A/N: Kiddies, flee. This chapter is rated 'M' for good reason and is of the S/J variety.
Chapter 19
Virginia Coast
5 October 1995
O'Neill was nowhere to be found when Sam got back to the cottage past midnight.
Only a small lamp lit the living area, filling that part of the cottage with a welcoming yellow glow, even though the place was devoid of human presence.
She was too tired to speculate on his whereabouts.
Having spent the rest of the day in several local libraries exhaustively researching the significance of Medusa in Greek mythology, all she wanted now was a long, hot bath and the welcoming softness of the guest bed.
It took all her strength to get to the bathroom, to shower and change, feeling tired but never more hopeful of their progress.
Footsteps coming from outside the front porch made her look at the door in anticipation despite herself.
Jack O'Neill came in with his brown hair thoroughly windswept, shoes in hand and pants rolled up, looking as though he'd taken a long walk along the beach.
Her heart skipped a beat.
"O'Neill," she started with false brightness, determined to ignore what had happened last night, figuring that they – or she at least – could try to behave more like the civilised adults they were.
He nodded stiffly in greeting, but studiously avoided her gaze, trudging past her without saying a word.
"I found something that might lead us somewhere," she called out, but he'd already retreated into his room.
A minute later, she heard the faints sounds of the shower running, and sank down on the sofa heavily.
What would it take to navigate the tricky waters of one Jack O'Neill?
A sound in the darkness made her sit up in bed as sudden fear gripped her chest.
It was a reminder of the night in Payner's guest lodge when fire had started to engulf the property.
Sam grabbed her weapon and crept to the window, only to see the balcony door swing open. O'Neill walked through a second later and leaned against the low porch rail, a beer bottle in his hand. Then he moved down the beach and stopped where the waves ran up to his ankles.
The relief of seeing him there was almost painful.
Against her better judgement, Sam walked out to join him, relishing the warmth of the sand and the sudden cold of the water that came a few seconds later. But the beauty of the clear night could not mask the underlying tension that still simmered between them.
She closed her eyes briefly as the first blast of the cold sea wind sucked her breath out of her.
"I'm sorr—"
"There's something you –"
They stopped awkwardly, having spoken at the same time.
"Go ahead," O'Neill gestured to her.
She wasn't going to refuse, not when he gave her the opening to put things back on track again after that impulsive disappearing act she'd pulled on him which could only have gotten him livid.
"Well, since you're awake, I guess you want to know what happened earlier at Slate's office," she began, only to be interrupted by him.
"Look, Carter, I...about earlier…do you think could we put this aside for a minute?"
Puzzlement creased her features but there was something in his earnest tone that made her pause in breathless anticipation.
It was all that she was probably going to get from him anyway. A conciliatory statement that was not quite an apology. She rushed to reassure him, suddenly wanting to forget the last night too. "Don't worry about it, I've already put it aside. What I found this afternoon in Slate's office was actually–"
She stopped at his look of confusion that had melted into an expression of dawning understanding.
"That wasn't what I meant, Carter," he said quietly.
She took a steadying breath, finding the air suddenly heavy in her lungs.
"I'm sorry about last night," he continued and sighed heavily, looking out into the shimmering waves lit by the moonlight. "It had nothing to do with you and what I said was…uncalled for."
"You were right, O'Neill," Sam said softly. "It's none of my business, and it can – should – stay that way."
In response, he wordlessly drew out his wallet and pulled out two old, creased photos that had seen better days, holding them out to her.
"Sara and Charlie."
Sara and Charlie…the two names that Tom Reese had casually dropped in that particular conversation. The two mysterious names that Janet Frasier had also mentioned. To her, they had been faceless entities, perhaps a sister, or his parents, or his wife and son…
Sam forgot to breathe, suddenly unsure of her footing in new emotional ground they seemed to be treading. She took the photos from him with tentative hands, feeling like she was trespassing forbidden boundaries despite the access he was granting her.
It was as though he'd known her for a long time, and she was still playing catching up.
"Your…wife and…son?" She hazarded a guess, tracing a finger lightly over the creases that had made white marks over their faded faces.
"My ex-wife."
He hadn't mentioned Charlie. Had Sara fought for sole custody of their son? And won?
Losing a family member had fractured her own family, estranged her brother and father, leaving all of them adrift in a bottomless well of pain and unresolved resentment. She understood the nature of that kind of loss, nodding with sympathy.
"They left?" She ventured hesitantly, remembering how her questions had led to a very different outcome that night.
He was now staring at blackness that was the sea, lost in his own thoughts. It was impossible for her to see his face. From his profile, she thought that he was smiling sardonically.
"In a manner of speaking. Charlie…died when he shot himself with my service weapon. Sara left for good not too long after that. I think you probably can guess why. It's...it's just not something I deal with easily."
A wave of unimaginable horror washed over her at the magnitude of his loss, leaving deep sorrow etched in her own beating heart. "When did this happen?"
Finally O'Neill turned to her, his face seemingly carved out of stone. "Some months ago."
"Oh god."
What man could live through such a tragedy and still stay sane? How had he coped? Had he cried when Charlie died? When they lowered his body into the grave? When Sara wept, had he wept with her, grieved with her?
What she had mistaken for tear tracks down his sculpted cheeks had merely been the pale moonlight's reflection on the lines on his face.
There was no hesitation when, in the next second, she stepped towards him and looped her arms around his neck, bringing their bodies tightly together. A moment later, she felt his trembling arms encircle her waist, clinging to her as hard as she did to him.
They stood that way for a long time, curled into each other as the waves beat a rhythmic elegy against their feet.
When Sam pulled back, she found him looking at her with an intensity that made her shiver.
"Thank you," he murmured in a low voice, then placed a chaste kiss on her lips in gratitude, not releasing his hands from her waist.
She ran her fingers slowly down his cheek then threw all caution to the wind, meeting his lips in a timid but lingering kiss that sent her into an unexpected haze of spiralling passion.
He smelt like pine, musk and the brine of the sea, tasting like the vestiges of the beer he'd drunk and of something unidentifiable that was uniquely Jack O'Neill.
She felt his surprise, then his surrender, delighting in his ardent, practiced response and his insistent caresses that seared her lips.
He responded slowly at first, then lazily slid his tongue across her lower lip. Her own snaked out, tasting him.
They needed more. Wanted more.
The kiss ignited, driven by the weeks of relentless pursuit and retreat, shattering the underlying tension that had existed between them from the very beginning.
Propelled by a multitude of emotions that each hadn't quite dared to voice yet, they devoured each other's mouths, claiming each other fiercely, brought to a place where nothing existed but them.
A screaming voice in her head caused her to pull away from him again in panicked embarrassment, knowing that she'd taken advantage of a weak moment between the both of them to satisfy a craving that she thought only he could provide.
"Look, O'Neill, I…I'm normally not like this," She paused, clearly hesitant to say what she wanted to say. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have…"
A firm hand clamped tight onto her upper arm when she tried to walk past him, pulling her roughly back into his embrace. What she saw now in his face took her breath away. The despairing hopelessness that had until then clouded his dark eyes had been replaced by a predatory glint, his handsome face now harsh with lust, longing and desire.
The air between them grew thick with tension, as thick as the heavy fog that rolled in from the sea on a misty winter's day.
"No, you shouldn't," he told her roughly, his hand still holding her arm in a tight grip.
"O'Neill-"
"My name is Jack," he growled and crushed his lips to hers. "Say it."
She echoed him, a whisper against his cheek.
Long-denied attraction pushed them into each other's arms, escalating desire fusing their lips together.
She met his searching hands eagerly with heated touches of her own, relishing the roughness of the day-old stubble that lined his face when it brushed her neck. Perhaps this just some sexual relief and comfort that they both needed. Whatever it was, it felt like a natural progression and a long desired outcome after the past few frustrating weeks of unfulfilled tension.
She moaned his name – Jack – when he shifted his lips to her neck, trailing the tip of his questing tongue down to where neck met shoulder, her sensitive skin scraped by his nibbling teeth.
He groaned his approval when her seeking hands brushed the growing bulge in his pants.
They barely made it through the balcony door and into her room, half-heartedly dusting their feet off before he was tugging hard on her sleep pants and fumbling with the double-knotted drawstring closure. Growling in impatience, she pulled off her own T-shirt then tugged his over his head. Her hands flew to undo the button-and-zip closure of his pants.
His hoarse laugh at her eagerness was a harshly-expelled breath against the side of her neck, sending tendrils of arousal down her spine.
"God, you're hot," he managed to tell her in between pants, all thoughts leaving his brain when her hands wandered down his pants. She giggled at his blunt, honest assessment, then found the shape of his erection and squeezed him through his briefs, running a single finger down its length to the tip.
He jerked against her hard, eliciting a sly grin from her. She added a second finger to her slow strokes, making him groan in need.
His mouth fell to a breast, his tongue circling the erect tip before his lips closed over it.
Sam threw her head back, granting him easy access, then watched him as he moved to lavish all his attention on her other breast.
The feel of her nails raking down his back caused his mouth to release her the tip of her breast in a sharp groan. He bucked against her and she took the opportunity to grab his hardness.
Her first stroke made him moan through gritted teeth. The second made him jerk wildly into her waiting hand.
"Sam…stop…too fast…"
With immense concentration, Jack lifted her hand off him and pushed her back against the wall hard. Having undone her pants, he now knelt before her, pulling them slowly down her legs. His lips traced the fabric's journey downwards then moved right back up, stopping at her centre.
He dipped two fingers down the waistband of her plain cotton underwear, relishing her loud gasp as he circled her sensitive flesh slowly.
He found her wet, hot and ready. It damn near killed him.
But for Sam, it was infuriatingly slow.
He was infuriating slow when all she wanted was a heady descent into oblivion.
She hauled him up without warning and kissed him hard, pushing him into the centre of the bed. "We'll have time for that later."
"Sam…I…-" He panted her name, thrilled by her reaction to his caresses, giving himself to her kiss. But before his brain went to mush, he needed to say it...she needed to know. "Sam, no…stop, stop, please."
"Talk later," she insisted, her fingers busy at his crotch.
He shivered and gasped. Relief, pleasure, and painful anticipation. Her excitement was feeding his own and he felt his head whirring and heavy from her kisses.
Jack gently wrested her fingers away before he lost all coherent thought. Her hands suddenly left his back and her mouth disconnected from him, making him feel bereft.
Carter – no, Sam, he corrected himself, was dishevelled and tousled, her lips swollen and red and her eyes glazed over. Shit, she looked like she was ready for…he gritted his teeth, stamping down the urge to continue his ministrations.
She had already sat up and was already trying to get dressed, hiding her face from him. "O'Neill, it's fine, I get your point," she said curtly.
"No! That's not what I meant!" He didn't want her to think that he was rejecting her advances when he'd in fact, wanted them. Wanted more.
"So what do you want?" Barely-concealed hurt laced her voice.
"You," he told her bluntly, relishing the flush that appeared on her skin. God, what did he want? He wanted his lips against her skin, her mouth on his…he wanted all of her.
He wanted tonight, tomorrow…the guarantee of every day and every night.
"Doesn't look like it."
She hadn't kicked his ass out yet, so he figured that had to be a good sign. Jack took a deep breath. "Sam, believe me, I want this just as much. But…I-" he trailed off, reluctant say what he thought.
How could he tell her that she was his every dream come true? Gorgeous, brilliant, sexy, so fucking capable…and way, way above and beyond his league. Would she believe him…believe someone who had very nearly taken her out a month ago?
That moment of self-doubt assailed him. He wondered for a split second if it were even possible to feel this way so soon after his divorce and his son's death, unable to shake the lingering guilt of jumping into bed with someone he'd barely known for a few weeks. Yet he couldn't deny the apparent connection, the chemistry that had slowly but surely developed between them over those intense days.
"But what?" She asked impatiently.
"But this isn't a one-night thing for me," he warned, then clarified in a softer tone. "I don't do one-night stands."
Jack sat up and moved to encircle her loosely in his arms, leaning his forehead gently against hers, their foreplay forgotten for a while. "I don't know about you, but this thing between us…it's not just a fling for me."
He was unprepared for the brilliant smile that crossed her face and the tightening of her arms around his back.
"I know. Me too. But talk later," she whispered against his chest, pushing him back onto the bed and straddled him, her hands drawing his briefs down.
He lost all coherent thought when her fingers drew light strokes down his length, then gasped and swore hard when they encircled his entire width and pulled the soft flesh over its tip.
It was game on again. They were kissing, touching, back to where they'd left off.
She opened her legs for him and pressed hard against him, feeling his thighs tensing and his hardness against her.
"Now, Jack," she growled.
No more preliminaries. He understood.
Jack thrust hard into her wetness, then withdrew until only the tip of him stayed in her, setting a steady rhythm that she caught onto quickly. With his hands on her hips, he guided her descent, changing the angle of his strokes according to her moans of approval.
She tightened her calves around his sides and drew him closer.
He felt impossibly good within her.
The world turned on its edges.
Now he was taking first seat, not losing the previous rhythm they'd both set.
His length rubbing against her internal ridges sent her into shivers of ecstasy. Sam arched into his thrusts, dragging his lips down hard to meet hers in a kiss that set them both ablaze. She moved to meet his rhythm, and ground herself against his pelvis each time he thrust deep within her.
Their wordless sounds of steadily increasing pleasure echoed through the little cottage.
Then he slowed a bit, but she refused, shifting her hands to his hips to keep him moving.
It was all too much…he was going to blow if he didn't stop.
"God...Carter… Sam," he groaned in need, then pushed himself away from her kiss. "I can't…"
"You can." She placed a light kiss on his lips and flipped him over again with surprising strength. "I'll help you."
Jack felt the world tilt and the easing of some pressure in his groin. It cleared the sensual fog in his head, at least sufficiently to shift for her as she adjusted herself atop him.
The friction he felt as she slipped onto him was excruciatingly pleasurable, nearly bringing him to the brink of release again.
But she rode him agonisingly slowly, raising herself on her shins until he was nearly out of her then slamming back down on him, building on the same rhythm that they had momentarily lost earlier.
She met his half-lidded gaze, watching him watch her, his eyes raking her body in a way that made her cheeks flame.
Then he wet his thumb with his finger and reached between them in slow circles, relishing her ragged moan of delight when he increased the pressure against her swollen flesh. The other hand circled her heavy breast, his thumb pressing, rolling her nipple into near-painful hardness.
It took her less than a minute to fall into oblivion. He put his hand to the back of her head and drew her down to meet his lips. With wordless, lengthy moans, she cried her ecstasy into his mouth while his fingers changed their rhythm, moving gently over her. Then he drew her shuddering form close to his chest, still sheathed in her heat, feeling her contractions slow and flutter around him.
Her gaze was unfocused and hazy when she looked up at him, having only just realised that he was still hard and desperately throbbing in her.
"You're so damn beautiful, Sam," he murmured into her ear, hearing her answering warm chuckle and seeing the flush of her cheeks before he gently eased her off him.
Smiling slightly at her puzzled look, he got her to roll over and lie on her front with her hips tilted upwards. Covering his body over hers, he kissed her ears, her neck and her smooth shoulders, before slipping his hand between her thighs. A long finger drew a lazy path down her centre, brushing her throbbing flesh, making her moan in pleasure.
Sam spread her legs wider for him, eagerly needing the entire length and girth of him inside her once more.
"Not yet," he whispered and smiled against her neck. He moved his lips down her back, tracing the slight ridge of her spine. His tongue followed the same path his lips had taken, the rapidly cooling wetness on her back causing delicious gooseflesh to appear on her arms. "Let's make this last."
Only god knew what it must be costing him.
Languid and deliciously limp after her orgasm, she closed her eyes and relished every touch, every caress that he made. Feeling his large hands covering her hips, she raised them slightly while keeping her pelvis down against the mattress.
He finally pressed into her again, sheathing himself to the core. Then he moved and was slamming into her hard, drawing her strangled screams as his heavy rhythmic movements forced her sensitive skin over and over again against the roughness of the mattress sheets, creating a delicious friction that soon curled into a tightening ball of sensation deep in her pelvis.
Her harsh, short breaths filled the room as she convulsed and contracted around him again; she grabbed the sheets and held on, helpless against the rolling waves of pleasure that wracked her frame. He increased the speed of his thrusts, then stilled for a second before stroking in and out again twice more. He came hard in her, groaning his release into her neck, his laboured pants matching hers.
After an indeterminate amount of time, she stirred, prompting him to roll off her gently. With unsteady hands, she mustered enough strength just to drag the quilt over their bodies.
They fell into dreamless oblivion still clutching each other.