Snowmelt Chapter 8 Part 2

On the way home, House and Maia talked about the possible motives for killing her, but came to know conclusions. They arrived at House's apartment a few minutes later. Opening the door, he walked inside in front of Maia. She stepped cautiously over the threshold and looked around.

"What? You pull down at least $15G's a month and this is how you live? In a two bedroom apartment?"

House shook his head, "One. One bedroom apartment. I have a one bedroom apartment."

She squeaked, "What? One bedroom?"She went quiet for a few seconds, trying to control her frustration, "Well, all I can say is, 'Where are you going to sleep?'"

He pointed to the living room, "It's a fairly comfortable couch. I thought you might like it."

Maia's clenched her teeth, "It's a leather couch, how comfortable can that be?" She glanced over and saw the baby grand and the other instruments, smiling when she remembered G-man playing piano for her. Before her mind actually registered it, her body went cold. Her blood drained from her head, making her feel not only oddly woozy, but foolish.

G-man?Cane?Piano?Musician? Enough money to pay for phone calls…oh crap! Please God, don't make this jerk the man who can make me come over a phone. That would be a very cruel joke.

Maia started to sway. House could see that something was wrong. She put a hand out to catch herself on the sofa but missed. House caught her as she crumbled into his arms, against his chest.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he grabbed her and led her around the sofa so she could sit down, "Are you okay?"

Her voice came out in a whisper, "Yeah, I'm okay." She looked up at him. He was staring down at her, his brow furred. Does he know? Does he know I'm Cali? Oh my God, of course he does, he slept with Jennifer. What an idiot I've been. He's been playing me.

Her eyes filled up with tears, they spilled over, down her cheeks like tiny streams. House tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. "Why are you crying? I haven't even tried to touch your breasts yet." He sat down next to her and in a voice of frustration volunteered, "Okay, I'll take the couch."

Covering her eyes, she could hardly get it out, "You're him. You're G-man."

He flinched and went quiet. Watching her continue to cry, he reached up and softly took his thumb, stroking it across her cheek to remove the tears, "I know I'm not what you were expecting—I'm probably infinitely better looking and educated—but so what?"

She looked up into his eyes, "You've been playing me. You've known for months now."

He reached over and pushed her hair behind her ear, trying hard to keep himself from saying something to scare her away, "You were kind of slow on the uptake. But you should be relieved. I've been calling you even after sleeping with the real thing."

She turned, head tilted, eyes cast down, "Yeah, out of pity, to make up for that night when you didn't want to have sex with me because you found me unappealing."

He shook his head and, clearly annoyed, yelled, "Oh for God's sake, get over yourself. It had nothing to do with your looks. I had a hard on; you think I can muster a salute for someone I'm not attracted to?"

"Your salute wasn't very snappy, it faded pretty quickly."

"Yeah, after I saw you recoil and look away in disgust. You couldn't even look me in the eye. Hell, Tommy Lee on Viagra would have had a flat tire with the way you cringed in horror."

She covered her eyes, embarrassed, "I was at my lowest. Here I am with a man who didn't really want to have sex with me, yet he was doing it so I would accept his rent money. I felt cheap. I didn't want anyone to see me like that. I especially hated myself for resorting to asking you for money." She took a deep breath, "Then when you couldn't go through with it, I felt ugly and undesirable." She shook her head and sat straight up, "I can't stay here. You've been playing me all these months. You've been laughing behind my back. And that last call? You broke my heart when you hung up." She started sobbing again, "And now, you're doing it again. I wanted what you said to me to be real and it wasn't. It was just your idea of a cruel joke."

She started to stand up, but he reached up and pulled her back down. "No, you're going to listen. I kept calling because, even after I nailed the babe in the photo, I realized it wasn't her that I wanted. You know, sex is only half the equation. I said a lot of things the other night on the phone and I meant a lot of it. Stay."

"But why?"

He was going to say something glib, but quickly checked himself. He swallowed, "I enjoy our conversations, your frankness, your flaws. You're more messed up than me, you're stubborn, you get kicked down and you come back. Even when you were soliciting me, you were fighting back, surviving. I enjoy watching the wheels in your head go round. "

She looked at him like he was crazy, "You liked the fact that I was going to sell my body for money?"

"I liked that you hit your low point and then decided to fight back. I've been there too. But we're both survivors. We're both still here."

"Greg, I don't know. You're talk good talk on the phone, but up close and personal, you can be mean and cruel."

Displaying his feelings had cost him and she wasn't getting it. He wasn't going to throw himself on the altar if she wasn't listening, "Then go, I don't need your self-righteousness crap. Here, I'll give you some money for a taxi, just make sure you get as far away on it as possible."

Maia stood up and looked down at him. He was angry, pouting. He pulled out his wallet and threw a Benjamin at her. She looked down at the money and shook her heads, "No thanks." Grabbing her bag, she walked to the door. She looked over at the piano, the bottles of liquor, the back of his head, feeling so conflicted it was making her nauseated. She had wanted him for almost a year and, here he was being handed to her on a plate. Seeing the money on the floor, a reminder of that night, Maia opened the door and walked out. When she reached the street she turned towards her side of town and started walking, almost running.

I don't understand him. He's so aggravating and needy at the same time. On the phone he's funny, sweet, sexy, kind. In person he's cruel, irreverent, brutally honest. Honest? Almost honest, he wasn't honest with me about the calls. Lies by omission. But maybe it's easier for him to be loving at arm's length, to say the things he can't in person. Oh crap, I can't be his mother.

Maia continued down the street, he pace slowing as she thought about that phone call.

"…It hurts for me to think you could ever leave my arms. I watch as your eyes grow sleepy and close. I look at your little face, the eyelashes falling on your cheeks, your breath calm and even. I want you to be safe, to be happy. I want all the pain to stay outside the door. In this bed only we exist. Only the two of us wrapped up together, warm and satisfied are in the universe. I want to wake you and tell you the things that I feel. But I can't. I can't. I can't risk it. If you don't feel the same for me, then I'd be lost. Better to have this aching, this desire to love you, than to know you don't love me back. "

His voice echoed in her head. She stopped in her tracks, Oh crap, am I really that stupid? Maia looked around. She had already walked a dozen blocks.

House sat on the couch for a few minutes trying to pull it together. He got up and grabbed the bottle of Maker's Mark, pouring a large glass. He chugged back half of it and then threw a book across the room, striking the bookcase. The doorbell rang. House quickly crossed the room without his cane, opened the door and jerked his head back in surprise.

Maia jumped forward, grabbing his face in her hands, attacking his mouth with a force that knocked him back. She kicked the door closed and started taking off his shirt, becoming frustrated when the small buttons refused to budge. She yanked, ripping the buttons off in one quick action as House still struggled to keep on his feet and kiss her at the same time.

"Crap!" he yelled as he stumbled backwards.

She didn't really hear him, she was pulling his belt off and unzipping his pants. House wanted to return the passion, but was still trying desperately to catch his balance and return her kiss at the same time. He finally backed into the couch falling over and taking her with him. They rolled off the couch onto the floor between the couch and the coffee table, House on top. He pushed the coffee table away and started kissing her. Reaching up, he grabbed a pillow off the couch and put it under her head.

In a voice, tight with the passion flowing through him, he growled, "Get your top off" and then grabbed at the edge of her top, lifting it up. She sat up, pulling the top over her head. House, seeing the round bubbly tops of her breasts, grabbed the cup of her bra, squeezing her breast until she winced, then ran his hand down her midriff to the button on her pants. Undoing the button, he watched her top go flying across the room. He tore at her pants and started pulling them down with an urgency he hadn't experienced in years. She took over, pulling her pants the rest of the way down while he fumbled with his own, jerking them over his thighs and onto the floor. Maia leaned back down, lowering herself next to him on the floor. House wasn't sure what to grab next, except that he remembered the sweet pink nipples from that night she took the pills. He wanted another look at them, but her bra was still covering them. Reaching under and unsnapping the hook in one flick of his fingers, jHouse saw her head lift up to meet his lips. His mouth was open, smothering hers as their tongues met. House felt as if he was going to burst with excitement. He tugged until the bra flew off . Continuing to kiss her, he slipped his long fingers up around her breasts. He lifted up to look down at her round, white breast in his hand. He slipped the hand down and under her ass, then around to her thigh, under the elastic of her panties and up to her mound. After he ripped her blue satin panties off, House rolled on top where she could feel his erection rubbing against her thigh.

House lifted up and grimaced, "Crap, I've got to get a condom."

"Oh no…" She dropped her head down to the floor, looking up at the ceiling. "That's a buzz kill."

"Hey, I could go commando, but probably not a good idea."

"I know, go get it."

He got up, naked, his erection throbbing as he hobbled towards the bathroom. He opened up the medicine chest and grabbed three condoms, quickly turning towards the living room. As he passed the bedroom he heard her voice from inside.

"Greg."

He turned and looked through the bedroom door, seeing a slim, perky-breasted Maia, naked and delicious, motioning with her finger for him to come to bed. He smiled, undid the condom wrapper and dressed himself. Crawling up on the bed, he pulled her back with him onto the pillow. Maia giggled and ran her hand down the stubble on his face.

"I still don't believe this." She said.

"If we don't consummate this soon, I think I'm going to explode. And you know, if I do, that will be on your conscience."

"Kiss me."

He grabbed her hair gently and pulled it back so he could kiss her. She wrapped her legs around him as he slid down to suck on her strawberry pink nipples. House looked back up into her eyes. His breath caught in his throat and he couldn't understand what it was he was feeling. It was so overwhelming, so difficult. He realized that the feeling was odd only because it was so foreign; he felt joy and passion.

Maia smiled, "Greg, screw me. I don't want to wait any longer."

He parted the folds between her legs with his fingers, slipping one inside to test the waters. Maia was wet and warm. She grabbed his erection and guided him to the mouth of her vagina. He edged it inside a little at a time. Maia couldn't take anymore, she pushed down, swallowing him up inside. He let out a short gasp and closed his eyes.

She reached up and slipped her tongue into his ear, licking in circles and breathing softy as she did. The wet and the warmth of her breath made him come fast and hard. He moaned with each thrust. Maia pushed up with each thrust, swallowing him as he moaned with the force of his ejaculation. His balls exploded as he felt the orgasm push up through his penis and the rest of his body. He closed his eyes, unable to hear or see anything. She kept pushing her hips to engulf his long shaft until the orgasm had ended and the discomfort started.

"Okay, okay. Ah, ah. Okay. That's all I can take." House was trying to pull out, but Maia couldn't help herself. She masochistically clamped down again on him, sending uncomfortable almost ticklish sensations through his sensitive shaft and head. He exhaled quickly and chuckled, "You little minx."

Maia giggled and then begged, "Just a little more. Finger me." He understood. He pulled out of her and substituted his fingers making sure he rubbed her clitoris as he stabbed his fingers into the warm, wet pool of fluid that seeped out of her.

Her eyes flew open as her body flushed. She could feel her abdomen and her thighs tightened. The muscles in her vagina throbbed around his fingers. House could feel the throbbing as she cried out. "Greg, oh God, Greg, yes, yes, yes, that's it. Oh God!" The wave came and House lifted his head to watch her. He loved how her nipples hardened, her body flushed, her thighs tightened. He looked at her toes as they curled while her hips pushed up into his hand, swallowing the fingers inside of her. Everything tingled around her vagina as she continued to grip his fingers with her climax. It finally waned and she crossed her legs to keep his hand still and to stop him from rubbing any further. He pulled his hand out and kissed her over and over, excited from the sight of her orgasm.

Her breathing was still uneven, but he could feel his body calming, the exhaustion taking over. House smiled and pulled the cover over them. Maia took a deep breath to inhale his musk and the smell of their sex. She looked up, "God you smell good."

He laughed and shook his head, "You've got to be joking."

"No, between the smell of our sex and your body odor, I'm in heaven. It smells so hot."

"I want to get rid of this wet, sticky rubber, but I don't want to let you go so you're going to have to come with me to the toilet."

She giggled, "You mean I have to stay connected to you until we throw away a rubber?"

"Come on. "

"I promise to be here when you climb back in bed with me."

He rolled off the bed, pulled her ankles to drag her to the edge of the bed. She laughed like a child, then stood. Together they walked arm around each other's waist towards the bathroom. She grabbed a glass of water as he pulled the rubber off and flushed it down the toilet, then turned and, started to worry that she might want more in a few minutes. He knew that he wasn't going to be able to get it up for it for quite awhile. The constant abuse of Vicodin had made it difficult for him to recover quickly. He needed to get her out of the bathroom so he could grab a Cyalis from the medicine chest.

"Uh, why don't you go back to bed and wait for me."

"You promise you're not going to climb out that window?" she teased.

"Are you kidding, this is the first sex I've had in a year that I didn't have to pay for." He gave her a peck on the lips, turned her around and swatted her butt as she left. Maia, smiling to herself, climbed into bed, pulled the comforter up and closed her eyes while she waited.

House cleaned up a little, despite the fact that Maia found his odor to be an aphrodisiac. He popped a pill, brushed his teeth and then limped into the bedroom. Her eyes were closed and when he climbed under the covers he quickly realized that she was fast asleep. He realized that he had about fifteen minutes and then he'd be easily aroused by anything she did, such as turn in the bed, sigh, smell, lay there, not breathe. He hoped she wouldn't mind be awaken by an aroused man who had just ravished her a few minutes before.