No one knows what Elizabeth and John get up to at Athosian parties on the mainland.
"Elizabeth..."
Her name is a growl, a low primal sound that tugs at everything inside her, and Elizabeth wants to tug right back.
They play the part of their professionalism to perfection, even in this relaxed setting. Well, Elizabeth does; John would probably be restrained and taken to see Carson if he suddenly started displaying any rigid decorum.
"Jo ― oooooh"
Her body is incandescent. It's liquid fire coiling around him and burning into ecstasy.
He grunts again, now just a series of syllables without a link between them, and she coils tighter. This is what she's driven him to.
Elizabeth sits and talks and mingles, ever the diplomat: a party is for meeting people. Growls and high-pitched shrieks of laughter burst through the din of their conversation, making them laugh in turn. The Athosian children have roped John, Ronon, Evan and a few Marines into a game of Darts vs Jumpers that Elizabeth still hasn't gotten the logistics of.
Her knees are damp and dark with the crushed moss beneath them, but she neither feels it nor cares. Her entire world is focused in the swivel of her hips, in the brush of his hands along her body, in the greedy arching of his spine as he rises to meet her ― in the friction between them that lets her just let go and fly.
They barely see each other for most of the celebrations. They chat when they can, alone or with others, but they don't need sly looks or stolen glances. Even their moments are rarely taken, and never stolen; they just are. She and John, too, in this, just are .
John is gripping her upper thighs hard enough to turn his fingers white and bite perfect little crescents into her sweaty skin. She flexes her hips harder, and he spurs her on more. His eyes flicker unsteadily between open and shut, and Elizabeth has no words to name the sounds ripping from his throat ― no words, but more than enough sensation.
This must be what going mad feels like.
She scratches her fingers up; drags her nails from his hipbone to his chest, up over his Adam's apple and finally between his lips. John nips at her, then curls his tongue between and around, and Elizabeth doesn't recognize her own voice when she groans her pleasure. Gasping, she brings her other hand up to tug at her own nipple. John grunts again to the sound of her blood rushing through her ears.
Laura and Radek have made some fireworks, for this time, and they bring them out of their jumper to fanfare that almost drowns out Rodney's complaints they hadn't asked him to be the maker, because, you know, in sixth grade... Grinning faces, warm with merriment and firelight and sweet-spicy Athosian wines, gather round to see Teyla and the other leaders light the wicks. Elizabeth laughs, bumping unsteady elbows with Lorne and the Colonel when they get jostled by the crowd. Crackles and bangs ring in the midnight, and together their echo sounds like hope.
Long curls are sticking to Elizabeth's flushed face and parted lips, and the damp, mossy ground clumps and squelches between her fingers. If you asked her ― if she asked herself ― when it was John flipped them over (or maybe it was her, getting on her hands and knees and teasing him with her spread thighs, who did the flipping), she couldn't tell you. But then it just so happens that John made her come hard on his tongue less than a few breaths ago, so she doesn't have the synapses left to ask or tell anything.
John's hands are busy. Always so busy when they're on her skin. He's gripping her breasts with one, stroking and cupping her lower stomach with the other. He's biting her shoulder. His tongue is doing the most interesting things against her spine. He's growling in her ear, and in her saner moments she'll deny categorically that all she can make out is, "Mine." He's driving inside her hard, swelling and pressing within as he releases, and she wants to scream out her own completion but it's already stolen her breath.
They collapse together, trembling in unison against warm Lantean soil. Their lips make no promises, their hands no gestures. Their bodies, unguarded, have already said it all.
No one knows what Elizabeth and John get up to at Athosian parties on the mainland, and that's the way they'll keep it for as long as they can.