Disclaimer: All references to House, Cameron, PPTH, Chase, Foreman, Cuddy, Wilson and the whole shebang belong to David Shore and Fox. Ok?
XIII.
"I don't want to go to work, do you?"
She hears his voice before she opens her eyes, a faint mumble into the back of her hair.
Next she feels his hands snaking around her waist. Skin on skin. He shuffles closer to her and she feels his erection in her back.
She smiled and then frowned. She couldn't anticipate what his next move might be and it frightened her a little.
She'd told him so much. He'd told her nothing.
She stretched and turned her head, bumping noses.
His eyes half closed as he studied her: "Well?"
She stifled a yawn and spoke carefully: "I always want to go to work. I'm dedicated."
He rolled his eyes and grabbed her bottom lip with his teeth, his pupils growing as she gasped.
Images past quickly through her mind. Polaroid's developing one after the other: during the night she'd reached for him, running her hand up and down his length and feeling pleased with herself as he'd bucked against her. And he'd gasped and shuddered as she'd brought him to orgasm.
He'd whispered into the dark: "I'm an old man, Cameron, I may never recover."
She propped her head up on her elbows and ran a finger across his chest, swirling the sparse hair around beneath her touch: "How would we…"
"We could pretend to be sick."
"I don't know," she muttered. The idea thrilled her to her very core. Staying in House's apartment. Staying in House's bed. Making love all day.
"Are you afraid?" He wound his wrist around hers. His eyes flashed with danger.
"No," she replied, thinking back to all the times she'd skipped class to drive Amy to her auditions.
"Come on," he said, rolling over on top of her and pinning her arms to the bed, "I used to do this all the time with…"
He stopped abruptly as her eyes widened.
He shook his head and rolled off her, moving to the edge of the bed.
She immediately felt alone without his weight beside her. At least he hadn't said her name, even if he'd thought it: "With Wilson, right?"
He nodded, guiltily, "Yeah, with Wilson."
He looked at her as he carefully rose out of the bed and pulled his shorts on. He grabbed his cane and pulled himself up. She seemed so small in his bed.
XXX
Cameron phoned early enough to catch Cuddy's answering machine. She coughed and croaked down the receiver, even though she knew that she didn't need to. She'd never taken a day off work before. Cuddy wouldn't begrudge her 24 hour's rest.
House walked back into the bedroom. He was dressed, even down to his sneakers and leather jacket.
He bent down and slid his arm around her waist: "This is what I want you to do: don't move. Stay here all morning. Naked and in my bed. And I'll be back at noon. Ok?"
"You're going to work?" She asked, surprised.
"Until noon," he dropped a kiss on the end of her nose, "But that's not the important part. Naked. In my bed. They're the points you need to remember."
She giggled and he drew breath, finally dragging himself away and going to the door.
Cameron lay back and closed her eyes, running her fingers lightly between her thighs and feeling herself dampen with the anticipation of his return.
Somewhere in the apartment she heard her cell phone ring. She stumbled to her feet and wrapped a sheet around her.
She found the phone under a cushion on the couch and the memory of sitting astride him flitted through her mind.
"Hello?"
"Allison, are you trying to kill me with worry?"
"Amy –" She began but her friend quickly interrupted.
"So, you finally pick up after I've phoned you like a hundred times! I tried to phone you at home last night and you didn't answer and I left like 10 messages and then I phoned you this morning to catch you before you got to work and they say you're sick and you're never sick and so I thought something really bad must have happened to you…and…are you ok?"
Cameron sank into the sofa. "I'm sorry."
She sometimes forgot that she had anyone looking out for her.
"I knew you were phoning on Monday I wasn't expecting –" She began curling her legs up in the sheet.
"Obviously. I was so worried. God, never do that again. Are you sick?"
"Not really," She admitted.
Amy paused, probably calculating what this meant. "Are you with him?"
"Who?" Cameron replied dumbly.
"The motorcycle riding sexy older guy?"
Cameron grinned. Unsure whether to reveal the secret.
Amy gasped: "Sugar! Just what have you been up to?"
Cameron lowered her voice. "Amy, he's just so…" she paused, her mind drifting around the various areas of his apartment where they'd touched each other, "He's so hot. It's like all of this unresolved sexual tension that's been building up inside us over all that time has suddenly been…well, resolved."
She felt a little guilty, talking about him behind his back, and in his own apartment.
Amy giggled: "I have to meet him."
Caught up in her daydream, Cameron nodded: "You'd like him. No, nobody likes him. But you might understand why I do."
"Wow, Allison, I've never heard you talk like this before," Amy sounded impressed.
Cameron smirked: "Maybe because I've never been with anyone like him before."
Amy laughed, "So, finally you're dating again. It's only been like five years. I have to meet him…on Saturday."
Dating? Where they dating? Did House actually date people?
Cameron paused. "Saturday?"
"I'm coming to see you."
"Right" Cameron's voice faltered and then she covered quickly, "Great. I can't wait to see you again."
"Good," Amy said, testing her friend a little, "So, we'll all go out for dinner together. I don't want to be a gooseberry so find me a date. Someone devastatingly handsome will do."
There was that word again: a date.
"I'll do my best," Cameron muttered feeling her confidence ebb away.
"Have fun sugar!" Amy shouted, "I love you!"
Cameron slowly closed her phone, wondering just what House would make of Amy, if she'd even be able to persuade him to meet her in the first place. If it would all end today.
She stood and wandered over to his piano, the sheet trailing behind her. She ran her fingers over the keys, pressing them so softly that no sound came out of them.
Next she perused his bookshelf, her fingers sliding down the spines of Hemingway, Murakami, Kesey, Joyce, those ever-present medical journals bound in leather that crowded her bookshelves and that she rarely looked at, dozens of thin books full of guitar chords, atlases and dictionaries – in almost every language - with page corners turned over. And, perhaps most surprisingly of all, a very old looking Bible.
Carefully, she opened the first page:
To Greg, Because someone has to believe for you, Love Grandma.
She closed it quickly, feeling like she'd intruded on something really private, but she couldn't help smiling.
She snuck it back into it's place next to a book of Betty Page images and a ring binder full of Superman comics and made her way into the kitchen.
She stopped in her tracks.
The daisy chain he'd made her yesterday circled the edge of a plate containing a chocolate muffin.
She smiled but then shivered as she caught her widened reflection in the stainless steel of the refrigerator. Her neck purple from his teeth marks, her hair a dishevelled mess, her whole being a picture of vulnerability and neediness.
What I am is what you need... I'm damaged.
Would he break her? Was he just waiting for the right moment?