Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Seasons 2 & 3, up to and including "Silent Night".
A/N: Thanks to everyone for all the comments and reviews; you've all been great. Here's the scene you've been asking for: Danny and Lindsay in the cabin, alone!
Disclaimer: No infringement of copyright is intended. All characters originated with CSI:NY; all song lyrics are from The Beatles.
It's A Long Journey Home
Chapter 47: I'll Always be True
Love, love me do
You know I love you
I'll always be true
So please, love me do
Oh, love me do
As Danny struggled to bring in the rest of the supplies, afraid to leave anything in the truck in case he couldn't get back out to it, Lindsay moved things around in the cabin, hopping on one foot and able to carry things in only one hand. Pain had long ago settled in her blood, so she could feel it pumping through every vein as she moved, but she set her teeth in her lips and soldiered on. As long as Danny could keep going, so could she.
By the time Danny came through the door with the last few things from the truck, he was dripping wet, and Lindsay was near tears. She vaguely remembered the cabin from family trips when she was small, and directed him to the tiny bathroom in the back of the cabin, beside a bedroom just big enough for one queen sized bed.
"Have a hot shower, Danny, or you'll catch your death. Your teeth are chattering." She didn't say that his lips were blue, but they were, and she wanted more than anything she could think of to warm them for him. However, since he had carried Lindsay in to the cabin, he had avoided her eyes as much as possible, keeping as much distance as he could in a cabin only 20 by 24 feet.
"There are towels in that blue box there, and there should be shampoo and soap in the small red one," she directed him without really looking at him, taking the coat he had stripped off and hanging it up in the corner on one of the hooks.
He nodded silently, and disappeared for ten minutes, coming back out wearing jeans and a sweatshirt Lindsay also recognized as having been Jamie's in high school. He was in bare feet, toweling his hair vigorously as he stopped in the middle of the room.
"What are you doing?" Two steps and he snatched the spoon Lindsay was stirring soup with out of her hand, and picked her up. He swung around to place her back on the couch, tucking the blankets in around her.
"Danny, I was just getting some food for us. I'm okay. You don't need to take care of me." Lindsay's voice broke as he glared down at her.
"Yeah, you're really good at doing everything for yourself, Monroe. Don't need anyone's help, do you?" He turned away before she could answer, and poured the soup into two bowls, putting one bowl on a small table beside the couch. He cut into a loaf of Diane's home-made bread, buttered one piece and placed it on a plate beside the bowl, handing Lindsay a spoon as he went and sat at the tiny table in what could be termed the kitchen.
Lindsay spooned up the soup unhappily, pretending to eat while Danny glowered at her from the other side of the room. She wasn't sure why he was angry with her.
"No," she corrected the thought almost before it had reached her consciousness. "I know exactly why he's angry with me. He came all the way out here to help me, and I keep pushing him away. And I don't even know why I do it. I deserve for him to be angry with me." She pushed the soup away.
Danny sighed. "You have to eat, Lindsay."
She turned her head away to hide the tears. "Maybe later. I think I'll have a shower."
"There isn't one. Just a bathtub." He picked up her bowl. "I'll heat this up for you later. I put the other towel in the bathroom, and the soap and stuff is there. Need a hand?" His eyes and voice were cool as he watched her pull herself up off the couch.
"I'm okay." She refused to be carried everywhere like a child, hopping slowly across the room and into the bathroom, closing the door and leaning against it, letting the tears fall.
She scooted across to the old bathtub, which was big enough for three people and far too big for the room it was in, and started filling it, stripping off the clothes her mother had brought her that morning, and into which she had struggled in one of the public washrooms in the hospital. Even the Bozeman police might have caught on if she had walked out of the hospital in a blue gown with her butt hanging out.
She slid into the hot water, gratefully letting it soothe sore and abused muscles. She soaked for a few minutes, then sat up to wash her hair, which was desperately in need of it.
She gasped when she tried to raise her left arm over her head though. She'd forgotten about that. She couldn't wash her hair with just one hand, but she was ready to pull her own hair out by the roots if it didn't get clean somehow.
That really was the final blow; she had managed everything else, but the thought of going back out into the living room with her wet hair still dirty and stringy after three days in hospital was too much. She burst into a full-fledged attack of the shaking, hysterical, crying jags.
The door flew open as her sobs penetrated to the other room, and with a shriek, she ducked under the water. Danny spun around, his eyes closed. "Uh, Lindsay? Are you okay?"
Sputtering and choking on the water she had accidentally inhaled, Lindsay sat up, water running over the side of the bath to the floor, and rested her head on the high edge of the old bathtub. Danny backed into the room, eyes still closed, one hand out, searching for her. When he touched her, he sat on the edge of the bathtub gingerly, "What's up?"
"I can't wash my hair," she whispered, so ashamed of her over-reaction she could barely get the words out.
She thought she could love him forever when he nobly refrained from laughing, although she saw his lips quiver for the briefest moment.
"Would you like some help?"
"It's okay," she started, then stopped when his body crumpled on a sigh. "Yes, please."
"Hand me the shampoo," he instructed, as he moved his way to the end of the tub.
She was to remember that as one of the most lovingly erotic moments of her life: Danny's gentle hands ran through her wet hair, first full of the vanilla and tangerine shampoo she had found in a little boutique in New York, massaging her scalp tenderly, then rinsing her hair over and over until the suds were all gone. She could feel herself relaxing under his ministrations, moaning when he moved from her head to her neck and shoulders. She snuck a look at him through her eyelashes, and had to stifle a giggle when she realized he still had his eyes closed.
"Thank you Danny," she whispered. She didn't want to break the mood, but the water was getting cold. "I'll get out now."
"Do you need a hand?" Danny stood up, one hand out, a towel in the other, waiting, eyes still courteously closed.
Slowly, Lindsay stood, water running down her body as if she has just risen from the sea. She put one arm around Danny's neck, pressed her warm naked body against his, and said against his mouth, "I need more than that."
His eyes flew open as his arms wrapped around her so tightly she could barely breathe. It didn't matter; she had lost her breath when his lips took hers, when his tongue coaxed its way in, when she felt his heart beat against her.
He groaned as she answered the heat of his kiss with her own, and lifted her out of the tub, careful not to bump her in any way. He carried her into the bedroom, where he had been making up the bed with the blankets and sleeping bags Jamie had thrown into the truck until he had heard her start to cry.
He turned and fell on the bed, carefully cradling her in his arms so that she didn't hit anything. He rolled so that she was lying on the bed beside him, running a hand down her arm and clasping her hand. He frowned when he saw the fierce bruises on her shoulder, hip, upper leg, ribs. He grabbed the
towel he still had in his hand and began to dry her off slowly, tenderly, pressing his lips to first one, then the next patch of purpled, angry skin, as he worked his way down her body. She moaned at the feel of his mouth on her, the scrape of his stubble on her warmed body.
"Lindsay," his voice was rough and hoarse as he moved back up to her ear, and she shivered at the sound of it. "Tell me now if you want me to stop."
"If you stop, I will feather you like I did that kindling," she whispered back in his ear, and he shook as he took her mouth with his again.
She melted into his body, her hands running under the sweatshirt he was wearing to touch taut muscles under heated skin. He pulled away slightly to take it off, and she moved her hands to his jeans, undoing them and pushing them off him with his help, dropping his clothes and the towel to the ground. She reached up and took his glasses off, folding them carefully and placing them on the tiny table in the corner of the room. Hands cupping his face, she kissed one eye, then the other, then worked her way down his cheeks until she was back at his mouth, which she took with a sigh.
His tongue teased, probing softly, licking first her top, then her bottom lip, sucking, nipping, then kissing her again. He had told her on the phone it could take him a lifetime to learn everything there was to know about kissing her, and he seemed to be in no hurry.
Lindsay, though, was. She had never believed it could be possible to hurt with desire, but she wanted him so badly she could hardly breath. Every place his hands touched burned, and her stomach was clenched with the need of him. "Danny, please …" she hardly knew what she was saying, rubbing up against him like a cat begging for petting.
"What? What do you want, Linds?"
Vaguely, she remembered him doing the same thing when they shared intimacies on the phone, forcing her to take the lead. She knew there was probably a reason for it somewhere, but right now it was driving her crazy: she didn't have the words for what she wanted.
She settled for action.
"Holy fuck!" Danny hissed as she engulfed his length in her hot eager mouth. His hands fisted in her hair briefly, as he bit his lip trying to control himself. She moaned around him as he slid one hand down her back, over her sweet ass, to explore her. As soon as he felt her slick wet heat on his fingers, he moved quickly, flipping her onto her back and sliding into her so deeply she thought he had pierced her to the heart.
She opened her eyes to see him staring at her, not moving, his throat working as if in pain. She arched against him, silently begging him to move, to fill her completely, to bring her the release she was longing for, but he remained locked over her, his arms braced, his eyes searching her face.
She put a hand up to his cheek, "Danny?" She bowed up against him again, desperately, and this time he moved, thrusting into her over and over until she was swept away in a tidal wave of sensation, blind and deaf to everything but the clench of her muscles around him, the heat of his body, his voice in her ear.
"Ti amo, mi innamorata. Siete la mia vita, il mio amore, la mia ogni cosa."
Slowly returning to herself, she wrapped her arms around him as he came in his turn, shuddering with the intensity of his release. She held him as he collapsed against her, held him when he pressed kisses against her cheeks, her nose, her lips. She stroked his hair when he curled against her, his head against her breast.
"I love you, Danny," she whispered under her breath.
A/N2: The story will be on hiatus for a few days: I have to have surgery and will be off-line for a while. Watch for alerts – soon, I hope – for the next chapter!