Chapter 4

House and Cuddy were sitting on the couch watching Beauty and the Beast for the fortieth time while Rachel alternated between watching, dancing around, and getting sleepy.

Cuddy gave him a sidelong look and said, "Sorry for kind of freaking out, by the way."

House never took his eyes of the television. He shrugged and ate a cheese puff. "That's like me saying 'Sorry for kind of being an asshole,'" he said between crunches. "It's just who you are, Cuddles… A classic freaker-outer." Cuddy didn't know whether to smile or pout. She sat there staring at Rachel. House could sense the issue was unresolved for her. "Look, I'm never gonna stop asking for what I want, Cuddy," he said returning the sideways glance, "Your time, your attention, your gluteus MAXimus… But I can take no for an answer. I know she needs you too."

Cuddy arched an eyebrow at him. This was too sensitive and reasonable. He ate another puff, looked at her and smiled. "What? I'll cajole you and hound you and possibly play a practical joke on you," he admitted, "But I know you. No one can make you do anything." Crunch crunch. "And you always do what's right… Leaving me free to fantasize about the very very wrong."

Crunch crunch.

Cuddy had to get Rachel in bed, but as she got up off the couch she spun to straddle House briefly, meeting his eyes just as he was popping another puff. "Hold that very very wrong thought," she whispered.

Crunch.

[H] [H] [H]

Cuddy was putting Rachel to bed and House was brushing his teeth, courteous enough to de-cheese puff his mouth in response to her whispered promise. He heard her come in and shut the door. He heard her go into her closet. He heard the music come on. Hells yeah.

House practically somersaulted onto the bed, stretching out with his hands behind his head. He smiled unabashedly when he saw one long, black fishnet-encased Cuddy leg slide into the closet doorframe, followed seductively by a tousled Cuddy, dressed in lingerie beneath one of his wrinkled button-downs, her cheeks flushed with the slight embarrassment she felt at the beginning of every Saturday night.

She looked at him, at his total and complete delight, and like every week it pushed her from embarrassment into show-off. She had to admit that a tiny part of her – the part that didn't graduate as valedictorian or nail the MCAT or become the youngest Dean of Medicine – actually liked being totally and completely objectified by him. She felt powerful in a completely different way. She was turning the most unflappable man into mush.

She slowly unhooked each button of the shirt, alternating from top to bottom, looking up at him and biting her lip. She opened the shirt wide, He sucked his lips in and raised his brows. She closed it tightly around her again. He frowned and furrowed his brow. As predictable as a dog. Cuddy let the shirt slide off her shoulders and drop to the floor. She leaned her back against the doorway and slid slowly down, her knees spreading apart as she sank. House made an expression that was somewhere between pain and orgasm. Cuddy stood slowly and turned, moving her hips in a figure eight that did nothing but draw attention to her ass. She peered over her shoulder and saw his glazed eyes, a slight flush, and his arms folded tightly in an attempt to control his impulses.

She spun to face him again and kicked off each heel. She sank down on her knees and started crawling toward the bed. House eagerly slid off the bed and down to the floor to meet her, his bad leg sticking out awkwardly. She put her nose right to his.

"I love Saturdays on Thursdays," he murmured.

"You get it again in just 2 more days," she purred back, straddling his lap.

"I know," he growled in her ear." But this is a tough act to follow. I hope Wilson's rehearsing." Cuddy smacked him, then leaned back into his hands that were cradling her back as he nuzzled her hair.

House slid one hand down the smoothness of her back. He took his other hand and swept her hair to one side, pressing his mouth against her skin, kissing from the cap of her shoulder inwards to her neck. He maneuvered her bra hook with one hand, eased the strap off her other shoulder, and cupped her breast as the garment fell between them. Cuddy felt a hot coil start to form low in her belly. She knew all she wanted right then and started undressing him as quickly as she could, fumbling with buttons and t-shirt neck holes and his big uncooperative noggin. He grinned at her as his face came into view again. "Cuddy, that was pretty clumsy for a stripper," he teased.

She looked at him under half-closed lids as he laid her back on the floor, moving on top of her. "I guess I need to go back to stripper school," she admitted.

House wrinkled his nose and shook his head. "Nah," he reassured her, "You just need a good tutor. And practice. A lot of practice." He slid her panties slowly down her long legs, leaving the thigh-highs untouched. There is was again – that powerful feeling. She saw him take in the length of her legs and his mouth fell open a tiny bit. His breath was heaving his chest a little, and he actually almost slurred a little when he spoke.

She intoxicated him.

House lay back down on her and slid his hands beneath her body, pulling her up against him. He felt a deep tremble in her ribcage, like a bird trying to escape. Her breath was shaky and fitful. He felt her smoothness against his bare chest and stomach.

Cuddy felt like her head might explode. She couldn't get enough oxygen. House continued to run his tongue slowly up and down her neck, and she felt his fingers slip inside of her. She couldn't hold back the whimper and she immediately felt his teeth against her neck as his kiss broke into a smile.

"What?" she gasped, her head thrown back and her pelvis grinding against his hand.

House nuzzled her cheek than began kissing down her chest and belly, his fingers still doing magic. "You're just crazy. And sexy. And fun. And retarded… And I just like it."

Suddenly she felt his mouth against her heat and she lifted her head just to bang it on the floor again, a few times over. House felt her thighs tensing. She was moving her feet back and forth, trying to cope with the tension building in her body.

"Why am I… crazy… and retarded?" she puffed out.

House couldn't get over the neuroses of this woman. Here on the brink of orgasm she still had to analyze and be defensive and make her case. He paused a half second to utter, "Because we're having a conversation right now." Cuddy nodded, getting it, and put her hands to his head in impatient encouragement.

House refocused and Cuddy felt the heat of his mouth against her again. Her face was contorting into a look of tension that mirrored what she felt in her pelvis. His hands on her hips, his lips against her, his tongue moving that perfect way… She was overcome. She arched back, feeling this bizarre urge to get away from the source of such intense pleasure, but House held her hips and kept her to him and she writhed and pulled his hair and screamed and bit her lip to keep from screaming and lifted her feet straight up and slammed them back down and in general lost all sense of the world and her orientation in it.

When it had passed she lay like a rag doll, limbs akimbo on the floor. House had his head on her thigh and was drawing things on her belly. She slowly came to her senses and then realized they were letters. R… E… T… A… She smacked his head lightly. "I'm not retarded," she said, not even giving a shit if she was. "And anyway, the politically correct term is 'cognitively impaired,'" she breathed.

C… O… She smacked him again.

"The abuse," he tsked. He stood up with a groan and looked down at Cuddy. "Get up," he said, holding his hand down toward her.

Cuddy didn't want to be roused from her post-orgasm flop, but she reluctantly reached up to his hand, grumbling, "You don't have to be so bossy."

House pulled her up and roughly pressed her against him. "So sorry," he murmured. "Ms. Cuddy, would you please stand up so I can properly fuck you?" He kissed her long, deep, and slow.

Cuddy alternated which knee went weak, and realizing he still had his pants on she went to work on his zipper. "Take your pants off," she gasped into his neck.

"Now who's being bossy…" House began, but he lost all sense of banter as Cuddy crouched to slide his pants off and he felt her mouth all around him. He couldn't hear. He couldn't breathe. The blood had all rushed away from those body parts in a whoosh that had him numb from the waist up. His head lolled back and to the side and he had to brace himself with one hand on the bed.

After a minute or two, Cuddy stood and faced him. "So sorry," she said. "Mr. House, would you please take your pants off?" She watched as his eyeballs returned to their rightful places and he had regained enough composure to speak.

House sighed. "So, you're just down there thinking up clever retorts?"

Cuddy smiled and nodded sassily. House shoved her gently and she fell back onto the bed. He slid his hands along her thighs and pulled her down to the edge. She looked at him, looking at her. She'd honestly never seen him look at anyone, or anything, that way.

House saw her skin, glowing with a slight sheen to it. He saw her lash-framed eyes, her lips swollen form the kissing. He saw the curve of every muscle. And he saw her hands clench around blankets as he pushed inside her. Cuddy wrapped her legs around his torso, letting him go deeper. She felt his back muscles against her calves. She felt him shift his weight to his good leg.

He slid his hands under her ass and lifted, making them both inhale with the pleasure of it all. Cuddy scooted further and wove her legs, still in fishnets, past his arms to lay them along his shoulders. House turned and kissed an ankle. Cuddy cried, "Mjfuioweujnbfbcbn," and her body was not her own anymore. It was a trembling, bucking, twisting home for a mind that was so completely obsessed with this man it scared her. Scared her into trying to get rid of him to feel like she had some control over her life again.

House was disappointed. He'd had at least two more positions in his head ,but she had to go and put her gorgeous legs up like that and be all orgasmic beneath him. I mean, come on. A man can only hold out so long. He put his palms on the bed and tried not to fall as his body was wracked with waves of pleasure. He couldn't stop himself. But it wasn't the fishnets, or the whimpers, or her tongue pressed along her top teeth. It wasn't her breasts, or her eyes, or even her ass that did him in.

It was the striptease blush... The fact that she'd do one every Saturday night because he'd liked the first one so much, even though it embarrassed her. And every time she appeared blushing, but kept going, he felt that amazing mix of love and lust that he'd never felt simultaneously in his life. And it scared him. Scared him into doing inane things to keep her, like researching parenting and planning fake game shows and loving a kid.

House collapsed on top of her. She ran her hand over the flanks of his back and playfully grabbed his butt. "You have a nice ass too, you know."

House pushed up onto one hand and used his other to feign emotion as he put it to his heart. "That's like Thelonius complimenting my piano skills!" he said.

"Just shut up," Cuddy ordered. House collapsed on her again. "See how it feels to be objectified?" she teased, patting his rump again.

"Mm-hmm," House mumbled into her shoulder. "I'll never denigrate you again," he mumbled against her skin.

"That's better," Cuddy said, smiling at the ludicrousness of it.

"Just admit it," House urged. "A little part of you likes when I objectify you." Cuddy stayed silent. "Admiiiit it," House sang in a teasing way.

Cuddy raised one hand and held her thumb and index finger about a half inch apart, showing House that he was right, but also just how tiny that part was. House raised his head, looked, then flopped down into her neck again. "Good," he said, satisfied. "Now that that's settled, get your hot ass up, tie on an apron, and go make me some goddamn popcorn."