Thank you all for your patience in awaiting this next chapter. As for the smut...blame it on Vicpei.

Disclaimer: If I'd been connected with the show, we would have had a lot more fun and angst in this ship.

Chapter 22

His head dropped.

For a second she thought he was looking at the card again and digesting her words, but Cuddy quickly saw he was averting his eyes, nervous and uncomfortable. It was not the reaction she'd anticipated.

"I didn't give you the transcripts to play on your guilt," he mumbled. "You don't have to fix things."

He stretched out his arm to place the card on his nightstand and began to rub his leg. Cuddy didn't miss the significance of the gesture, or his words.

"Of course I'd let a man adopt my daughter just to make him feel better," she said. "Who cares about what she needs, right?"

House closed his eyes and shook his head. "I didn't mean that," he muttered under his breath.

Oh, you beautiful man.

Cuddy ran her hand along his jaw from his ear to chin, and with gentle pressure, urged him to look at her.

His eyes were that glossy blue that could so easily cause her to drown in the vulnerable depths. When he looked at her so openly, his heart revealed and fragile, she felt her own walls crumble, exposing her deepest hopes and fears while igniting the courage to protect the delicate chord that tied them together.

"This isn't about guilt or fixing anything," she said as her thumb traced the outline of his lower lip. "You know I want this."

He searched her, examining her expression, counting the pulse at her neck, staring at the set of her mouth, before his eyes finally locked on hers.

"You've known it all along."

And he had. Things between them had become so convoluted and obscure over the years he'd come to doubt his initial instincts. He'd questioned a lot of things between them, his insecurities manifesting in unexpected areas, causing him to question his own wants and desires.

Cuddy stepped between his legs and slipped her arms around his neck.

"If to negatives make a positive, Rachel is going to turn out great."

"You're no negative," he said. "You just have really shitty taste in men."

She smiled. He was absorbing what she was suggesting. She could see it in his expression and in the way he so easily transitioned into teasing and self-deprecation. This was what she'd expected, what she'd wanted. She could almost see him processing, becoming comfortable with the idea, and silently communicating his emotional response as he came to a determination.

"I'd rather wait until she's older," he said. "She should be the one to choose."

He must have seen what his words did to her because his hands slid up to cup her waist and pull her closer.

"As long as you know I choose you," she said. "I'll always choose you."

He quirked his brow, acknowledging her reference to the words he'd once said to her. "That's a hefty promise," he said as his hands slid up her back to grasp the hook of her bra.

"Not a promise," she corrected as the straps slid down her arms. "A truth."

House eyed the fabric as it hung on the tips of her breasts then lightly tugged, gasping for air when her breasts were at least revealed.

She flung the garment to the side and began to caress his shoulders and chest. "You act like you've never seen me naked."

"You always take my breath away," he shyly admitted. "I can never believe you're really here with me."

Cuddy slid her hands down to the hem of his shirt and tugged it up his torso. "Oh, I'm here," she said and pulled the shirt over his head. When he moved to fully remove it, she stopped him, twisting it around his wrists as she pushed him back onto the bed and fell on top of him.

She was stretched over his body, her hands holding his wrist as her knees bent and parted to straddle his waist.

"Now this is what I'm talkin' about," he growled as he watched her breasts swing at his face.

Her chuckle was quickly swallowed when he craned his neck to take her nipple into his mouth. It was as if an electric pulse shot from her breast to core. She simultaneously wanted to pull away and beg for more.

House licked and nipped and pulled on the hardened nub, enjoying how she immediately responded to him with quickened breaths and tightened thighs. It was exhilarating to know he possessed as much power over her as she did over him. One touch and they both were lost.

Or maybe she wasn't so lost. She pulled away, maintaining the grip on his wrist while putting just enough distance between them to prevent and further sampling of her divine nubs.

"Why did you give me the transcripts?"

His head flopped back on the bed and he let out a groan. "You said we were having sex before we talked," he almost whined.

"I lied."

He watched her breasts move as her chest rose and fell with each breath.

"Then you should have talked before the bra came off," he said. "There's no way I can focus."

"I'd like to be completely naked with you," she gave him that sexy half-smile of hers. "I'd like feel you inside me as I ride you like a wild horse."

He couldn't close his mouth. Cuddy and dirty talk was the equivalent of a teenage wet dream. He felt the blood rush to his groin and his chest constrict as he tried to remember to breathe.

Cuddy arched her back and sank deeper down on her knees so her breast could graze his chest.

"You're not playing fair."

She grinned at him. "I'm not playing at all."

She slid up his body again in a slow, steady move that he'd seen her do many times in yoga. It had long been a fantasy to be her mat, and now his body became inflamed with the heat of the experience.

"I'm afraid you felt pressured to share," she softly said as she stared at his mouth. "I don't want you to feel pressured to…"

"There's nothing in those transcripts I wouldn't tell you," he assured her as he moved his hips beneath her. The zipper in his jeans was becoming uncomfortable. "I want to tell you. This just makes it easier...except for your dominatrix guilt torture."

He moved his arms, but she gripped his wrists even tighter with the shirt.

"You gonna tie me up?"

"I might," she grinned.

"You do know that's been a long-time dream of mine, right?" His smile was both endearing wonder and sex appeal. "Only usually it's in your office."

She gave a husky laugh. "I'll keep that in mind," she teased. "Right now there's only one thing I want to do."

House grinned lecherously. "What's that?"

"I want to taste every part of you," she said.

His eyes rolled back in his head and he groaned. "I love it when you talk that way."

"But I don't want you to touch me," she said.

"What?" he was ready to argue. "That's not going to work."

"Oh, it will work." She moved against his jeans and felt him standing at alert, reaching out to her. "See?" she said, and winked at him.

"Why Dr. Cuddy," he said. "I think you're a tease."

"Teasing is the last thing I want to do," she said. "I plan to follow-through completely. Now promise you won't touch me until I say."

As if I'd ever say no.

"I promise."

Cuddy released his wrists and began showering kisses over his face and neck, over his chest and down his stomach. Her hands were as hungry as her mouth, and she was thorough. Perhaps her obsessive perfectionism had its place, he thought, but then she was removing his jeans and boxers. She nipped his thighs as skin was exposed until he was totally naked.

He'd never get over how she looked at him, as if he wasn't scared and damaged, but the most perfect man she'd ever seen. Her lust was apparent and he felt…humbled and proud, and hot and wanting, and he wanted…

He gasped when he felt her moist, heated breath on his balls

He couldn't stop his legs from opening slightly or his body from pushing toward her. It was perfectly natural to instinctively reach for such ecstasy.

He tongue made circles around his sac. "Oh, wow," he said, the sensation sending bolts of electricity throughout his body.

Cuddy hummed against him and his hips shot off the bed.

"Feel good?" she asked.

"God, yes."

She ran her tongue up the underside of his erection, circled the tip and returned before sucking his balls into her mouth.

"You're killing me," he groaned.

She smiled against him.

"Don't stop," he rushed to say.

Cuddy had no intention of stopping.

She used her lips to nibble him. Up and down, up, around and down. She didn't miss a spot, except the…

His entire body spasmed as her tongue pushed into the tiny opening at his tip.

"Cuddy," he cried out.

She took him fully into her mouth, sucking and pulling, sliding up and down, and humming her pleasure. His body rocked as the pressure built and the inevitable eruption was evident.

"Cuddy," he gasped, signaling she was close.

She increased the rhythm and pressure, her hand gripping the base of him while the fingers of her other hand slid around the back of his balls.

"I can't hold it."

Cuddy didn't want him too.

House realized what she intended and it sent him over the edge. Heat shot through him, his body rocked and trembled, and he desperately fisted fabric in his hands as spit and spilled and flowed into her mouth. He remained enclosed in the warmth of her mouth, though her movements had stilled. The gentle lick of her tongue helped him ease into decent and kept him alive and spasmodic, sensitive to even the slightest movement and touch.

"Oh! Oh…ha…oh," he simultaneously moaned and laughed as her mouth slid off him.

Cuddy came to lie beside him, her body pressed against his side, her arm bent and head propped on her hand as she watched him. He could feel her eyes on him, but was in a state of euphoria, reeling from the most amazing orgasm ever.

"Give me a minute," he finally said.

She released a husky chuckle.

"Take your time," she leaned down and whispered against his ear. "There's so much more to come."