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3.

They were drunk, but not so drunk that it made the surreality of the situation any less. He couldn't even figure out why it felt so strange; hardly the first time on leave he'd headed back to his hotel with a complete stranger. Maybe the alcohol was the thing; maybe this time he was too sober? At any rate, such conversation as they managed during the walk was an argument of who'd won the bet. Such pauses as there were in the chatter couldn't get too fraught: it was mostly dark and the pavements were slick and they weren't so sober that they could afford to eyefrak instead of watch where they were going.

So, in between good-natured discussion and jocular insults, there were silences that should have been uncomfortable, but weren't. Nothing about her was uncomfortable except the intensity of effect she had on his body, the way his breath caught and his blood rose whenever he glanced sideways and caught a glimpse of her in the shine of a streetlamp or the glare of headlights passing.

It made him feel dizzy, almost; to realise that he felt so affected by her, even though the whole situation was so damned normal. The hotel door swung open before them as he waved his key at the sensor, a thing as unremarkable as an alarm clock going off, but even that felt different. It was as though there was something about automatic doors and perfectly ordinary actions that became extraordinary because of the woman beside him. That slightly dreamlike quality had accompanied him all the way from the bar, and now as he waved his key again to access the elevator, another minor miracle, he tried to shake it loose, think clearly. What the frak was going on in his head?

They stood on opposite sides of the lift, looking at each other in the dimness, saying nothing, and for the first time he wondered he could follow his own plans: one gorgeous bedmate and a few nights' escape from Apollo and Adama, and then farewell. This wasn't supposed to be special. This wasn't supposed to be dizzying, wasn't supposed to be making his throat dry or his head spin. It was supposed to be just a good frak, right? She wasn't supposed to be the kind he'd still want there when he woke up.

His mouth opened, not to change his mind, but to say something - anything - that might alter this encounter, shove it off the slippery slope of 'one-time-frak' and make it something else, when he remembered that he couldn't want anything else. Now was not the time. He had to survive one more year, and even if there could be something more to the two of them than casual sex, he wasn't sure he'd make it through that year knowing someone was waiting for him. He'd quit, he'd walk away sooner, he'd fail at his own test, because he didn't want to be there and didn't want to lose one more thing, one more person, to the Colonial Fleet.

"What?" She was looking at him, her head tilted a little to the side, eyes glinting with reflections of the panel lights.

He bit back the impulse to want to know her, confide in her. "You're gorgeous," he said, let his face slip into a hungry smile. At least this too was true.

"Lay off," she grinned, her smile turning impish. "You already convinced me."

"No line," he protested, a hand lifted towards her, as though that was all the explanation he could give. "I just... well - you are."

Her eyes flared, and he saw her shift forward, her weight on her toes, her expression both pleased and predatory. "So are you."

Just then, the lift shuddered to a stop; Lee followed her out the opening doors. There was a pause while he fumbled with damp overcoats and got the key out again and his door open, and they stood for a moment in the void, pausing before stepping over the threshold. She was looking at him, and the expression in her eyes was like an echo of his own feelings: anticipation. Confusion. Need.

Lee realised he hadn't kissed her since they left the bar, and suddenly that felt unforgivable. He closed his hands on her biceps, the keycard falling to the floor with their coats, folds of dripping fabric pooling on the stoop along with the last of his indecision: they both wanted this, and he wanted her more than he could remember wanting anyone in a long, long time. He tugged her close, dipped to kiss her, tasted ambrosia on her sudden exhalation. Her bare arms, white beside the green of her alluring little shirt, were warm in his hands and their kiss made heat blossom under her skin; heat that travelled through his fingers and pooled directly in his belly.

A few minutes of slow, incendiary kisses later, she inched back only just far enough to speak: "Think we could take this inside?"

"If I could think," he echoed, pressed his hips firmly against hers, grinned when she let out a noise that was half gasp, half laugh, "I'd probably agree that was the second best idea all night."

"Oh?" she edged away, began nudging their coats over the doorsil with her toes. "What did I come up with that's good enough to trump the idea of leaving the hallway in search of a bed?"

"Who said the best idea was yours? And anyway -" he kissed her again, slow, then bent to snatch up the keycard, and slowly straightened while trailing his lips across the narrow strip of bare skin between her jeans and shirt, "it'll be more fun to show you than explain."

---

The hotel room came alight around them as they stumbled out of the entry; the soft glow of the lamp in the corner and the subtle wall sconces making the room not bright but visible. It was just a hotel room, but somehow the light imbued it with invitation and welcome. Kara Thrace wasn't one to think in florid terms, but she drew in a breath as she saw it: dominated by the huge window that directly overlooked the sea, the room was bathed in those warm circles of illumination. The bed, half-invisible behind a low partition, looked full out into that view; it made her think of flying, the vast expanse of silver rainclouds, black sea and refracted city lights that would fill the occupant's field of vision.

Her companion stood back, looking at her; evidently he'd seen the view before, or wasn't much for landscapes. She could still feel the touch of his lips lingering over her hip, and heat shot through her. "Nice view," she commented, turning back to him where he leaned against the wall.

"Is it?" His eyes moved over her hungrily. "Want a better look?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Thought you had an idea you wanted to share with me?"

He leaned in, slid one arm around her hips and his face into her neck. "We can combine the two," he murmured against her ear, and she shivered - shuddered, almost - with the strength of her own response. "Come on."

Kara followed where he led, admiring his body, the way that he moved, the controlled strength in his gestures: Lee Adama was a prime example of something she didn't encounter all that regularly, someone who could meet her on her own terms. It had been a long time, she remembered as they circled the low wall, the side of the bed, a very long time since she'd met someone like this. Even longer since pure serendipity had led her to one: random bar, random night, random luck of a draw which, in her experience, hadn't been the most rewarding of lotteries.

Nothing about this was abnormal, but all the same, it was extraordinary; Lee seemed to know instinctively that there wasn't any need for sweet talk or dirty talk, no need to convince her or encourage her. Kara was in this room full willing, because he was the first man in - gods, was it really years? - who had treated her like neither a prize nor an object. More like a partner. Like a wing- but no. She was supposed to not be thinking about her job, and she had something else inviting to think about, very inviting - and right in front of her.

She bit her lip when Lee caught her up against him, his chest against her back, felt his lips trace the lines of her throat as he turned her to face the window. "Still like the view?"

She nodded, eyes closed, and lifted a hand to twine in his hair as she rubbed against his body. "Mmm."

"Look again."

Gods: the glass. There they were in the glass, hazy against the blackness of the rainswept sea, but easily visible in reflection. His hands were slipping up her sides, palms flat to her ribs, fingertips just slipping under the edge of her halter, then around behind her to unlace the ribbons that fastened it. Then he lifted his face from the curve of her neck, stared at her in their mirror-image as his hands drifted up and over her torso, tracing her breasts and following the straps of her shirt upwards. She felt him pause at the knot.

"Put your hands on the glass, Kara," he murmured, his voice gravelly, but his eyes were wicked, daring her on. "Shoulder high," he prompted.

She hesitated at first, then swallowed against the tide of pleasure that bolted through her, lifted one palm and then the other and placed them flat against the chilled window, the cold of the outside air warring with the heat of her skin. He bent his head to her throat again, and she felt his teeth graze sharply over her pulse point as he moved to her ear.

"Let me," he told her, tugged the lacings of her shirt undone. They both watched it fall, fluttering down in their reflection. "Let me do everything," he whispered into her neck. "Don't take your hands off the glass."

Then he bit her earlobe and Kara realized just how difficult a challenge she'd been set.

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