Fall At Your Feet
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An all-too-familiar pair of shoes in her hallway, leather cracking, toes a little scuffed. A familiar jacket and vest slung across a chair. Patrick Jane, stretched asleep on the couch, hair still slightly damp from a hasty shower, his shirt buttoned loosely over a chest now bare of ink, cup of tea grown cold beside him.
He had edged out of the bathroom, picked at the sandwich she had offered him, not really meeting her eyes. Truth is a currency with him, his past an emotional mine-field, and revelation leaves him raw and confused. She does not push him, merely lets him sit quietly. And then when she had looked over, eventually worried by his continued silence, it was to find that he had crashed out.
And now she sits, afraid to wake him and grown suddenly tender as she watches. This isn't the feigned repose of the office. This is abandon, true rest. There is a guilty pleasure in her, as she takes advantage of his absence to stare. It isn't like she doesn't know by heart the exact geometries of his face, but she rarely gets to just look at him. Much of his obvious charm rests in the puckish humour with which he greets the world – she likes to think that this is something special just for her. No mask, laughter and pain swept away by sleep. Sea-coloured eyes hidden. Faint golden stubble. Pulls her eyes from the tempting triangle of skin, resists the urge to put her lips to the hollow of his throat.
She had never supposed that his father had been a particularly good or honest man. The nature of the con had been a surprise, but not a shock. She is, after all, a detective, and she has the best of reasons for remembering all the little facts about this man. With each piece of the puzzle he lets slip, she can build her picture. There had been more than a touch of the charismatic preacher in his stage shows, and she honestly can't decide which is worse, using physical or emotional pain to milk people. He has done both. There is cruelty in him, a streak of rage. And there is the tender, funny man she knows, the one who can make her laugh. And there is the broken, tired man with the wounded eyes.
The strange mix in him, where the fault-lines run, the dark currents of his mind. He's not the lonely little boy, the charming drifter, the street magician, any more, but they live in him. And so does that darkness, the ruthless and crazy side, that will face down armed lunatics, murderers and street gangs with nothing more than that sharp smile and his brilliant, fractured mind.
Just him. As he is. A flawed, tired human being. And she loves him.
She tiptoes past, collects the cup. Moves quietly, but in a moment, she hears him. Soft sounds of movement, footsteps to the kitchen door. He leans against the door frame, smiles at her.
"It's late. I should go."
It isn't even a conscious thought. She looks at him, golden, warm from sleep, just himself.
She watches her own hands undo a shirt button. His hands jerk, hover, for once unsure.
"I'm only human." There's almost a note of pleading in his voice.
"So am I." She says quietly. Undoes another button, and keeps her eyes on his, deliberately slides her hand inside his shirt.
She knows what touching him will do. Every muscle in his neck tenses and his eyes flare dark.
Poised on a knife-edge, his heart beneath her fingers. And she breaks him with a smile.
Still meeting her eyes, he slips the ring from his finger, leaves it on the table.
She slides the shirt from his shoulders, as she runs her hands up over his chest, tangles her hands in his hair. Holds her against him, cradles her, as they exchange soft, starving kisses, and their mouths barely part, as she steps backwards.
She leads, and he follows.
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He's less assured than her fantasies, infinitely sweeter. Without his suit, without his armour, without defences, just a man with nervous hands and an eager mouth. Almost too gentle, until she tells him what she likes, directs those subtle, clever fingers, gives them licence. They learn each other, heat and skin, laughing softly.
Each touch of her mouth is a brand. Skin glows like a pearl in the night, her soft hair caught in his fingers as she moves across him. She has always thought him a beautiful fallen angel. The reality is so much more, warm skin and hard muscles, and she hears his breath moan as she traces the point of her tongue over him. Runs her nails lightly down his biceps, forearms, holds him palm to palm. Face in shadow, he can feel the soft swell of her breasts against him as her delicate weight pins him.
Finds her mouth with his. Hungry tongue demands her. Slides his own hands up her arms, shoulders, back, until he can sit and cradle her against him. Relinquishes her lips, to graze softly down the arch of her throat. Delicate strength in her, her scent, and he must find new maps in his mind, new territories beneath his touch. He lingers above her heart, and she bites her lip, hands lost in his curls.
Tumbles her backwards, so now she lies beneath him, continues to tease with lips and tongue as she gasps, and she feels the curve of his smile. They will always seek to wrest control, but this is tender play, private war. Butterfly kisses trailing down to the curve of her hipbones.
Nuzzles, softly insistent, and her breath hitches as his tongue flicks lightly, dips. Gentle, agonizingly delicate, toying with her until she whimpers in pure frustration and he does something, light moist touch in just that place that makes her cry out, leaves her trembling. Tastes herself on his lips, and then he's looking into her face, mutely asking permission, eyes urgent and hungry.
Cat-blink of her eyes, dark and dazed...She lays her own hands upon him, and then the cool slickness unravelled by nimble fingers, and then she is waiting for him, arches to him, demands.
No hesitation, no haste. Her gasp lost in the heat of his mouth, his soft grunt lost in her delighted laugh. Torments her, the slow strength of him. He wants her to beg, and she refuses, curses him with endearments and epithets. Holding her gaze, he grins, feral, and she responds, hard kiss to his mouth that is almost a bite. Moving with measured passion, then, matching their rhythm, pulse and heartbeat and racing breath. Nothing in the world but this...sweat and skin and the sweet delight of friction building... He lasts until she mews his name, moves, sinuous hard swells, and he's falling, victor and vanquished.
Tangled together, pale limbs and bedsheets, the beat of the bloodmusic slowing, and he's shaking from it, kissing the sweat from her skin, murmuring his love. Soft broken laughter as she trembles, blinks away the fireworks and holding him to her.
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When he slides from the bed, her heart clenches, old fear. She turns over, and he sees the rigid line of her spine, the desolate little hunch of her shoulders. He gets it, and his face sets. That bastard.
"I only need the bathroom." He says. Brushes one soft kiss on the smooth bit of shoulder he can see.
She is still huddled, when he returns, and he wraps himself around her, nose into her neck, nuzzles until he feels her relax. He will not leave her now. No man who has ever had the privilege of touching that beautiful porcelain skin, of possessing any of that sweetness, should have ever been able to think of such a thing. The male animal in him growls proudly, settles itself to guard, and the lover tightens his arms about his woman, and sleeps.
She isn't used to having a man in her bed any more. (Painfully unused to having one that stays the entire night.) Drifts in and out of sleep, finally wakes early.
He's slipped down the bed in the night, sleeping nose to navel, arm slung across her thighs. Runs her hand through his hair, feels his mouth curve. Wonders what he will say, hopes he remembers where he is, (who she is) a thought which stills her hand. He makes a little grumble, butts against her, and she has to smile.
Jane, who knows exactly where he is, begins to kiss her, his mouth tracing softly up her skin. Opens his eyes and smiles up at her.
He didn't think he could ever be here, and he feels...owned, in a way he hasn't for so very long.
"Is this where I discover how horrible you are before your morning coffee?" he asks tenderly.
All the tension leaves her, and she shoves at him, laughing. Still here, still him.
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She could get far too used to having her coffee brought to her. And to the sight of him, all bedhead hair and her too-short robe, which makes her laugh, too. He sits on the bed, settles her into his lap, warm skin and quilt together. She runs her hand over his chin.
"You need a shave."
"And my toothbrush." Turns his head, kisses her fingers. "I do have to leave at some point."
"That little thing called work." She agrees, and he feels her good mood seep from her.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Shut me out. Not now."
"I don't think I could." She admits.
"Well, no. But don't try it." He tightens his arms round her, and she finds that her head fits very comfortably into the crook of his neck.
They can't pretend that this doesn't change anything. For a start, he really doesn't want to go to work today. He wants to stay in this bed and make love to her until neither of them can see straight. Wants the world to go away and let him lose himself in her. But he moves round so that he can look into her eyes.
"I will never treat you with a lack of respect. Understand that. Believe that." The kiss is tender, a promise. She has never seen him look so...honest, no darkness in his smile this morning.
"This does change things, though."
"Yes." He pries the coffee cup out of her hands. "It means that although I am not allowed to touch you during office hours, when we are off duty, you get to do all those wicked things to me that you've been fantasizing about for months. And," he has been stealthily sliding the quilt away, until his hands can rove, blind and wicked purpose, "so do I."
She feels slightly self-conscious in the light of dawn, a feeling which lasts until he begins to lavish kisses on every bit of her he can reach, and then she surrenders. This morning is quick and naughty and fun, as he claims her back from her worry and demands her attention, all vigour and excitement, and proving that he remembers everything she told him last night...
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He puts on his suit, but he doesn't think the armour will ever fit so tightly again. Hesitates a second over the ring, troubled. Two fingers rest lightly against his chest, and he looks up at her.
"I..."
"Help me with the clasp." She holds out her necklace to him, and he takes it, understands all that she says to him in that one gesture.
Butterfly kiss as he fastens it, brushed across her neck, silent thank you, because there are no words.
Slides the ring back onto his finger, into the groove worn by time. Puts out his hand to her, and laces his fingers with hers.
There is no betrayal here. Only love, and the memory of love, and a world big enough for both.