Author's note: The song for this chapter and the next one (Stolen Glances) is Carly Rae Jepsen - Call Me Maybe
As I was writing this chapter and every time I reread it, Harkness' mean inner voice (the one in bold) always sounded like Dennis Leary to me. Just food for thought.
Little bit of masturbatory lemony goodness in this chapter.
An Exercise in Restraint
Harkness
Goddamn her, I thought as I walked away. I may have gotten the last word again, but she had gotten under my skin without even really trying. She made that remark about me being her keeper, and I almost lost it completely. I'd have pinned her against the nearest bulkhead if I thought she was serious, spectators be damned, but I don't react well to getting slapped, and she wouldn't look nearly as pretty with a bruised wrist.
I needed to calm down, and fast. Tonight was my night for a bath, and I'd get some awfully strange looks if I showed up in the bath house alone, but pumped up and ready for action. I went out and ran a couple of laps around the flight deck, trying to focus on anything but the purple haired vixen that'd been turning my well-ordered boat upside down ever since she set foot on it. I finally managed to get my body under control, headed to the Weatherly to get my towel and dirty clothes, and there was the source of my irritation again, giggling and entering the room next to mine with Mei Wong. Was she following me like a bad bottlecap? I made my way to the bath house, which was several decks down.
"Evening, Olga," I greeted the bath house matron, showing her my water ration card and handing over my clothes to be laundered. She took them and handed me some soap and shampoo.
"Evening, Harkness," she replied. Olga didn't talk much, and that suited me just fine. The mood I was in, I'd probably just end up offending someone unnecessarily. The bath house had several sections, one for couples, one for families, one for single people, or those who just wanted their privacy. I headed toward the private section, where all the showers were partitioned off in their own roomy stalls, which was unfortunately close to the 'couples' section. I just hoped that no one would be taking advantage of that particular section tonight. While I was stripping off my armor and various weapons and putting them in my locker, I felt that damnable presence in my vicinity again. She was with Mei and they were conversing with Olga, bottlecaps and a pile of clothing changing hands. Elle must have been getting tired of wearing the same dirty clothes all the time, not that I blamed her. The Capital Wasteland is a filthy place and she'd been slogging through it for god knows how long.
I finished disrobing and wrapped a towel around my waist for the trip back to Olga's counter, to give her the pants and shirt I had been wearing under my armor. Olga promised to have my stuff done as soon as possible, and I walked back to my shower stall, popping some Rad-X for good measure in case the water purifier was malfunctioning again. Closing the door to my area, I hung the towel off a hook on the wall behind the shower nozzle. I turned on the water and sighed in pure bliss as it hit my skin. Someday, I thought, Madison will succeed in her quest to purify all the water around here, and then I can have a shower every day, instead of just once a week. I heard the door creak open, then shut in the stall next to me, but the hot water pounding down on me washed all the cares out of my head. The water started in the next stall, and a blissful sigh almost identical to mine drifted over the partition.
Soaping myself thoroughly, I took stock of my feelings toward this whole thing with Elle. She seems interested, said the little voice in my head. Yeah, but she also runs around doing random good deeds for strangers, and probably has half the wasteland creatures eating straight from her hand. Maybe she just feels sorry for you, cranky, paranoid asshole that you are, said the other little voice, the one that said things I didn't like to hear. She didn't deck you when you groped her and slapped her ass, and she didn't flinch when you oh-so-crudely suggested she give you a blow job this morning. She looks at you like she's interested in seeing more. You look pretty good for your age; still have all your hair and teeth, keeping yourself in shape. The operative words here being 'your age,' asshole. She's nineteen, you're thirty five. What would she want with an old law dog like you? More importantly, what would you want with a big pile of trouble like her? She's trouble, that's for sure, but she's a lot of other things too. Smart, sexy, capable…and a crack shot, god what a turn on.
While I was considering strangling both the voices in my head, I heard a feminine giggle and a scuffling sound coming from the 'couples' section of the bath house. Great, that was all I needed, to hear some other couple getting busy while I was suffering under the longest sexual drought I'd ever gone through.
"Angela, what are you doing? We can't be in here…together." That sounded like Diego, which meant Angela was the female I had heard.
"I traded my bath night with Trinnie so we could be here at the same time. I have something to show you." Had Angela finally grown a pair when it came to Diego?
"Angela, stop, don't take your towel off. I…mmmm." Diego's protest was cut short and kissing sounds followed. I heard Angela say "What do you think of the ant pheromones Elle gave me? Do they make you want to ravish me?" I should have known Elle had a hand in this. The sounds of flesh meeting flesh were unmistakable, followed by a masculine gasp and a long drawn out bass moan, presumably from Diego.
I had been unconsciously leaning on the door of my stall to hear what was going on in the couples section, and I suddenly felt the partition start to fall, taking with it the section between my stall and the next. Before I could react, the walls were on the ground and I was facing a very startled Elle, who had been in the next stall, unbeknownst to me. A very naked, startled Elle. I felt my breath hitch and my body heat as I got a very good look at what lay under that bulky armor.
Holy…shit! The carpet's the same color as the drapes, said the voice in my head. That is so hot, followed by, nipples like pretty pink gumdrops, I wanna suck on them so bad! I wonder if they taste like gumdrops too. Creamy skin, several shades lighter now that she'd washed the dirt off, and a few nasty scars that, perversely, made me want her even more. I wanted to lick every inch of her body, paying special attention to those scars, badges of courage on my beautiful troublemaker. Her skin was beaded with water from the shower, and I longed to taste every drop of moisture on her.
She was looking me up and down too, and between my thoughts and her eyes, it was playing hell with my breathing, not to mention other parts of me. I felt myself growing rigid under her gaze, and her eyes flew back to my face. She gave me that wide eyed green stare that was so good at making me lose my cool, then her eyes darted back down to my groin. She swallowed, and her gaze came back to my face again. Her lips parted on a soft oh of surprise, and her nipples hardened, sending shockwaves of pleasure straight to the part of me that was throbbing more insistently by the second. She glanced back down and inhaled sharply, and I thought I might die from the pleasure. Her eyes met mine once more, and I had to look away before I did something really stupid, like fuck her brains out right against the wall of the bath house, in front of what seemed like the entire world.
"Elle…" I tried to say her name, but it came out as a strangled noise, so I cleared my throat and tried again. "Elle…I…oh god!" I swore. I couldn't even apologize properly, so I just grabbed my towel from the hook on the wall, turned off the water, and headed toward my locker. I shoved myself into my armor as fast as humanly possible, not even caring that I still had a little soap on my skin and was going commando. When I turned around to leave, she had disappeared, not that I was surprised. Jesus, asshole, way to go, said the other voice in my head. Ogling her like a pervert, nice move. See if she wants to speak to you ever again. You'll be lucky if she doesn't shoot you the next time she sees you.
But she ogled you too, said the first voice, and she seemed to like what she saw. You know a turned on woman when you see one, and she was definitely turned on.
Or maybe she was just cold.
I told both the voices to shut the hell up and went to get my clothes from Olga. To my dismay, she informed me that they needed at least another hour to dry and told me to go hang out in the sauna until then. I would have just gone back to my room at that point, but a trip there and a trip back with my armor rubbing on my exposed junk just didn't seem worth it, so I stripped the armor back off, put the towel back around my waist and went into the sauna. Unfortunately, it was a communal area, but fortunately, it was unoccupied at the moment, giving me time to get my breathing and body under control. I sat down where I could see the door through the steam and leaned back against the wall, my breathing erratic, my body craving some kind of release from the tension that was strung through my nerves like red hot wires. Somehow, my tired mind hadn't connected 'Elle in the bath house' with 'Elle taking a bath,' and that lapse of concentration had blown up in my face.
Calm, I thought, you need to calm down. You can't go traipsing through the city with a hard on, and you certainly can't go and find Elle and…and what? What did I want from her? A quick fuck or something more permanent? Three days she's been on your boat, and already your day seems incomplete if you don't see that shit eating grin of hers, hear her laugh, watch her eyes light up over the stupidest things.
Permanence, said the darker part of my thoughts, is not for you. You had a wife; you couldn't keep her, why do you think you would do any better with Elle? She's just here looking for her father, she'll be out of your life in a few days and you can go back to your nice, boring routine and stop looking over your shoulder to see if it's her every time you hear a door open.
While I was lost in thought, a dangerous proposition in a lawless wasteland, the door creaked open, and I heard Mei Wong's voice outside. "Olga says your clothes aren't ready yet, so just stay in here for a little while. I'll be back in half an hour." Then, the very object of my thoughts was shoved forcibly into the sauna, her loosely tied towel coming undone and falling to the ground. Mei giggled, slamming the door behind her, leaving me all alone in a steamy room with a naked woman for the second time tonight.
Elle squeaked and turned away, blushing furiously and bending down to pick up her fallen towel, giving me a full on view of her naked ass and…other things. My mouth went dry and the hard on I had been trying to talk down came back with a vengeance. She got the towel tied firmly back in place and took a seat on the opposite side of the room from me, resolutely not looking at me.
Figuring that if she was going to slit my throat she'd have done it already, I relaxed against the wall and went back to arguing with the voices in my head. I snuck a glance at Elle, noting that she had wedged herself into a corner where she could keep an eye on the door and me at the same time. I closed my eyes and breathed in the steam, trying to ignore the sensations radiating from my groin to the rest of my body. Just another hour or so, I thought, and you can get your clothes, go back to your room, and do…whatever you need to do to calm down and get some sleep. Get drunk? No, hangovers are a bitch when you have to stand early duty. Shoot someone? That idea has merit; sure I could find someone that needs shooting on my boat. Exercise? I don't particularly feel up to running around the flight deck again. Indulge in a little self-pleasuring? Hmmm…guess that falls under the category of 'exercise'…breathing exercise at least.
While I was arguing with myself yet again, I had the feeling of being watched, but when I opened my eyes and glanced over at Elle, she was staring at the door. I closed my eyes again, and again sensed her eyes on me, eyes that quickly skittered away when I looked in her direction. We played this game for several minutes, then I heard her soft gasp. I opened my eyes to see her staring at me again with the same look she had gotten in the showers. I felt a draft below my waist, and glanced down to find that my erection, teased almost to the breaking point by her gaze and my own lusty thoughts, had poked out of a gap in the towel knotted around me, and Elle was staring at it with a fascination she had previously reserved only for large caliber weapons with massive destructive capabilities.
"Elle…," I started, as I tucked the offending member back inside my towel, "I'm sorr…" The door swung open and my apology was interrupted by the arrival of the Young family, Christie, Henry, and little C.J. I swore under my breath and decided enough was enough for one night. I tore out of the sauna like my ass was on fire, and went up to the front desk.
"Olga, I need my clothes…right now."
"But Harkness, they are not dry yet," Olga said. "Still very wet."
"I don't care!" I all but shouted. "They'll dry later."
She tsked at me and went to get my clothes. When she returned, I wasted no time pulling on underwear, shirt, pants, and armor over the top. Olga wasn't kidding, my clothes were disgustingly soggy, and the walk back to the Weatherly with wet underwear rubbing on my already tortured flesh was an experience that hovered between pain and a rough pleasure that almost sent me over the edge.
I stripped out of armor and wet clothes as soon as I locked my door behind me, groaning as my still-engorged flesh sprang free of its confinement. There was no way I was going to get any sleep tonight without releasing some tension, and since I didn't want to get drunk or run around the ship, and hadn't found anyone to shoot between the bath house and the hotel, that left one option. I lay down on the wide hotel bed, so much more comfortable than my narrow bunk off of the bridge, and took matters in hand.
At first, I tried to imagine every woman I had ever seen naked or fantasized about seeing naked, just so I could get her out of my head, but that scene from the shower just kept replaying itself, over and over again, forcing even my wildest fantasies behind a curtain of purple hair. Her skin was perfection, her body a temple to all that was right in this crazy, fucked up existence. After several attempts to imagine any woman besides Elle, I began to feel as though I would do some permanent damage from all the frustrated contortions my hand was going through, and I realized I couldn't take it anymore.
What's the matter, Harkness?, the little voice taunted.You know there's only one way this is going to play out. The only way to get her off your mind so you can get some sleep is to blast her out of your system…you know what you want, you know she wants it…
My hand began to get coordinated with my thoughts, and I studied every moment of my memory in such vivid detail it may as well have been a holotape. When I got to the part where she bent over to retrieve her towel, I could almost count the water droplets on that perfect ass. Suddenly it wasn't enough just to lick the droplets off, I had to make her sweat. I concentrated on those luscious lips between her thighs, and by then I was so wound up that it only took a dozen or so short strokes to get me moaning, breath coming in short gasps as I pleasured myself. I imagined it was Elle on my erection instead of my hand, and the thought of that drove me completely wild. I came so hard my ears buzzed, groaning her name as I went over the edge, and it took several moments before my legs were steady enough to get up and wash myself off. I dropped back onto the bed, still naked, and wrapped the coverlet around myself, savoring the feeling of relaxation that stole over me right before I fell into an exhausted sleep.