AN: OK, so it got away from me again. :P There's one more chapter after this.
Night found Liz sprawled across the nondescript bed in the nondescript bedroom of her nondescript temporary apartment, flipping past infomercial after infomercial on late night TV. The day should have left her exhausted—Red's contact had been colorful but skittish and it took some fancy footwork on both their parts to convince him to give up info on their Blacklister instead of running like a spooked gazelle—but she was much too wired for bed. Apparently she was so used to running on only a few hours sleep that her body didn't know how to deal with having a full night of it to work with.
She had plenty of productive things to do if she could find the motivation. The apartment could at best be described as organized chaos. All of the belongings she'd salvaged from the house she shared with Tom were stuffed hastily into boxes and shoved wherever they would fit, with only the bare minimum required to live unpacked to furnish the apartment. There was paperwork piling up on the small desk tucked into the corner of her room—files from the Post Office to analyze, forms to change her surname on her accounts that she'd been procrastinating filling out since the drama with Tom came to a head, various listings to look over for her apartment hunt—but she couldn't seem to concentrate on any of it tonight.
Her thoughts kept straying to Red. When they parted ways outside the Post Office after their meeting, they exchanged furtive smiles fueled by the exhilarated, satisfied rush of a job well done and she had been reluctant to climb out of his car to return to the world of bureaucracy and protocol. After the whirlwind of the last twenty-four hours, being debriefed by Cooper and translating the excitement of the day into dry facts for her report felt like an anticlimax. She shook her head. Red would make an adrenaline junkie out of her yet.
She was on her third mindless cycle through the channels when her cellphone rang. She rolled her eyes when she saw Nick's Pizza on the caller ID and answered the call.
"Red, it's one in the morning."
"Mmm, so it is. I'd apologize for waking you, but I don't think I did."
She sighed. "No, you didn't," she said. She turned off the TV and flopped back onto the pillows, staring at the ceiling. "You couldn't sleep either?"
"I rarely can; it's a problem." His tone had an uncertain strain to it, almost as if he called without a concrete idea of what to say. For a man who had contingency plans for his contingency plans, it was strange to hear.
"And you're calling because you ran out of Ambien?"
"Oh, trust me, Lizzy, I find you anything but sedating." He fell silent. She could tell he hadn't hung up on her, could still hear him breathing on the other end. She could almost see him chewing on the inside of his lip or perhaps tapping his fingers absently against his leg with his free hand, as he was wont to do on the rare occasion he was unsure of a situation. Perhaps he was even pacing.
When he finally spoke again, his voice was low, just above a whisper. "I think you've spoiled me. Last night was… sublime. Now that I've had one perfect, blissful, restful night, my usual routine has lost what little was left of its appeal. Call me greedy, but I want more."
A dull, longing ache settled into her chest at his words; she had to stop herself from rubbing at it because, as strong as it was, it wasn't actually physical pain and it would do nothing to ease it. She wanted more herself, but the thought terrified her. They'd stumbled their way into a very tricky situation. Where did they go from here?
"What exactly do you want?"
She expected grandiose promises or flowery language, expected him to downplay the improbability of their connection or assuage her doubts about his integrity, to persuade her to give them a chance or convince her of the depth of his feelings for her. Instead he said but three simple words:
"Open the door."
Liz's breath caught in her throat for a moment and then she was on her feet, quickly padding barefoot through the apartment. When she reached the door, she pulled it open with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. Red stood in the hall, looking vaguely bewildered to find himself there, like she usually felt when she came to him. He slipped his phone into his pocket and tapped his hat against his leg. He lacked his overly confident body language, his smugness, and his certainty. He also lacked a coat and his vest was unbuttoned; he'd obviously left his hotel in a hurry.
They both moved at once, coming together at the mouth in a clash of teeth almost as painful as that first fateful pseudo-kiss. They gentled their attentions somewhat to ease the discomfort, but they were still aggressive, explosive, and nearly uncontrollable.
Somehow they managed to get the door shut behind him and she pressed him against it. His hat hit the floor as he reached to pull her with him, one hand tangling in her hair, the other splaying across the strip of skin on her lower back between her shirt and her pajama bottoms.
The hand at her back was like ice and she broke away with a gasp as a chill ran through her. Slowly, they came back to themselves, loosening grips and unclenching fistfuls of fabric, rubbing soothing patterns where they'd scrabbled for purchase and hung on just a bit too hard.
"Are you always this eager or am I getting special treatment?" she asked, breathless, as she cupped him through his trousers.
"You really have to ask? I still can't quite believe this isn't an extremely pleasant dream and I'm not about to wake up very alone and very frustrated."
"You started driving a wedge between me and Tom the day I met you and I'm supposed to believe getting me into bed wasn't part of your plan?"
He quirked a cheeky smile, but his eyes were warm. "I would be lying if I told you I never thought about it, but fantasies are fantasies, something to help pass the time. You have exceeded my expectations in every way, Lizzy. I didn't think you would ever be receptive to anything more serious than innuendo from me. Hoped, maybe, but—" He brought her wrist up to his mouth and pressed a kiss against her scar. "—I never counted on it by any means."
Liz shivered despite herself and shook her head to clear it. "What are we doing? We can't run to each other every time we have a nightmare."
"You're right. We can't. But there'll be plenty of unavoidable distance in the future, what with all the traveling and keeping up appearances. It would be a shame to waste this closeness while we have it. Tomorrow," he said, "Tomorrow we'll work on not making a habit of this. Tonight, I can't seem to stop thinking about how much of a travesty it is that we still haven't seen each other naked."
"Mmm," she said, playing with the fabric of his shirt where it tucked into his pants, "I bet none of your fantasies involved me stabbing you in the neck or full-body tackling you in a fit of pique."
"Oh, you'd be surprised." He leaned in so his lips brushed her ear when he spoke. "I have this absolute gem where you jam the security feed in The Box and use one of your highly effective, unconventional interrogation techniques on me while I'm shackled to that damn chair."
The timbre of his voice had her grabbing his waist to steady herself, every word sending another thrill of arousal through her body. It was a scenario she never thought of before, but now that he mentioned it, it lodged in her brain and refused to leave. She nearly choked at the intensity of it.
He tilted her face so she would meet his eyes. "My, my, my, Agent Keen, what's the matter? Is it something I said?"
She growled low in her throat, hooked her hand around his belt buckle, and dragged him with her through the cluttered apartment.
Once they reached her bedroom, she pulled out the desk chair and shoved him down onto it. Immediately, he gripped the seat and pressed his legs against the chair legs, looking up at her in delicious anticipation. She leaned down to meet his lips again; he still had that strange urgency to his kisses, reminding her more than anything else that they'd barely been intimate for more than a day.
She collapsed onto his thighs and pulled back, chest heaving, resting her forehead against his while she tried to calm her thoughts before they got away from her. Barely more than a day together and they had the same effortless compatibility in this as they did on a job, anticipating each other's wants and needs fluidly. It had taken weeks before things had really clicked between her and Tom and even then…
No.
Now was not the time to think about Tom.
Tom and his duplicity didn't belong anywhere near her bedroom anymore.
Whatever Red's ultimate agenda might be, however she might doubt his motives, his morality, at least she knew what he felt for her had never been feigned. Call it what you will—fascination, obsession, something else she dare not put a name to—it was real.
From the moment she met him, she knew there was something, even if she couldn't identify what it was. She had felt his attention like a caress. It exhilarated her no matter how much she tried to deny it to herself. The fact that they well and truly shouldn't be sleeping together only heightened what was already there between them. It was a taste of the forbidden and she had always been drawn to it, like she had always been drawn to the intricacies of the criminal mind.
When she really thought about it, this was just the next logical step in their relationship.
Red nuzzled her neck, pressing small, soothing kisses there while he waited for her thoughts to settle. She took his head in her hands and brought his mouth to hers again, maneuvering him into a slow, drugging kiss, and he went along willingly, allowing her to direct it, direct him. When she pulled away, she tugged lightly on his still swollen bottom lip with her teeth and felt his forearms tense against her thighs as he gripped the chair tighter and let out a low, resonant groan that shot straight to her groin.
She trailed her hands down to unbutton his dress shirt; he pushed back into the chair as far as he could to watch her, sucking in a breath when she reached the buttons covering his lower belly. She pushed the shirt and vest off his shoulders, hands smoothing over the warm, flushed skin there. On a whim, she shoved the clothing further down his arms, effectively trapping them against his body at the elbows.
The tangled, twisted fabric framed his shoulders, emphasizing the breadth of them as well as the muscles flexing as he tested his bonds. A faded tattoo on his upper arm drew her attention and she mapped each inked line with teeth and tongue, lightly, methodically, and kissed her way up across his shoulder to the little pink scar on his neck to give it the same treatment. He moaned and twitched beneath her.
She shifted back and he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers as he watched her work her hands between them—unbuckling his belt, undoing his fly, and finally slipping into his boxers to draw him out. She gave him a few quick strokes, just shy of establishing a satisfying rhythm, before pulling back and standing. He growled in frustration, but made no effort to follow her beyond arching his back into the chair.
Keeping her eyes on him, she began to undress, deliberately taking her time, dragging her hands across her own heated skin as she slipped the clothing from her body. By the time she finished, Red was a mess—mouth parted, breathing ragged and shallow, eyes dilated and hungry, liquid beading at the tip of his cock and rolling down the length of it. He looked completely and utterly debauched.
A familiar feeling of power surged through her at the sight of him. She'd done that to him. He let her do it. She squeezed her thighs together unconsciously and his cock lurched, his breath stuttering in his chest.
She dropped to her knees, fingers gripping the waistband of his trousers and boxers. She tugged at them, dragging them down his thighs roughly with most of his weight still on them. A tap to his hips and he pushed himself up off the seat. She admired the way his biceps tightened with the effort. She pulled his trousers past his knees, nudging them further apart as she went, and left the clothing bunched and twisted around his calves.
She rubbed her hand up and down his thigh, looking up at him much like he'd done after he saved her from The Stewmaker, but with his thigh flushed and naked beneath her hand, the context was shockingly different. She pressed her lips to the inside of his knee, beginning to trace a lazy trail of kisses up his body. Her breath played over his cock, but she moved on without touching it, continuing her way up his belly and chest.
She settled herself onto his thighs again, casually resting her forearms on his shoulders, relishing the feeling of skin on skin. She smirked when she noticed his attention seemed to be focused rather solidly on her chest, which he had no hope of reaching without relinquishing his grip on the chair and ending their game. Taking pity on him, she pulled herself closer with a hand on the back of his neck so he could reach her breasts with his mouth. He gave them the same treatment she'd given his shoulder, all tongue and teeth and sucking mouth, the ache between her legs growing more unbearable by the second.
When she couldn't stand it any longer, she wrapped an arm around his shoulders for leverage, shifting to position him against her. He hissed in a breath while she slowly, agonizingly, sank down onto him until they were flush against each other from hips to chest.
The sensation of him sliding inside her was maddening. Her nerve endings were on fire, every tiny shift sending a ripple of stimulation radiating through her entire body. It took every ounce of willpower not to move, because she knew as soon as she started she wouldn't be able to slow down and she wasn't prepared to be lose control of herself like that.
"Oh my God," she gasped, pressing her cheek against his, her fingers threaded through the short hairs at the nape of his neck.
She felt him nod against her, his whole body tense as a bow string.
"I know," he breathed, "I know."
The muscles in her back and legs trembled from the effort of holding herself still. Everything inside of her cried out for friction; she allowed herself to relax, rocking against him just once, and she saw stars.
She was lost. It was just as she thought it would be. Her hips moved of their own volition, grinding desperately against him, unable to slow or rein herself in. The hair on his chest rubbed at her nipples roughly, sending little shocks of pleasure through her in counterpoint to the rest. She buried her face in his neck and came apart with a muffled scream.
Red's stubble scratched at her cheek, rousing her from her drowsy, climax-induced haze. He spoke, but he sounded far away.
"Hmm?"
"Untangle me, Lizzy," he said again, his voice strained, insistent.
She stood on unsteady legs and clumsily freed his arms. Once he could move again, he gently brushed her shaking hands away from his trousers and took over, shedding the rest of his clothes as quickly as he could. He scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the bed, covering her body with his immediately. He slid back inside her, his weight on her welcome, comforting. A few deep, frantic thrusts and he came, choking out her name. He collapsed next to her in a breathless heap.
They dozed. For minutes or hours, she couldn't be sure. She was only aware of their tangled limbs and her sore muscles as she drifted in and out of sleep.
Sometime later she woke up enough to use the bathroom, her legs still far more jelly-like than usual. She returned to find him awake as well, sitting up against the pillows properly, instead of sprawled out on top of the sheets where they fell.
"You look like you belong there," she said, realizing halfway through that she'd spoken aloud, but decided to finish anyway. "Except…"
He watched her root around in her closet with an appreciative, curious expression on his face. She emerged with a couple folded blankets and proceeded to switch them out for her comforter. She tried not to feel self-conscious, which was no small feat with him watching her like he was, although there was no longer anything suggestive in his gaze, just admiration and something that looked a lot like wonder.
He reached out for her hand when she climbed back into bed. "You didn't have to do that."
"You're right. I know. I wanted to."