'm going to wrap the chain around it, and snap your wrists into the cuffs. You won't even realize what I've done until you reach out to touch me, and discover that you can't. I'm going to show you how good it feels to give up any sense of control, and just be. If you uncuff me, I'm going to prove to you that you can trust me, and I'm going to show you how much you mean to me. But I'm not going to make it easy for you."
Lauren didn't realize that her hands had migrated to her shirt collar, and were now gently stroking her own neck. "What do you mean?"
"I'm going to take my time with you. I'm going to explore every inch of your body. I'm going to find your secret weak spots – spots you didn't even know existed before until you're writhing under me, begging for me to touch you there again and again. I'm going to run my tongue all over your skin, kissing and caressing and sucking – everywhere but that one place you'll need it the most. I'm going to have you whimpering, and pleading, and you'll be straining your arms against those cuffs, but try as you might you won't be able to move my lips and hands where you want them to go. And when you roll your hips to find that contact, I'll pull away. It will be the most erotic, most horrible form of torture you have ever felt, or will ever feel. Serious, serious physical discomfort."
Bo winked at the last part, but Lauren didn't see it. Her eyes were closed, as she ran her fingertips over her scorching skin. Dyson was right; the cuffs were certainly making Bo more articulate. "And?"
"It'll only be then – after every rational thought has escaped your brain, and nothing is left but passion and need – so much so that your body is shaking from the raw power of your own desire – only then will you feel my fingers slide inside you. Only then, will you feel my tongue circling your clit."
"Holy shit," Lauren whispered. A wave of desire hit Lauren so strongly that it caused Bo to moan at the reflected glow of it.
"And you might think, for as charged and as desperate as you are, that you'll come quick and hard."
Lauren gave an involuntary shudder.
"But you'll be wrong. Because I'll know how to play you like a piano. I'll know how to take you to the edge and keep you there, in a fog of pure sensation and complete, utter bliss. I'll take your body to heights you didn't even know were possible. And then, with one single kiss, in just the right spot, I'll send you hurtling over the edge into a screaming orgasm that you can measure in minutes, not seconds."
Lauren finally reached out and touched Bo's knee. Bo nearly lost her focus at the contact, but there was more she needed to say.
"And while you're lying there, beautiful, shaking and sweating and moaning your recovery, I'll uncuff you. And once you've come back down to Earth, I'll kiss your lips, and hold you tight against me, and stare into your eyes like you're the most precious being, human or Fae, I have ever known. And I will allow myself to admit – I could so easily see myself falling in love with you."
Lauren opened her eyes to stare at Bo.
"Now," Bo whispered. "Are you going to uncuff me?"
Lauren clenched her jaw, and though her eyes were still on the Succubus, there was a war going on between her scientific and emotional brains, her id and her ego. The smart move, the safe move, would be to walk out. To tell Dyson to come back and uncuff Bo, to never see her again and to gradually forget the way she laughed and tasted and smelled. To live every day just the same as she had before Bo walked into her life, to go back to being the single genius who played doctor and stole artifacts and kicked ass without questioning any of it. To be secure in her own self-worth. To be the center of her own universe again. That would be the smart move.
She stood, surprised that her jelly legs were able to support her weight. She crossed the short distance, to Bo. She sat on the Succubus' lap. And with expert fingers, whose skill had been honed from years of delicate procedures and surgeries, she slid the key into the shackles. She unlocked them with a click that echoed through the hotel room.
"Good choice," Bo whispered.
Bo watched Lauren's chest heave violently as she panted through the last vestiges of an orgasm that was everything Bo had promised, and more. Bo was afraid, in fact, that she might have overdone it. She'd had more experience with Fae than humans, and she wasn't sure how much a mortal heart could take. Just looking at Lauren, as the Doctor slide elegantly into post-coital bliss, Bo's own immortal heart felt like it might explode. She kissed Lauren's flushed cheeks, before lightly kissing her lips.
"Lauren?"
"Mmm…yeah?" She forced her eyelids open, and turned her head toward the Succubus.
"You okay?"
The simple question made Lauren laugh out loud. "I'm alright. Just so you know – you've skyrocketed up to number two on my 'best' list."
"Hey!" Bo gently poked her in the side. "Keep talking like that, and I'm leaving those cuffs on." She was teasing, of course, as she reached onto the nightstand to collect the keys.
"Wait," Lauren's expression turned serious. Maybe it was just the post-sexual high, drowning out her better judgment, but she didn't care. She was giving up control, totally. Bo was right. It felt amazing. "You want to ask me something, don't you? Go ahead and do it. Do it now."
"I don't think…"
"Please."
"Okay." Bo sighed, and stroked Lauren's cheek. "What are your intentions with me? Long term?"
Lauren could feel the uncontrollable urge to tell the truth coursing through her veins. She didn't mind one bit. "I'm going to do everything I can to spend every waking moment with you. I'm going to find excuses to visit your disgusting apartment, just so I can see the look on your face when you open the door and see that it's me. I'm going to learn how to make pancakes shaped like hearts, so when you spend the night I can wake you up with a breakfast in bed that will make you want to die from the cuteness of it. Every night, I'm going to drift off thinking about you in the hopes that you'll show up in my dreams. And sooner, rather than later…even though you're Fae, and I'm human, and I have issues, and I'm terrified of it…" she gulped before saying the words, "I'm going to fall in love with you. And every time I see you smile, I'm going to fall deeper."
Bo sighted, contentedly. "You do know you're perfect, right?"
Lauren rolled her eyes at the ridiculous statement. "No one is perfect, and especially not me. Now…if you don't uncuff me soon, I suspect I won't be able to lift my arms any higher than chest-level for the next few days."
"Right." Bo sheepishly grabbed the keys, and let Lauren loose. The Doctor took a few seconds to stretch and shake out the muscles and joints before wrapping her arms around Bo. "Let's just stay here," Bo said.
"In bed? Sure."
"Well yeah, that too. But I meant in Barcelona. We could survive here. I can speak a little Spanish. 'Hola seniorita. Yo queiro Taco Bell. Voulez vous couchez avec moi.'"
Lauren chuckled. "That last one was French, you dope."
"At least I got the continent right," Bo replied, somewhat defensively.
"I guess I can give you a break, just this one time. But we can't stay. I have obligations."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Ash. The Light. Being a supergenius Doctor. Whatever."
"I am sorry." Lauren brushed a stray hair from Bo's cheek. "Tell me how to make it up to you."
"I can think of one or two ways." Bo grinned mischievously. Lauren pulled her closer, ready and willing to express her gratitude to the woman she was kind of, sort of, almost definitely close to being in love with.
End of Part Two