Tabula rasa

A.N. Sorry for the delay but the time has come for House and Cameron to reunite physically, and these chapters are always the most challenging to get right. While there's no sex here or anything explicit, there is dirty talk in the second half, some of it fairly graphic. If you don't like that sort of thing, feel free to skip this entry. But I really do enjoy writing the erotic aspects of Hameron and I ain't apologising.

Also, I would like to thank you guys for continuing to read this story even through my glacial upload schedule, and to thank those who take the time to show their support through follows, favourites, or reviews. Confessions has just hit 150k views! Thanks again.


Having led the way into the bathroom, Cameron turned to face House. Her expression gave him pause: the green eyes were suddenly far off, as if seeing right through him, and her mouth opened slightly. "You OK?", he asked.

"It occurs to me that, actually, I'm being selfish. We've done everything today that I wanted to do, and now we're going to shower together because that's what I want to do. But do you want to?".

House reached for her hand. "You're not being selfish. You've done so much for me these last few months; far more than anyone could reasonably have asked".

"'Reasonable'", she repeated in an amused tone, intertwining their fingers. "Who told you about that word?".

"Michelle Obama. Obviously. You really do walk into these, don't you?". House looked at her with pity.

"She's one of ours, you know".

"A blonde-haired circle queen? Can't say I'm surprised. Plastic surgery these days truly is a wonder".

Cameron patted his cheek. "Chicago".

"No, that's you. Silly goose".

She laughed out loud.

"But seriously", he continued. "I wasn't being dramatic last night when I said I'd be dead without you". Suddenly he experienced a vision of an alternate reality in which he had resisted her advances, refused a relationship, and stayed resolutely miserable, by himself. Even if Amber had saved that House on the bus, he would not have bothered saving himself. For that House, home was the whiskey bottle and the Vicodin pills. Wilson and Cuddy may well have tried to right his ship, but it would have been about as effective as the bilge pumps on the Titanic.

"You don't need to say nice things to me", she smiled, surprised to find her eyes moist so quickly. "I'll be sleeping with you regardless".

"Is that why you've brought me here?". House made a show of looking around at the tiles. "Kind of uncomfortable to be sleeping on, no?".

"Oh, I've brought you here to sit on your shower chair while I suck your cock".

She delivered these words so straightforwardly that House couldn't help but grin. "Again, that doesn't strike me as particularly selfish behaviour".

"What do you mean?", she asked, tilting her head curiously as she grabbed his t-shirt and lifted it over his head. As usual, she couldn't refrain from running her gaze over his chest and arms. Summer was on the horizon and House was gradually becoming tanned again. Although there were reasons for this, not least the simple fact that he had been doing plenty of walks outdoors as part of his rehab, she had always thought it faintly magical how quickly his skin mirrored the changes in the weather. In previous years she had been forced to keep her fantasies, if not her attraction (for that she had never hidden from him), to herself. But those times had passed forever.

"Women only do it to make dudes feel good", he explained. "No one actually likes sucking cock".

"I do". Cameron, who had momentarily lost herself in the bullet wound on his abdomen, dragged her eyes to his.

"Yeah, right".

"I do!", she laughed. "But only rarely. Most guys aren't worth it".

He had no way of knowing that she, herself, derived a great deal of sexual pleasure from giving head. A large contributing factor was the recognition of a pleasing dichotomy: as a successful doctor, fellowship winner, and researcher, she already boasted an impressive resume. To get this far, however, had necessitated keeping guard over her femininity; hospitals, Diagnostics and the ER especially, were not the places to show weakness. And yet the simple act of being on her knees in front of a man while he looked down on her, especially a man like House, her former boss no less, made her incredibly aroused. In front of him, in that moment, she wasn't an immunologist or a fellow. She was a woman, and he was her man.

At the same time, and as she had more than once reflected, House himself was a walking dichotomy: strong yet curiously vulnerable; rational yet still heedful of hallucination; selfish yet capable of acts of alarming self-sacrifice. Was it any wonder, then, that she found him so addictive? Opposites attract, no matter the context, and House really did bring a welcome chaos to her order.

House, however, remained sceptical, and he stilled her hands, which had hooked in the waistband of his pyjama bottoms. "Hmm".

"You have questions".

"It doesn't matter; not my business".

"No, go ahead. You can ask, but you need to look into my eyes as I answer".

"Alright. Who did you last do this for?". He met her gaze.

"You". This reply caused surprise to flash across his features. "What?", she prompted.

"But…Sebastian Charles. I thought you were together for a while there after we…".

Cameron pulled a face. "We were never together. We just went on, like, three coffee dates or something. The last of which was the night of your accident. We ate pasta".

"Oh. Did I know that? Maybe I did". House had tried hard to suppress memories from back then, an unhappy time even by his own low standards.

She shrugged.

"Would you have…y'know…if I hadn't…y'know?", he asked.

"Would I have slept with him if you hadn't taken the bus? Nah. I decided that I wasn't over you, so I was actually looking for a way to leave when the emergency came through". Cameron experienced a sudden flashback to that horrific night, but House's presence before her caused it to disappear as quickly as it had come.

"You're welcome", he smiled lopsidedly.

"And who says you're selfish, hey?", she grinned back.

"Cool". House released her hands, seemingly done with the subject. "Just FYI, it wouldn't have mattered either way. I was just interested because I refuse to believe any girl likes going down, down, down".

"I didn't do it for Chase either, by the way", she added.

"So before me the last person was…?".

"Blowjobs or sex? Because I've had a few short-term boyfriends since starting at PPTH. They were a useful distraction from my feelings for you, and I am only a woman".

"Only an amazing woman", he corrected softly, trailing his right hand down her cheek. She was so soft. Like silk. Having lost himself in his attraction, he realised she was still expecting clarification: "blowjobs".

"My husband". Cameron delivered these words looking straight into his eyes. "What about you in the romance department?".

"No one after we broke up". House's hand moved into her hair, running the golden strands through his fingers.

"Not even hookers? I don't mind".

"Not even hookers".

"Why not?". Cameron had known House long enough to appreciate how much he loved sex.

House sighed softly. "Penance, twice over. I couldn't get out of my head your crushed dejection from the night we broke up. And then again when I said…those things to you in the office, just after hiring Thirteen. Your face haunted me".

Cameron, reflective rather than morose, was intimately familiar with the concept—his own face had lurked almost permanently in the back of her brain for about three years now. "So, technically, you were kind of inadvertently saving yourself for me".

House hadn't thought of it like that. "I guess that's how it resulted", he nodded.

"Hmm".

"What?".

"I'm pretty turned on by that, to be honest". She took a deep breath, her hands edging round the waistband from his hips to his front. Though they had been in the bathroom for a few minutes now, no clothes apart from House's t-shirt had yet to be removed.

"Well", he murmured. "Do you wanna know what turns me on?".

"Yes". Her hand dipped inside the hem, travelling southwards. "Tell me".

His right hand, meanwhile, which had been tangled loosely in her hair, tightened. "The fact that you haven't had another man anywhere since our breakup".

"Why does that excite you?", she asked thickly, feeling the fingers of his left hand run down her throat.

"Tabula rasa. It makes you seem almost…virginal. Just for me".

"But I'm not a virgin". Cameron smiled slightly, though not from amusement. For the first time in half a year she was getting to experience House's seductiveness. His power. She could feel the first stirrings of adrenaline, the awakening of feelings long kept latent; hidden to all but herself. To be in his control like this made her wet. It always had. It always would.

"No, not a virgin. But you are just for me".

"Yes", she whispered. "Always".

House's expression, which had been subtly changing during their conversation, suddenly reached that point she had ages ago learnt to recognise: the eyes were hooded and dark, the mouth was lined tight, and the veins in his neck were visible. The only thing left was the voice, which never failed to reveal his heightened state.

She didn't have to wait long.

His next words emerged in a throaty growl: "I'm going to give you some instructions and I want you to follow them. OK?".

"Yes", she nodded, eager to please. She still remembered when he had made her stand in front of his bedroom mirror and brought her to climax with just his fingers.

His hand gripped her hair, angling her face upwards, and he closed the slight gap between them. "Say it. Say 'I am yours, House. Always'".

Cameron swallowed, her head tilting with the movement of his hand, making him seem taller than he already was. "I am yours, House. Always".

"Take your hand out", he ordered.

She had hoped to grasp him quickly, but these instructions put paid to that. Reluctantly, she withdrew her hand from his pants, but not looking away, allowing him to bore into her being.

Use me. The thought materialised then vanished.

"Say 'my mouth belongs to House'".

"My mouth belongs to House".

House kissed her hard and she accepted his tongue automatically as a groan escaped her lips. They kissed passionately, but just as her hands moved to his cheeks he broke the contact by pulling on her hair. She whimpered in disappointment.

"Now lose the dressing gown and t-shirt".

Cameron did so, quickly tossing her clothes aside. His right hand soon found a home once again in her hair.

His gaze roved down her torso, taking in every little detail with the kind of forensic attention he applied to diagnostic cases. This switch he had flicked from honest and vulnerable to dominating caused her to quiver. House had not changed in the months they had been apart and Cameron thanked a God she didn't believe in.

"Say 'my breasts belong to House'".

"My breasts belong to House", she nodded, her face blushing inevitably.

"Beautiful", he murmured to himself, before running his hand back down her throat and bare chest, which rose and fell steadily. Already she was hot to the touch. He palmed her roughly, as if weighing up pieces of fruit in the store. "The rest, now".

Cameron hooked fingers in the waistband and shimmied out of her shorts. Since her attention was momentarily elsewhere, she couldn't see House's eyes flick downwards, couldn't see him drinking in how they slid over the flare of her hips, gradually revealing what lay beneath.

For the vast majority of the time he had known Allison Cameron he had been forced to hide his attraction, their few months together the only exception. How many occasions in the office had he wanted to kiss her? How many times had he imagined tugging down her tailored pants and freeing himself from his jeans?

But now he was free, truly free, to say what he thought and how he felt.

The shorts now pooled at her feet, Cameron returned his gaze, which was almost frightening in its intensity. There was a difference between the usual glances she got from men and how House looked at her. This was a difference to which she had devoted some thought in their time apart. With normal guys, sure, she sensed a simple lust, and in unfortunate situations could feel their eyes crawling over her like spiders, the hint of a threat, an unwelcome hazard of being who she was. With House, however, the glances were not, actually, glances at all; they were focused interrogations underpinned in equal measure by intellectual interest and carnal desire. No other man had given her this nuanced impression, not even Chase or Sebastian Charles, fellow doctors.

She had told him once before, but in these moments she felt like the only person on the planet, so exclusive did his attention seem. In these moments, it felt that not even an earthquake could force his eyes away. And yet, for all that, there was no threat; no suggestion of danger beyond that manufactured for sexual gratification, like right now. She knew that even here, as he towered over her, if she said 'no' he would obey instantly and without question.

But I'll never say no. Not to him.

"The way you look at me", she breathed, struggling to put her thoughts into words.

House snapped out of his trance. "What?".

"You always look at me like you've never seen me naked before".

"Do you understand how beautiful you are?", he asked plainly. Again, it was that trademark tone of genuine interest mixed with obvious arousal.

"I only care that you understand how beautiful I am, Greg. Now finish the list". She took his hand and placed it to her lips.

"Your mouth is mine", he murmured.

Then she placed his hand on her left breast.

"Your rack is mine".

Slowly, she trailed downwards, her hand over his. She rubbed herself with his fingers, never breaking eye contact with him.

"Your…vagina is mine".

Cameron smirked, though the flush of her face betrayed her. When his fingers were thoroughly wet, she moved them around onto her butt, feeling her own moisture on her skin.

House tilted his head curiously. She knew, obviously, that this part of her body was his kryptonite. "Your ass is mine?".

"Yes. But most of all…". She took both of his hands this time and pressed them firmly against her chest.

"Your heart is mine", he finished. "Right back at ya, blondie".

They shared a kiss, House's hands roaming her nakedness, pulling her even closer.

Eventually they broke apart breathlessly and Cameron looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. "So, about that shower…?".