Chapter 21

He was standing there, with his dirty clothes still in his arms, staring at her with her arms still above her head. She lowered her hands and finished pulling the dress off her arms. Sam wasn't surprised she didn't have a bra on under her dress; he had noticed, on more than one occasion, the natural, smooth roundness of her breasts under the lightweight material. The granny panties seemed a little incongruous with picture presenting itself to him. But he guessed she would want natural cotton next to her skin.

Her skin was even lovelier than he remembered from waking up next to her naked form this morning; it was now flushed from the long, hot day and her reaction to his sudden presence. Neither of them moved, just stood looking at the other. A noise from outside brought Sam out of the enchantment seeing her had cast on him. He kicked a leg backwards and closed the door as he dropped his clothes to the floor. He stepped over the pile of laundry and closed the distance between them in two more steps of his long legs.

They stood inches apart, both now breathing heavily after discovering they had been holding their breaths since seeing each other. Sam wondered what he was waiting for; she obviously wanted him as much as he wanted her. Her eyes hadn't left his face since he looked up and saw her there. Her pupils were as wide with desire as he assumed his were. "It's not fair." She finally spoke reaching for the top button of his shirt. "You still have all your clothes on."

"Hey MISTER. It's not fair, wake up and move your clothes out of the washer. Come on, dude. Move them to the dryer!"

Sam was instantly awake, in the laundry room of the motel and some teenager was yelling at him. "Crap." He stood to move to get his clothes when he noticed his dream had created a small, well, not really so small, problem. The young man who had woke him up stared at him, then turned toward the door muttering, "what a perv" on the way out. "God, I hope he's not on his way to the manager's office" Sam now muttered to himself. He looked around to make sure no one else was a witness to his ….., and adjusted himself trying to ease the discomfort he was feeling; without much success. He moved his clothes to the dryer and started doing algebra equations in his head.

X

Amelia closed and locked the door Sam had left standing wide open. She wanted a shower in the worse way. She noticed one of Sam's T-shirts in the small pile of clean clothes on his bed. Tonight she would sleep in the shirt, for both of their sanity's. She got out the salt and lined the windows and door before stepping into the bathroom. She stepped under the spray of the shower before it had time to get warm. She knew the heat she was feeling had very little to do with the long summer day. The slowly warming water cascading down her body felt incredible. She turned and let the shower soak her hair and back. The tingle of the water hitting her felt like fingers running over her skin. Long, strong fingers slowly and delicately caressing every inch of her body. Her head snapped up as she started chanting to herself, "No. No. No." She quickly finished washing, stepped out to dry herself and was already reciting the periodic table in her head. She slipped into Sam's shirt that she had hung on the door hook. Even clean, it was imbedded with his scent. She continued listing the elements in order of atomic weight, out loud now, as she washed and dried her clothing.

This was going to be a problem. Amelia saw two roads open to them if they continued to ignore the attraction that was gaining in strength every night they spent together. Either they would pretend neither knew it existed until they destroyed their working relationship, which was absolutely out of the question; or they would let the unexpressed emotions build until they exploded in a moment, well, probably more like an hour or two, of earth-shattering passion. 'That is so not helping' she thought to herself.

The other path open to them was to talk about it, whatever it was. Amelia was pretty sure she knew what was happening to her. She was a being whose entire existence was related to love and creation. She had known passion for an entire planet and had enjoyed expressing that passion numerous times in the physical act of sharing the current body she possessed with a member of the opposite sex. And Sam Winchester was the nearly perfect definition of the human male. He was brave, intelligent, and compassionate and dedicated to those he loved. He was tall, lean and muscular. When he smiled, bringing out those dimples and a gleam in his eyes… 'again, so not helping'. "Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen,…. "

X

Sam's clothes had been clean, dry, folded and sitting on the counter for over half an hour. He knew he had to go back to the room, eventually. He was always accusing Dean of holding stuff in. And he always told him it helped to talk things out. He knew they had to diffuse the time bomb they were pretending didn't exist. He couldn't go down that road again, he just couldn't. He'd made a lot of bad choices in sexual partners since Jess. 'Who are you kidding?' He said to himself. 'They weren't choices. You ignored your feelings until you lost all control, and it sent you into the arms of all the wrong women, and a demon. Look how that turned out.' He also remembered the year he was soulless. It was just the opposite of uncontrollable passion, just lots of women he used for his physical needs. 'Hell, I even took time to screw that hippie chick rather than look for Dean.' He didn't want to repeat either type of mistake.

'He was a Hunter, and a Winchester, damn it.' He stood and gathered his clothes in his arms. 'You're not going to let a little girl, a foot shorter and almost 10 years younger; well a younger woman possessed by an ancient goddess, make you afraid to go back to your room!' He stood there, waiting for his feet to get the message from his brain to start walking, when a bleary-eyed mother with a baby on her hip and bag of dirty clothes slung over her shoulder walked in.

Seeing the new mother reminded him he was on a job. He needed to find a new mother and five other people Dean had saved and convince them to help him free his brother from Purgatory. He steeled himself like he was going to go and confront his worst enemy. Maybe he was, himself; because he wanted Amelia so bad …'8 times 7 is 56, 8 times 8 is 64, 8 times 9 is72,…'

He walked back to their room and then remembered he hadn't taken his key with him. He turned sideways so he could tap on the door with his hands full of clothes. 'Crap. I've been gone a long time. I hope she hasn't gone to sle…..

The door swung open. "We need to talk." They both said in unison.

x

Amelia had let Sam into the room, closing the door behind him while he put his clothes down. He saw her bed was undisturbed, that meant she had been waiting for him. He turned to see her wearing his T-shirt. She looked down at herself, "I hope it was still okay to borrow a shirt?"

"Of course." He motioned for her to sit down as he headed for the small table and chairs, on the other side of the room from the beds. They both sat in silence for a minute, avoiding each other's gazes.

"Sam." "Amelia." They both started at the same time. They both paused but at least they were looking at each other.

"Me first." Sam took the plunge. "First; you've got to stay out of my head." She opened her mouth to respond but he held up a hand and cut her off. "I mean it. I can't always be worried your reading my thoughts and seeing what I'm….thinking about." He stopped and indicated it was her turn.

"It's too late to just stop seeing what you're thinking and feeling. What was that expression you used the other day, 'been there, done that'?" She was trying; she really was, to not see into his mind. "Sam, knowing what the other is thinking isn't the problem. It's pretty obvious we both know what the other is thinking here."

"Okay. Yes. It seems like you're as attracted to me as I am to you." He reached out across the table and took her hands in his, but avoided her eyes. "But, Amelia, I can't do this now, I just can't!" He looked up at her. "If you've seen all my memories, you know why."

Amelia let out a long sigh. "Yes. I understand why you can't act on your feelings." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "But we can't pretend the feelings don't exist, either. It will drive us both crazy and demolish the working relationship we have built." She pulled her hands back. "Can I tell you my idea, now?"

"I'm not going to like this, am I?"

She smiled for the first since he came back into the room. "Sam, sex between two mutually agreeable partners doesn't have to be anything they don't want it to be." She stopped and took his hands this time. "It's not the thinking about having sex that is bothering us, it's the tension of ignoring the signals our bodies are sending us. And pretending we're not sexual beings." She squeezed his hands. "Are you following what I'm saying?" Her question took him by surprise. "You're going to have to talk to me, Sam. I'm doing my very best to stay out of your noggin', your melon, your custard, your…."

"Okay, okay. I get it. But, no I'm not following you. What are you saying?"

"Well, what I want to say….. is that we have sex until there's not an ounce of tension left in either of us." As he jerked his hands back and started to protest, it was her turn to stop him. "But, I understand, you can't do that right now. So, we just need to find other ways to release the tension." He was already blushing deeply. "And we need to be honest about it with each other. Self-gratification is rarely as fulfilling but it gets the job done and beats reciting the periodic table of elements over and over again." She hadn't seen a human face that flushed, at least while not engaged in the activity they had just agreed to not do, since; well, ever.

When he didn't say anything, she added. "We're also going to have to figure out when you do want me reading your mind; because you seemed to think it was pretty handy while we were at Cassie's." She made an expression he would call Dean's 'see, I told you so' face.

"Point taken. And you're right. About everything." When she remained silent this time, he said. "Multiplication tables."

"What?"

"When you get tired of the elements; try the multiplication table, or reciting the value of Pi. 3.1415926535….."

They smiled at each other. Neither was really happy with the outcome, but the opposing parties in peace treaties rarely were. "So, what do we do? Hang a sock on the door handle?"

She gave him a puzzled look. He sighed; he had asked her to stay out of his mind, and she was doing her best. So, now he'd have to start explaining more of his jokes.

X

After he had explained the sock joke, they had actually discussed how one of them would let the other know when they needed some alone time to,…he still couldn't believe he had actually discussed a masturbation protocol. He didn't want Dean where he was, but he was glad he hadn't been here for that. And he'd made it clear to Amelia that if Dean ever heard about this…

He was currently drying off after his shower; during which he had relieved his tension. That was the term he had agreed to. Amelia had gone all 'your Judeo-Christian morality has seriously impaired most of you from being able to enjoy a beautiful and natural act' during the discussion. He had heard Dean say that exact expression on more than one occasion. At least Amelia believed it and didn't have the same smirk on her face that Dean did when he said it.

They had also agreed there had to be some kind of signal between them for when one of them was 'not to be disturbed'. Amelia was right about having a signal for when he did want her to read his mind, too. They hadn't figured that one out yet. After drying and dressing in his sleeping gear, he had sat down on the toilet seat. He was currently waiting for Amelia to signal him he could come back into the room. If she didn't finish soon, or if she got any louder, he was going to have to take another shower.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxXx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxXxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx X

Author's Note: The last couple of chapters got a little side-tracked with the relationship between Sam and Amelia; tomorrow, back to the quest to save Dean.