A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews (including the lovely guest reviewer michelle), the alerts and your support. It is such great motivation to continue with the story. Writing it is still giving me a hard time, but I think I'm slowly starting to get a grip on it and the versions of Cal and Gillian I try to make alive here. So, here's the next installment. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Not mine. This is just for fun. Angsty fun, actually.
Flashback (Cal's point of view)
It begins a couple of days after Gillian left Alec.
Ever since Gillian told him that she will get divorced, Cal feels the ground sway under his feet every now and then. Literally. Sometimes he even has to steady himself because he threatens to stumble.
Their relationship has always been a mixture of respect, trust and innuendo due to the undeniable mutual attraction. Then again, the circumstances did always conveniently not allow to consider anything beyond that until her upcoming divorce gave the cards a shuffle. Well, Gillian for sure still doesn't consider anything beyond that, being occupied with finding a new home and coping with the breakdown of her marriage – the latter most probably, if not certainly, a personal failure by her sophisticated standards. As to him... Cal is stunned how much his mere knowledge that Gillian doesn't go home to another man after work any longer, the mere thought of sheer endless possibilities that weren't there before, seem to change everything.
Their personal lives rarely mingled in the past – only when push came to shove during his divorce and after Gillian and Alec lost Sophie, but a different situation means different rules, doesn't it?
Cal knows it is the wrong time because Gillian is hurt and not ready for something new. He knows (or at least assumes) he is the wrong man for her because he will never be able to live up to her standards. He also knows (or at least assumes another time and perhaps all his assumptions are wrong, but should have known better never has been a good excuse for anything) that this could be his one and only chance to make a move on her. Aside from his rather unhealthy love for playing poker and roulette, he has no addictions. Yet, his subconsciousness has obviously chosen to give him a new one. An obsession that makes his other addictions look like kids' stuff. Her.
Dr. Cal Lightman, deception expert, should know better than to listen to an inner voice that tells him to do something that has to be wrong even if it feels so right, should know better than to use proving himself right that he is not worth having Gillian as a lame excuse for going for exactly that. No matter how twisted it all is, he should be able to see the truth between the lies he keeps telling himself. But he isn't.
He only wants to make sure that she is fine, wants to check on her, maybe talk to her a bit and then head home. At least, that's what Cal persuades himself when he knocks on her door. Gillian lives in a hotel temporarily, doesn't even have a new home as yet. So, what does he expect? There is no way she can be fine, and he knows it, his idea that he will simply check on her and then leave nothing but a false pretense to see her. In private.
Cal has no plan, pushed back every nagging thought that taunted him on his way to the hotel. When Gillian opens the door, though, she looks just the right amount disheveled and shaken to immediately wake up his hunting instinct at the sight of a weakened prey – the beast waiting to be fed, his basic needs waiting to be fulfilled. He still has no plan; she still is his best friend, and he doesn't want to do anything that hurts her. If she was only the slightest bit more disheveled and shaken, sympathy would have won and nothing would have happened between them than comforting words and tender hugs. As it is, Cal's pulse quickens at the sight of her beautiful and vulnerable face. No, heading home is not going to happen soon.
Gillian isn't surprised to see him and steps aside to let him in. Only a few people know that Alec and she are separated and that she stays in this hotel. Therefore, it wasn't a wild guess that it had to be Cal when she heard the knock on the door. In a way, she expected him. When Cal walks past her, he smells a slight whiff of alcohol. A brief glimpse of the open minibar reveals that one or two of the shooters are missing although Gillian is far from being drunk, a little tipsy perhaps. She doesn't talk about it much, but Cal knows at least some bits about her family history and her father who used to drink and neglect his family in the process. It's the reason why she never gets drunk even if she likes to indulge in alcohol from time to time. Gillian doesn't ask Cal why he came by to see her. She just takes another of the shooters out of the minibar and hands it over to him.
"Suit yourself." Her voice is hoarse and raw, her eyes reddened but only a little. Gillian probably cried sometime that evening although her regular breathing tells Cal that she must have stopped a while ago. By now, she almost seems to be relaxed or at least composed.
She slumps onto the bed, leaving the choice to Cal whether he wants to sit on the one and only rather uncomfortable looking armchair or next to her. On the bed. Cal is indecisive, looking around, when he hears Gillian's sigh and watches her lay back, her legs dangling at the edge of the bed where she sat before.
Lazy, sweet, sexy... Weakened and vulnerable...
This is wrong... But it will feel so right...
Before he can give it another thought, Cal moves to sit down beside her, silencing his inner struggle for now.
"Hey." He leans back and pushes a strand of hair out of her face. "Are you okay?"
Silliest question ever. Gillian tilts her head sidewards and looks at him as if to say really? They both have to smile despite the odd circumstances, and she tilts her head some more. Maybe her movement was unwitting, caused by the ease of the moment. However, her face has just the right angle so that all Cal has to do is lean forward, close the gap and...
"What am I going to do, Cal?" she whispers.
His hand that pushed away her strand of hair still lingers on her face, and she reaches out to touch his arm. Cal hasn't taken off his jacket and knows it isn't possible, but the heat of her touch burns his skin.
And right then, right in this moment, he is dead certain that he has to leave because as much as he cares about her as a person, as his best friend, right now he doesn't care at all what she will do tomorrow, in a week, or in a month. Right now, she is his obsession, within touching distance, and all he wants is to give in to temptation.
This is wrong... But it will feel so right...
His brain is screaming commands at Cal. Move. Get out. Don't touch her. But his body simply doesn't obey.
Gillian notices the change in his facial expression and freezes, but she doesn't pull back her hand. It is all the invitation he needs.
Cal bends down and kisses her. It isn't nice; it isn't gentle. His kiss is demanding and needy and wrong and right and to his surprise she keeps up with him all the way.
And this is how it begins.
Present Day
Gillian must have ignored some speed limits and red lights on her way because Cal hears her knock on his front door much sooner than he expected.
He opens the door, and the fresh air of the night hits him along with the realization that she isn't wearing a coat. Obviously, someone came over in a hurry. Cal tried to prepare himself for a variety of possibilities when he had been waiting for Gillian – an argument, reproaches, perhaps even tears. All the time, though, he knew that it wouldn't be one of those scenarios. Her question about Emily, the weird undertone in her voice. He experienced all that before, and it doesn't mean arguing or tears. Not at all.
She stands on his doorstep and stares at him. It feels like a stand-off. If the atmosphere wasn't so tense, Cal would be tempted to laugh. As it is, he just stares back at her, weighing his options.
"Do you want to come in?" Cal eventually asks, aware that it sounds ridiculously formal and not in the least like him.
Anyway, Gillian moves forward slowly but doesn't walk past him as he anticipated but straight toward him so that he has to step back. Every step he retreats, she follows, holding eye contact until he has to turn away from her to look where he is going as not to miss the entrance to his living room. The moment Cal does that, Gillian grabs his shirt and turns him back around, their bodies colliding in the process.
By her standards, she is wearing casual clothes – jeans and a shirt. Well, definitely casual. It's cold outside; she left her house without a coat and apparently froze outside – that much Cal can tell when her upper body is pressed against his. No bra.
Gillian lets her hands drop down to his hips and then a little bit more until she reaches the hem of his shirt and slips them underneath it. Her hands are cold, and Cal flinches from the contact and from the pure excitement that flows through his traitorous body immediately.
"Gillian..."
His vision gets blurry when she moves closer to kiss him.
"Gill..."
Her lips brush his briefly right before he grabs her shoulders softly and pushes her away. She ignores him, though, her hands coming up to touch his face, and then she moves closer again. This time it's a real kiss. He could have stopped her, of course, but he is only human after all. If this is going to end badly, then he at least wants this last memory.
Their kiss deepens. He feels her, smells her, tastes her. It's a sensory overload he can't get enough of and that he doesn't want to end. Ever. But at the same time Cal is aware that for once he has to be the one of them who acts reasonable, who doesn't give in to his feelings. He has to be the one to stop this.
It can't happen again.
Not like this.
So, what do you think of Cal in this chapter? Was it okay to kiss her or shouldn't he have done it?
Next chapter: Things get even more intricate. There will be another flashback from Gillian's point of view.
(And also some more as to what happens between them in the present...)