6. Part 2

With a steady hand this time, Skye reached out to him, brushing the tips of two fingers against the side of his jaw, feeling the prickle of his stubble. At the gentle pressure of her touch, he turned his head the other way so that she could better see the right side of his face. His eyebrow and cheekbone were cut and the right side of his face from forehead to cheek was starting to swell, already showing the first signs of trauma.

Boyler's trays were heavy and Josh hadn't really held himself back, Sky found herself thinking with the barest hint of irritation. Lucas had been lucky, his bones were intact – had he been hit any harder, his cheekbone would have probably caved and they'd have to surgically reset it. As it was, some FreeBee cream would take care of the bruise and swelling.

She purposely avoided his eyes and he knew. Knew it from the way she so stubbornly fixed her clear blue eyes on her work, as if she was performing surgery. He knew that she was aware he was looking, because that tiny frown that had pulled her eyebrows together hadn't eased away.

Neither had the soft touch of her fingers moved from the side of his face, the pressure of her touch too gentle to be there just to keep him in place.

She was touching him because she wanted to touch him.

She didn't have to – she wanted to…

Lucas was surprised to find himself so affected by that one tentative touch that she didn't seem aware to be giving – but he was. His heart was beating harder against his chest. Not faster - just harder, as if making itself known to a bearer that had long since forgotten it, taking pleasure in hurting his ribs with its stubborn thumping.

Skye inched forward by a fraction as she delicately spread the transparent cream over his cheek and on the side of his face, taking care not to put it in t e open cut and not to hurt him by pushing too hard. Then she took a little adhesive and put it over the cut on his cheekbone.

"Done." She said, looking back into his eyes… and instantly wished she hadn't.

It was a strange feeling, looking into someone's eyes and realizing that they have been watching you the whole time. Pulling off nonchalance in those kind of situations was impossible, but Skye gave it her best shot anyway.

Predictably, she failed.

His knowing stare didn't allow for any room to hide her sudden uncomfortableness, the hyper-awareness of her surroundings.

And then, when she tried to move away from him to get rid of the blood stained gauze and the rest of the kit, he stopped her, taking her hand in his gently and studying it as if it was an equation that needed to be reconciled…

What was he…?

As if doing it casually and without the barest hint of premeditation, Lucas leaned back into his chair and since her right hand was still securely in both of his, he ended up pulling her closer until she was practically between his open legs. Skye noticed only peripherally - she was a little more preoccupied by how he was tracing her long fingers with his rough ones, as if hers was the first human palm he had seen other than his own and he was just now discovering the shape and form it.

She didn't know why panic gripped her insides every time he came this close. He was nothing but gentle, but the violence he was capable of was always pushing against her memory, as if it was a presence in the room as real as the chair he was sitting on. She just couldn't shake that feeling.

It was almost painful, the way she felt like a fly trapped in a spider's net. Every persistent beat against her breastbone intensified the panic in her, the need to escape from his reach before it was too late. She could literally feel him closing in around her like a trap, the same way she felt his scent all over her, burning inside her lungs, numbing her legs and arms.

Skye had seen this moment coming. She had predicted it, planned on it really, taken it into consideration rationally. She had steeled herself with the resoluteness of someone twice her age to do whatever was necessary given the circumstance. She had not been an innocent lamb beading to slaughter: the possibility of him wanting to do whatever he wanted with her, dangling Josh's life in the line, had been calculated since before she stepped into his presence.

Skye hadn't put it past him. Her mind went back to the bar, to how he had gripped her hand when she had tried to push him away, how persisting he had been, how unrelenting. Lucas liked getting what he wanted and he didn't make himself scruples about how he went about it. He didn't think in terms of right and wrong. If he wanted something she didn't want to give, then he would just take it.

Skye's blood curdled in her veins. In her heart she knew that there was little she wouldn't do to save Josh's life. And she suspected Lucas knew that also. The realization was cold water down her spine.

She had played herself right into his hands… and the worst of it was, she had done it willingly, because she had no other choice. Nobody else had the freedom to bargain with Lucas, the liberty to even look at him in the eye. Nobody except her.

He had probably given her that freedom to get her come and stand on this very spot in this exact moment, right where he wanted her.

It all sounded so like him...

But something else inside her, a little whisper inside her heart that was most likely the blind hope of a sixteen year old girl, kept telling her that she might be wrong, that he wouldn't do it, wouldn't go that far, wouldn't be that vicious.

He wouldn't be that much of an animal.

Please don't be…

Because she didn't want him that way. Because she didn't want to be used that way by anyone. But most of all, because if he did that, she would hate him forever… and she really didn't want to do that either.

"You have very small hands despite your long fingers. I doubt you can even hold a gun properly with these." He murmured, his fingertip following a line from her wrist to the tip of her middle finger, leaving a tingling trail in its path.

Skye went along with it, no matter how hard she was trying to keep her breathing patter steady. The oxygen in the room seemed pretty scarce at the moment. She hoped her face didn't show her alarm as much as her heart felt it.

"I can hold a gun very well, thank you. I'm a decent shot too." She said, pretending this was casual conversation. Her voice sounded distant, flat even to her own ears. He noticed, judging from the way he looked up at her, eyes inquiring, wanting to pry the answer from her without the benefit of words.

He angled his head to the side, looking at her as if searching the inside of her skull. Even his eyes were violating: his stare so intent and intelligent that despite her practice in keeping her thoughts hidden, she felt idiotically readable in front of him. Suddenly she felt so incredibly exposed, as if she was standing in front of him naked.

He smiled then so very softly, and Skye didn't know if it was her overactive imagination or not, but she felt as if he was trying to apologize with that smile.

She tried to keep her feet on the ground, not to imagine things. That was never a good sign…

And then – as unexpectedly as ever - he leaned over her hand and planted a kiss right in the center of her palm, his emerald eyes not leaving hers, making Skye's heart jump in overdrive.

She sucked in a sharp breath and pierced her lungs like a blade and kept them from working properly for a moment or three. Her insides shifted violently, the mix of fear, repulsion and exhilaration causing a strong rush of adrenaline explode in her system, which made the room spin. Her face got uncomfortably hot and she felt the need to squirm, to move, do something, anything other than just stand there!

His stubble prickled her, adding the much needed touch of reality and harshness to the impossible softness of his lips against her skin.

What was he doing?

After that, Lucas gently let her hand go and Skye took her limb back, feeling it hang down her side in a foreign way, as if he had branded it forever and now it was more his than her own.

Ridiculous!

"Yeah, I'm sure you are." He said softly, looking at her calmly, the hint of a smile in his eyes. "In fact, there's a rumor going around that you were the sniper that shot down almost a dozen of our soldiers the night of the occupation."

Skye's mind was still in overdrive and maybe that helped, because in the face of his so careless accusation she didn't even stiffen. Not because he had spoken so calmly, as if he was talking about something irrelevant in the long run, but because she knew that there was no point in either confirming or denying his words: Lucas never fished for information; whenever he actually asked something, it was for confirmation, not to get a real answer.

She simply limited herself to looking in his eyes calmly waiting for him to finish. The striking jade of his irises seemed a few shades darker now, probably because the only working light was far to their left and it weak yellow glow had difficulties in reaching them properly. I bathed him in a warm glow, lighting him in fascinating shades... yet his shadows were more threatening and prominent than the parts of him the light could reach.

That was the rule with him. He was too unpredictable, too extreme. She just couldn't wrap her mind around the contradictions he was made of.

Right now for example, he was looking at her as if they were the usual friends talking to each other at the end of the day. He seemed so peaceful as if he had shed the burden of all his extreme emotions. All the anger, the hatred, the deathly quietness of his threats, it was all gone, and Skye couldn't help but wonder, without all those shades, what was left?

Who was this person that was looking at her now?

"In fact, coincidence wanted that the bullets found in them – in the soldiers I mean – matched the ones fired from the rifle found near your body." He added casually, as if the argument only took a tiny portion of his interest.

Skye found herself confused – a feeling she should get used to because around him it seemed to happen a lot. What was the purpose of him interrogating her in this fashion - as if he was only vaguely curious, as if the fact that she had shot and killed his soldiers under nobodies orders was not even the point to this discussion.

Skye was wrenched out of her thoughts violently when his knees came together, trapping her in between thighs, holding her there. It wasn't really a constricting hold, more like a reminder of her current position. He loosened his hold a second after. The playful smile on his lips confirmed it, so did the mischievous twinkle in his eyes: he was playing with her. His amusement was vivid, the laughter he had not let out was alive in his eyes, making them dance. He leaned forward a bit and angled his head to the side. Looking up at her like that, it was the closest that Lucas Taylor would ever come to giving puppy eyes.

The thought was so preposterous that it was almost funny.

Was he teasing her?

Skye's thoughts tripped over one another.

What the…?

Did Lucas Taylor suffer from a multiple personality disorder? Sometimes he was a psycho, sometimes a violent mess, others he would smile and play like a 15 year old boy. Which was which? Skye could hardly keep track of him…

"Who taught you how to shoot, Bucket?" He asked, the same curiousness creeping back into his tone as that one time when he had asked her the story behind her nickname.

"Alicia." She responded quietly, eyes never leaving his face. "I mean, Lieutenant Washington." She corrected herself swiftly.

The humor drained from his features then, replaced by something more stinging. His eyes went cold. Did Was and Lucas have some kind of history as well? After all, Was had served with Commander Taylor for a long time, it made sense that she would know his son…

"You know her?" Skye dared to ask.

"Yes, I know her." His tone was curt, and this time she didn't dare question him. That expression over his face was the same on he got whenever his father was mentioned: something in him snapped every time Taylor was even remotely alluded to.

Skye didn't want to poke that sleeping dragon.

When his eyes snapped to her next, he had managed to hold back most of the burning intensity of his hatred, but the cold shadow of his emotions still hung around the edges of his countenance. He stared at her then, as if he was evaluating her all over again and wasn't convinced by the result in his head.

"What are you still doing here Bucket?" He asked suddenly, looking at her with a small frown that while it was not prelude to a threat, it was still less welcoming than other looks he could manage to give her.

"I want you to let Josh go." She responded factually, her tone just to the point as his had been.

Both his eyebrows reached for his hairline in disbelief and a small smile of intricate amusement – with hints of patronizing - made its way on his lips.

"Why should I?" he counteracted swiftly.

Skye almost rolled her eyes impatiently. "We've been through this, it's getting redundant."

Lucas held back from laughing in her face; that would irritate her and ruin his game, and he was enjoying playing with her, curious of where her limits were.

"You're not very good at the whole negotiating process Bucket. Usually when you demand something in that fashion, you have to be sure to have a strong upper hand: something that the other party is sure to want. That's the only way to make an exchange possible."

He had meant to sound condescending, to make her snap at him, lose her composure. He did love it when she fired up in front of him, it made her usually so soft and sweet beauty look feral. But he was disappointed because she did no such thing. Her eyes simply fixed on him and the seriousness of her in that moment was unlike anything he had ever seen on her face before. He couldn't detect a single emotion in her usually so expressive eyes. It was as if her brain was blank.

That unsettled him. All this time Lucas had been directing the conversation by taking his queues from her expressions, her emotions. But now he seemed to be lost, because she was so uncharacteristically void of any reaction.

"I do have something you're interested in." She said somberly, barely moving her lips.

He raised one eyebrow at her. "And what might that be, dear sister?" he asked skeptically, this time genuinely curious, if not a little put off by the topic of choice. The only thing he wanted was his father on his knees before him and he already knew that she couldn't give that to him. Nobody in Terranova trusted her with that kind of information because of her record as a Sixer spy.

She glared at him furiously. "Don't call me that. I'm not your sister, not even close."

Lucas rolled his eyes.

"Alright, I have a proposal: if within the next two minutes you can come up with something that truly interests me and that you can deliver, then I'll let your boyfriend go unharmed. How about that?" he said, knowing full well that whatever argument she might make on anything she thought he might want, he would be able to counteract.

He expected her to start talking then, but again, she did not. She remained there before him, silent and observing him so seriously without uttering a single word.

Suspicion rose within him.

What was she planning?

"Bucket"?

A million thoughts raced through his brain, but none of them centered on what she actually did.

This time, it was she who caught him unaware.

In swift moves that took half a second, she stepped close and with a fluidity that zeroed his thoughts and in a blink she was straddling him on the chair, sitting on his lap, hands poised on his shoulders. Her eyes were wide, a mix of shock, fear and determination; her fingers were shaking, but she fisted them on his shirt to keep him from noticing.

She had so thoroughly pulverized his brain that it took him longer than it should have to figure out what she meant to do.

Just as he was about to open his mouth to say something, her lips slanted over his, pushing his head back against the chair, her breasts meshing against his chest. She trapped his upper lip between hers and sucked gently, her lips trembling. He felt the tentative touch of her tongue against his lips, urging him to respond.

That was when he felt his insides burn and all high brain functions abandoned him.

He wasn't entirely sure what happened after that.

All he could remember was feeling as if he was too small for his own skin as a violent shiver ran down his spine, shaking him to the core. Both his hands came up to run through her hair, down her back, pushing her almost violently against him, trapping her there where he could feel as much of her as he could.

The second he opened his lips, her tongue slipped inside his mouth without hesitation, a warm and wet slide over his, tasting of certainty, of desire, making the hair on the back of his neck stand up, every inch of him lighting up as if on fire. He felt the room spin out of control just like his senses did, drunk on her, crazed with a need that seemed to blind his senses to everything that was not her.

Her arms circled his neck more firmly and he hummed, long fingers tangled in his hair and he moaned in her mouth. His insides shifted in time with every breath that expanded her chest, brushing it against his gently and then more firmly in turns. The hint of her nails scrapping against his scalp was more than he thought he could take. His world was spinning violently and she was his momentum.

One hand went to her hair, grabbed on and angled her head to the side, as he finally felt coherent enough to take control of the kiss. He pushed his tongue inside her mouth and tasted, nipped, sucked, pulling at her lips and licking them, drinking in her tiny moans with a satisfaction that had no comparison, tangling his tongue with hers in a way that made him groan with urgency, desperation. The pressure of her hands on his arms, on his shoulders, on the back of his neck sending bursts of acute pleasure deep in his gut, down his legs and between them.

Her name, her real name this time, passed through his lips in a breathy moan.

She was soft all over, her skin smooth and sweet, the taste of her heady. He groaned when she trapped the tip of his tongue between her lips playfully, the sound getting lost between them as he fell back on her lips with a desperation that made her moan something that sounded a lot like his name… he was almost unmade then, almost torn apart as he realized that he would go to absurd lengths just to hear his name fall from her lips that way just one more time.

And then another…

And another…

Using both his hands he cupped her face, unable to hold back from deepening the kiss, trying to possess her fully, feeling like she was touching him directly under his skin, on his exposed nerves. Her moan rattled through him like an aftershock and he pulled her even closer, his desperation for her acute, piercing his chest and rattling his soul.

That was what had caught Skye by surprise, turning the tables on her: His need, the raw feeling with which he was touching her, kissing her as if his existence depended on it. She felt overpowered, his passion pulling her under to a place where she couldn't tell the difference between coercion and desire. That line had blurred, sides melting into one another and then disappearing altogether, with the rest of the world until nothing remained but this strange feelings between them, the urgency, the raw need and desperation that seemed to have come out of the blue.

This kiss had nothing to do with anything. It was a standalone, a universe in itself.

She'd never kissed like this, she hadn't even known something like this was even possible… her whole being was concentrated where their lips met, where their skins touched. Her breath was heavy, her heart was fluttering so fast she thought it was trying to escape her breast, her emotions raging violently inside her, mixing in her gut and liquefying elsewhere. Her skin was on fire, and she felt needy, raw and on edge, unable to tell - or even remember - when his hunger had stripped her open and become her own as well. But now she was in the throes of it and it felt like being reborn as wave after wave of him crashed over her, making her clench and moan and feel so much all at once that she thought she was going to pass out from the intensity.

And still she wanted more, clung closer, held on tighter.

It was like being lost and then found and she let herself be drowned in his fervor, allowed herself to catch fire with him, followed his lips when he pulled away to such a breath and opened up fully whenever he came to her again, more forceful then before, trying to imprint himself in every corner of her, trying to get under her skin and holding on to her as if he wanted to absorb her under his.

When his mouth pulled away from hers from air, he took hold of her hair, making her angle her head to the side. And when his lips found her neck and bit the tender skin of her throat, she shook as if his lips were electric, her legs tightening around him convulsively, hands fisting in his hair and keeping him there, the scratching feel of his stubble so different from the impossible softness of his open-mouthed wet kisses that the duality was making her bite her lip hard to keep from being ridiculously loud. His hands dove under her shirt and burned at her skin, tracing her whole back with hungry open palms. She bit his earlobe, then sucked it in her mouth when he nipped at her throat a little too hard, making her insides clench violently, deliciously… and still incomplete, for some reason, which only increased her craving.

Foreign, breathy sounds came out of her mouth - his name probably somewhere in there too - sounds that she'd never even heard herself make, not even when alone at night in her bed.

And he was all over her again, this time knowing so very well how, knowing where - sucking at her lower lip, sliding his tongue in and out of her mouth slowly, the sensation maddening as every nerve ending she had of her burned with need. His slowness, his taking his time with her flesh, set her aflame with a new urgency that made her impatient, wanting for a strong impact and not gentle teasing.

She bit his lower lip hard enough to make him wince, and after that he wasn't so gentle anymore.

His hand came around and without the barest hint of hesitation, he engulfed her breast, squeezing, molding it to his palm, groaning when he realized that under her tank top she was bare, smooth, so deliciously soft that he felt he would literately die if he didn't bury himself inside her in the next two seconds.

At his touch, Skye felt her neck give out, head hanging back as a moan bubbled up and her hands buried themselves in his hair, pulling none too gently, scratched the back of his neck, so feverish she was unaware of what she was doing. When she kissed him the next moment, holding on to his face with both hands, there was a deliriousness about her that completely floored him, that pulled him under.

An impatient sound rumbled from his chest, muffled between their mouths. With both his hands, he grabbed her ass and pressed her to him firmly enough to make them both gasp, effectively stopping all their movements as the electric feelings ran down their spines and all over them both. Their eyes snapped open as their mouths hovered over each other, still close enough for their lips to brush as their heavy breaths went into each other.

She could feel him even through their clothes and it made her insides shift and tighten, her head felt strangely heady, as if drunk, the desire that was still coursing through her veins clogging her brain. Her hands were on his shoulders, holding on tightly and she didn't know if she was holding him close or trying to push herself away.

She just knew she was not afraid…

Lucas pushed her hips into his again experimentally, and marveled at the feel of them together, the feel of her. Ecstasy shot up his spine and tightened his grip on her hips, but it was the look of her that almost unmade him: her breath left her lungs loudly as her forehead fell on his, her lids became heavy, her eyes darkened with desire as hot as his own, lips barely skimming over his torturously as if she wanted to kiss him but didn't quite remember how to.

He pushed them together again, firmly this time, both feeling each other exactly where they most needed to and it was not enough, not even close, but it was still fucking amazing and she threw her head back by just a fraction, her chin coming close to his lips, giving him the perfect reason to kiss it, bite it. She whispered his name breathlessly, her tone bordering between a plea and an order, nails digging into his skin hard enough to leave marks. She pushed back against him firmly enough to bring him so very close to the edge of snapping…

But if he allowed himself to go that far, there would be no going back. If she changed her mind, he found himself asking if he would care.

He didn't want to find out.

Lucas tightened his grip on her hips and pushed her back, drawing a confused look from her.

He managed a tight smile and, keeping the hold he had on her waist secure, he stood up, making her yelp and hold on to his shoulders as her feet found the ground again. He kept her hands on her waist, his fingers tracing patters on her skin. Her hands fell down his arms and settled near his elbows, holding on loosely as if she was not sure what to do with them.

She didn't know yet how to feel about his rejection: she was as relieved as she was disappointed, and both feelings were prominent… but right now the embarrassment was taking over fast.

Her eyes hadn't left his for a second, but now that the frenzy of the moment was ebbing – albeit slowly – a blush was starting to spread over her cheeks that had nothing to do with the excitement of a few moments before. Now she felt the heat disperse, a strange chill settling over her skin, the weight of her action already heavy on her conscience.

She wasn't sorry for what she had done.

What had shocked her, what she still couldn't quite wrap her mind around, was the fact that she had enjoyed it…

Skye pulled her hands away from him slowly, denying him her eyes as she looked down and tried to control her breathing and in that moment Lucas understood what she was thinking as surely as if her eyes were speaking him the words.

Cupping her face in his hands so very gently, he made her look at him, at the tenderness in his eyes. He leaned down slowly, deliberately letting her read his intention. Then his lips brushed over hers so impossibly softly once… and then another time, and another and he felt her respond tentatively, shyly this time. One hand reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt, bringing herself closer to him, to his lips and his heat. She almost stepped on his feet and she felt the curve of his smile against her lips.

It was surprisingly easier to pretend everything was ok when they were mouth to mouth like this. Alone she could never ignore the world around her, a consequence of her life depending on always being aware of everything. …but with him, now, like this, allowing his passion to take over them both was the easiest thing, and it seemed to make time stop. Reality held its breath for them.

Their mouths slated gently, sweetly, need awakening again but more aware of itself this time, the heat of this second kiss different, slow and all consuming like lava… a little too real, much more so than something between the two of them should have been.

The kiss pulled at her chest this time, almost painfully, and she couldn't help the whimper, the almost constriction of her throat.

What was wrong with her…?

When he pulled back, he let his forehead rest on hers and breathed her in, his thumbs tracing that part of her face they could reach. Then he straightened, his hand withdrawing from her face in a last caress and fixed her disarrayed hair behind her ears. Skye took back the hand that had been clenching at his shirt.

He was looking at her with the same fascination as always, with tenderness almost, as he ran his hands through her hair. She could feel her heart heavy in her chest now, all her wrongs and mistakes weighting twice as heavy on her soul, her new sins fresh in her mind, pressing against her brain painfully.

But this time, she had the forethought to hide it from him…

"Fix your shirt and wait for me outside." He said softly. "Your Shannon is going to need someone to take him to the infirmary. I doubt his mother would appreciate him being escorted in by soldiers."

AN: I tried really hard to make these two last chapters the best I could write, and I hope I've done this particular moment - and the characters - justice. I'm very nervous about the make-out scene, since I don't feel that kind of stuff is really my thing. I hope it succeeds in giving off some kind of emotional intensity :)
Please let me know your thoughts, I'm dying over here!