Disclaimer: Marvel's. Not mine.

Rating: Rated M for strong language, sex and violence.

Author note: By popular demand, here is chapter 5 (Mission) and 6 (Stolen) of House of Cards, told from Gambit's perspective. Just warning y'all... this will get smutty after this chapter. I have been reliably informed (by my lovely beta, jpraner) that this is acceptable, so what the hell, I will post it, sex and all. LOL.

After this there will probably be a couple more vignettes from the HoC universe to post... Maybe something longer, (such as a long epilogue) although I won't promise anything, cos I don't really know where I'm going with it anymore. My interest and creative juices have now been totally eaten up by a new Romy fic I'm writing in a totally new AU, one that came out of nowhere and bludgeoned me round the head a bit. In the meantime, enjoy this, and I'll get the new one out soonish.

Many thanks as always to all my lovely readers, reviews, followers and other friends in Romy-dom; and a special shout-out to jpraner for her edits, suggestions, and putting up with me. ;)

x

-oOo-

Slow Burn

Sinister was just finishing up a meeting with the Marauders when he finally walked in to work, more than 45 minutes late.

He was skating the line of insubordination and he knew it, so he stood at the back by the door and caught his breath, his teeth tugging at his bottom lip, still tingling with the honeybee sting of Olivia's kiss.

There wasn't much more he had known about her than her name – not that things like that really mattered. Especially not when you'd spent the night drinking in some swanky bar and were fucking horny.

By the time he'd been onto his tenth drink the women had all started to look the same to him, just like the bottom of every glass had started to look like the meaningless, bottomless pit he was trying to avoid.

Olivia had just been the first one to invite him up to her room.

Remy exhaled and left last night where it was. He cast his gaze over Sinister's little audience, men and women who hadn't even bothered to look up when he'd entered, knowing his occasional habits, knowing he was allowed them.

He knew the faces of all the people in that room, but he knew none of their names. The names they wore were all labels, just like Gambit was the one he wore: Sabretooth, Harpoon, Arclight, Riptide, Scalphunter, Vertigo… Names that told him just enough to tell him nothing. Names that marked out their mutant powers and little else.

"Ah, LeBeau," Sinister greeted him with that subtly mocking tone he always used. "How nice of you to drop by. I was beginning to wonder whether you'd bother showing up at all."

He didn't waste another second on his young protégé, moving back to his gathered team of heavies, saying: "I trust you all know what your orders are now. Any questions, and we will discuss them later. I have other business to attend to now."

There was no reply from his audience. One by one the Marauders stood and filtered out of the room, eyeing Remy with ambivalence as they walked past.

He was different to them, a cut above them.

It wasn't just that he was mostly given the covert ops. It was something else and he wasn't quite sure what.

"Gambit," Sinister beckoned him from the back of the room once everyone had filed out, "come."

Remy did so.

He walked up to the short dais where Essex's desk was, to the row of computer monitors that flickered behind it with a bluish light. Essex was standing, and so he did not venture giving himself the luxury of sitting down in the nearby leather swing chair. He stood before his paymaster and waited.

"I take it," Essex addressed him sarcastically, "that you were busying yourself with pleasure rather than business last night?"

Remy smirked, shrugged.

"Yeah. So? 'Bus'ness' happened to wind up early last night."

Essex's smile was cold, mirthless.

"Ah. Then you have the data?"

"Of course."

He slipped his hand into the inner pocket of the jacket and took out a thin sliver of chip. Then he laid it on the desk and slid it over to Sinister who picked it up and examined it briefly.

"Excellent," was all he said. He turned to the computer interface at his right hand, inserted the chip. The monitors flickered into life and Remy looked up. It was the schematics of a building; a Sentinel parts factory in Manhattan.

"There it is," Sinister observed calmly, homing in on what appeared to be an underground bunker. "That is where our little prize will be."

Remy was silent, studying the 3D blueprints carefully. This place was, after all, where his next job was going to be that very night. Go in, bust out a mutant, get out again. That was all he was really, nothing more than a glorified courier. If the Marauders had known, they probably would've laughed.

He tilted his head, seeing the perfect access route. If he could get in under the floors… Or through the garbage chute…

"I still don't get why dey're keepin' mutants in a Sentinel parts factory," he commented, and Essex levelled him a stare that clearly suggested he was stupid.

"What else could they be but test subjects, LeBeau?" he retorted coldly. "What better to test out the effectiveness of your prize killing machine than on a handful on mutants, ready on tap?"

"Hmph," Remy grunted his begrudging assent. "I guess. Figured they'd have those at de end of de actual assembly line. But yeah. I s'ppose it'd make sense t' test out de parts before you assemble them."

"As well as after, as the case may be," Sinister grimaced. He pressed a nearby touchpad and the monitor switched to a screen Gambit knew well. It was a database – the Cerebro Files.

It was the first thing he'd ever stolen from the X-Men.

Essex was scrolling through the long list of names deliberately.

There were many on the list who were marked as dead or missing. There were even more who were marked as incarcerated. It was one of these that Essex finally stopped on.

STARSMORE, JONOTHON, A.K.A. CHAMBER.

A tap on the name, and the face popped up on the screen, a face obscured by a thick, black scarf across the lower mouth.

Remy remembered him. One of the kids at the Massachusetts Academy. He'd blasted half his face off when he'd first manifested his powers.

It seemed that first manifesting one's powers was often a dangerous business for mutants.

"And dat's de guy I need to bring in, huh?" he asked.

Sinister nodded.

"I would take extra care with this one," he warned Remy witheringly. "His powers are… unstable, to say the least."

"Heh. Shouldn't be a problem as long as he's wearin' his collar…"

"Of course. Just a 'friendly' warning, LeBeau. I would rather save you the inconvenience of an altercation. Believe it or not, I would also rather you returned to me safely and in one piece." The glance Sinister shot him was almost chilling. "Do you need a printout?"

"Non. I got it." He tapped the side of his forehead. "But email me a copy of de blueprints anyways. I'll study them before I move in tonight. Always best t' set up a couple of escape routes…"

"Indeed." Sinister's lip curled. "One must always be prepared for the unexpected."

-oOo-

The truth was, it wasn't often that anything unexpected ever came his way anymore.

By nature Remy was thorough, and every mission like this he treated as a job.

Espionage wasn't all it was cracked up to be. It was deadly boring for a start.

Everything had to be meticulously covered beforehand, and that meant doing your homework. It meant hours of boring research, memorisation of facts, scrupulous planning ahead for every conceivable outcome. It meant getting yourself into a certain psychological zone. It meant being prepared to change your plan at any given moment.

Remy hung upside down from the edge of the rooftop and charged the edges of the vent grate.

Honestly, when it came down to it, none of this was like the shit you saw on James Bond.

James Bond, Remy thought wryly to himself as he charged the final few inches of grate. What a fuckin' idiot.

Because the whole point of this kind of job was not to be seen in the first place. It was all about stealth, not going in and causing a hoohah. And as for all those women… Well, fucking on the job was always a huge mistake, unless it happened to be a part of the job. Stuff like that was best left to after hours.

Remy tugged at his bottom lip with his teeth, his eyes narrowed with concentration. He reached out, put his hands on each end of the grate, and detonated the charge as softly and quietly as he could. The grate popped out, into his hands. He swung back onto the roof and placed the grate carefully down onto the gravel. Then he swung right back over and into the ventilation shaft.

Ten minutes later and he was out the other side, several floors down and halfway across the building. The only foolproof way of getting down to the basement was through one of the garbage chutes, and the safest one was on this level.

It was safer because there were no kinks in it that he was going to get trapped in – it was a straight slide all the way down.

Remy was about to head in the direction of the chute when he heard footsteps just round the nearest corner.

His reaction was pure instinct – barely a few seconds later and he had sprung back into the ventilation shaft, missing the guard turning the corner by mere moments.

Remy looked down through the grating as the guard walked right on by, gritting his teeth against the adrenaline of his near escape.

Fuck. I thought I had their patrol figured. Guess it must be a new shift kickin' in. Just my fuckin' luck.

The worst thing about it was, he'd have to stay up here and go right back to square one. Scope out their pattern, and re-evaluate how he was going to work around it.

He sighed, resigning himself to another indeterminable stretch of mind-numbing boredom.

Fifteen minutes passed before the next guard passed down below him; then another 15 minutes before the first guard returned.

Okay, so dere's two of 'em. Fifteen minute patrols. Plenty of time to get where I need to. And dey call dis security?

He smirked to himself.

He shifted forward to open the grate again and jump out, when he heard the sound of footsteps coming back down the corridor.

Remy stiffened, lay flat again.

This was unexpected… He knew for a fact that that guard should be heading to the other side of the wing right now, and if he wasn't that could only mean one of two things – either that the security was better than he'd first estimated, or that something unusual was going down tonight. Either way, it meant that this was going to be a tougher assignment than he'd first thought.

Shit. Now I gotta figure out how t' work round dis…

He peered down through the grate as the footsteps drew nearer, as the guard finally came into view.

It wasn't the same guard.

It wasn't even a man.

It was a woman.

He could tell from the tall, willowy figure, the slight roll of the hips as she walked.

She paused right in his line of sight, turned slightly, the line of her profile coming into view, and surveyed her surroundings.

Rogue.

It was Rogue.

He froze.

The world stopped.

And for a split second that lasted forever he forgot how to breathe.

For a moment he thought he was dreaming, or even that something had gone wrong with his brain. Hell, maybe he'd dropped some acid and was on some weird sort of trip. It wasn't outside the realms of possibility.

But she turned again, facing him almost directly, and he knew he wasn't dreaming.

The delicate nose, the blush of her lips, the pallor of her skin and the green of her eyes. The white streak in her cinnamon-coloured hair.

Almost as soon as it'd sunk in she turned away from him, began walking again. A few moments more and she was completely out of his sight.

He lay there in the ensuing silence, stunned, motionless.

The only thing that was moving was his heart, and it was beating faster than Quicksilver could run.

What de fuck? was the first thought he shot out. She's dead… …

But he didn't know that. He'd only ever assumed it. He'd assumed it because he'd thought nobody could've got out of that mansion alive – he'd just barely managed to do so himself after all. Sinister's database had listed her as 'missing'. And he'd always just figured that her body had been too badly maimed, burnt or destroyed to be identified.

But there she was, walking down there right underneath him, unmistakably, undeniably Rogue.

I must be dreamin'… I haveta be dreamin'…

But his senses were screaming at him that he wasn't.

He moved then, quietly, carefully removed the grate, and scrambled out through the hole once more. He dropped down into the corridor, landing without even a trace of a sound, and, his mission now entirely forgotten, he followed the way she had disappeared.

-oOo-

He caught sight of her again on the outside of the building, and he hid in the shadows as he watched her pause at the bottom of a maintenance ladder that led up to the roof.

She stood a long moment, touched her forehead as if pained, and then, quickly, quietly, swung up onto the rungs.

He didn't follow.

He could figure out what she was going to do, and he preoccupied himself with trying to work out whether he was dreaming or not.

He watched her climb up the ladder, instinctively matching every movement she made to his memories of her.

Her body was thinner under the black bodysuit than he remembered it, and the way she moved was more muted, less brash. But the shape of her… the elegant architecture of her legs and her arms, the nipped in waist, the flare of her hips, the perfect sculpt of her backside… they were all aspects of her that he'd studied very thoroughly during his time back at the mansion, and heaven be damned, they were all exactly as he remembered them.

And there was that white streak in her hair again, glimmering in the moonlight.

No mistaking that.

He licked his lips unconsciously as she disappeared over and onto the edge of the roof, and, as soon as she was out of sight, he slipped out of his hiding place and followed.

He stopped when he got to the bottom of the ladder.

He didn't know what the hell he thought he had to gain in seeking out a meeting with her. This was a waste of time, and he suddenly remembered, with a twinge of frustration, that he had a mission to fulfil. He couldn't touch her. Couldn't kiss her. Couldn't fuck her.

And what'm I gonna say t' her anyways? "Hey, I thought you were dead, and I was jes' hangin' round here when you showed up, d'ya wanna talk? Go for a coffee? Head back to my place? Watch a porno together?"

He huffed a bit to himself.

No matter which way he thought about it, it could only turn out sounding ludicrous.

He half-considered heading back towards the basement, getting Chamber and getting the fuck out; but for some reason he didn't.

He looked across the side of the building and noticed a couple of grimy, full-sized windows halfway down. He walked over to them, looked in through the nearest one and squinted. The glass was dirty enough to obscure his view, and he wiped a circular gap with the cuff of his coat and peered in with eyes that could see in the dark.

It was a warehouse. Crates of Sentinel parts neatly stacked and labelled, here, there, everywhere. He glanced up, towards the ceiling. There was no sign of her, but he was pretty sure there would be, soon.

He turned away, pressed his back against the wall.

Fuck, LeBeau. Get y'self back down into dat basement now and grab your fuckin' paycheck.

He swivelled back round to the window, and this time she was there. She dove right down from the roof to the nearest pile of crates, supple as a swallow.

It reminded him of all the nights he'd spent fantasising about her showing him just how fucking supple she could be.

Merde.

He couldn't stop watching her after that, voracious as a voyeur and just as unrepentant.

Not even when he saw her plant her fancy bombs could he look away, not even when it was finally confirmed what she was going to do.

She gonna blow dis fuckin' place t' hell…

He was kind of glad he hadn't headed back to the basement now. Because once those bombs went off and the shit hit the fan, there was no way in hell that he could've got both himself and Chamber out of this place without running up against New York's finest – not to mention a Sentinel or two.

He chose to back away then, knowing that this was not going to be a good place to be in the next few minutes; but he was surprisingly torn between making his escape and keeping her within his sights.

Let dis play out, LeBeau. She's obviously a professional at dis. Stay a while, see what happens. Jes' don't get too close.

He obeyed his own advice and jogged over to the perimeter fence, vaulting over it with practised grace and the aid of his quarterstaff; but his thoughts made him wonder.

It was clear to him that she was sabotaging the Sentinel assembly line, that this was part of a larger plan to hit Trask where it hurt most; but then who was she working for? Who was bankrolling all this?

He wedged himself in the space between two neighbouring buildings and glanced round from his cover.

The night was still and clear, but he was pretty sure that wasn't going to last long.

Where de hell is she? If she don't get out soon, she's gonna be fucked for sure…

He shifted into a crouching position and peered through the fence, expecting her to launch herself over it any moment now.

But there was still no sign of her.

C'mon, chere, what'cha waitin' for? You don' wanna getcha self blown up. I will be really, really fuckin' pissed if you getcha self blown up when I've only just found you again and—

He never got to finish the thought, because at that very moment the entire wing of the factory exploded.

Remy was on his feet in a second, anxiety rippling through him, and he held himself back in his hiding place with an effort.

It was only then that he noticed her, high-tailing it across the yard towards the perimeter fence with all the glass and the concrete and the rubble of the explosion hot on her tail.

And he had no idea what the hell had taken her so long, but it was a relief to see her alive and fighting, and she ducked, she rolled, she hit the fence head on and if she hadn't been in such serious fucking trouble he would've laughed. As it was, he was simply glad to see her get back onto her feet and scramble over the fence like a bat out of hell.

It was only when she was safely on the other side of the raging inferno that he slipped out of his hiding place, that he followed.

-oOo-

The only problem with an explosion was that it tended to attract all sorts of unwanted attention.

Panicked onlookers, gaping voyeurs, thugs and firefighters, cops and EMT's.

Sentinels.

Remy watched her weave in and out of the mass of heaving bodies, the harried, confused voices of the onlookers drowned out by the din of the ambulances and the fire trucks, the shouts of the firefighters and the paramedics. She didn't stop for any of it, and neither did he. There were several moments when he thought that he had lost her in the crowd, and but for the white streak in her hair – a shimmering beacon amongst the haze of black and orange and grey and red – she probably would have disappeared completely and without a trace.

He kept a fair distance from her, navigating the agitated throng with feline ease, picking her out here, there, a lone figure against the tide, her pace careful, restrained. It was a gait he had never seen from her before. The Rogue he had known with the X-Men had been brash and confident, barrelling into a fight like a tank. Then again, these were different times and for mutants to go around smashing things up usually meant a death sentence.

It was only when the crowds had thinned out a bit that he noticed her stumble. Once, twice, three times in quick succession.

She's hurt, he thought, unable to prevent a grimace from crossing his face.

She'd been careless, back at the factory. She'd stayed too long at the scene of the crime, she'd almost got caught in her own trap. He sure as hell hoped she hadn't paid too high a price for her mistake. If she was wounded, there wasn't a lot she could do about it out here.

He had trailed her for three or four blocks before she finally ducked into a dingy little alley.

Remy paused as soon as she had gone from his sight. There was another alleyway to his left, and he slipped into it casually, picking up his pace as soon as he was out of sight of the main road. The passage was blocked halfway by a wire fence and he scaled it without thinking, jumping over onto the other side, jogging down to the other end of the building.

He made a quick mental map of his surroundings. The next alley down – that's where she'd be. If he was quick enough, he could head her off.

He walked quickly, pausing only as he got to the corner. The truth was, he wasn't sure if he really wanted to follow her in there.

He didn't even really know why he'd followed her in the first place.

If he went in there right now and startled her, how would she react?

Were they even on the same side anymore? Would she be hostile? Would she even remember him?

(And he was pretty sure that the answer to that would be yes…)

And then what would he even say to her?

Well, if she was wounded he could help see to that. Not that he could touch her to treat a fucking wound, but hey… He could be extra careful. He had his gloves on him. He didn't have any kit or anything, but he had some in that place on the other side of town, that safe house he still used sometimes when the shit hit the fan and he needed to lay low… …

Remy ran his tongue over his lips, chewing on the thought.

Out came his cards and he flipped them deftly between his hands, right, left, left, right.

Maybe he'd turn that corner right now and she'd be gone.

Maybe she'd never been there at all.

Maybe she'd been someone else. Or a dream. Or an apparition.

Sirens were screaming in the distance, and the stench of burning rubber and concrete was in the air.

All his senses told him that if he turned that corner right now, she would be there.

And then what?

The cards paused in his hands.

He was going round in circles now.

Round and round.

The truth of the matter was pretty simple, and that was that it didn't much matter what he said to her.

He just had to know that it was her. Had to look her in the eyes. Had to relive what it felt like to be under her gaze. Had to know whether whatever it was that had existed between them back at the mansion… whether it was still there. After all this time, and in this horrible place called now.

He pulled in a breath and put away his cards. There wasn't a single other thing he needed to make his decision. The desire to have some sort of resolution between them was more than enough.

He pushed himself off of the wall and he turned that corner.

She was there.

He stood a moment in the entrance to the alleyway, driven to a halt by the sight of her crouching against the wall, his presence wreathed from her by the shadow of the nearby building.

She was preoccupied, her teeth gritted in pain as she finished up tying a bandage round her right arm. It was an intimate moment he had walked in on, a moment he knew instinctively she would not have let him see, and it made him hesitate. It made him hesitate because she was open wide, she was weak and wounded and hurting, and she was not the woman he remembered. The woman he remembered would have patched up her wounds and gone right on brawling. But this woman, this Rogue… Something had gone out of her. All the fight, all the strength. All the sass, all the impudence. What he saw now… he saw an emptiness. A hopelessness. It almost made him feel ashamed to have followed her here, to have spied on her. It almost made him walk away.

Almost.

She still hadn't noticed him, and he watched her get to her feet, lean back against the wall, close her eyes, steady her breathing. He knew then that she was still in pain, and as she turned to pick up her backpack he stepped forward without thinking, on an impulse, he thought, to reach out to her, to help her.

She heard him this time.

With a start she whipped round, and there she was.

Rogue.

A hundred emotions seemed to cross her face in a single split second – shock, recognition, doubt, confusion – many more he couldn't quite put a name to. Her lips were parted with surprise, and if he had ever doubted that this was Rogue, he could doubt no more when he saw her eyes.

Those same green eyes that had held his gaze so often, wide and questioning and as smoky and sad as he remembered.

It was only when those eyes met his for the first time in two long, bitter years that he felt the ground tug away from his feet and his stomach fall right through the bottomless pit that remained.

And whilst he felt it, he wasn't consciously aware of it, and all the bravado and nonchalance that life had taught him quickly took over, making him smile at her like he smiled at every other woman, making him say: "Nice work back there. I guess you beat me t' de punch."

She said nothing. Instead her mouth clamped shut, as though to bite down on words before they tumbled gracelessly out. Her face was thinner than he remembered too, just slightly – the line of her cheekbones a little more angular than his memories of her suggested.

But the greatest difference was in her eyes – eyes that had always been soulful, but that now spoke of deep sorrow and loss.

"How long were you followin' me?" she finally asked – and it was Rogue's voice, speaking in a tone that was pitched low and even – yet there was an accusatory note to it, and there was a suspicion there that he'd never quite heard before back at the mansion. If she'd ever distrusted him back in the past, she had never been afraid to make it known in the most outrageous of ways – from all-out rancour to playful banter. But this was different – a muted mistrust that cut him deeper than anything else she might have said.

For some reason, he ignored it.

"Since way back at de factory." He jabbed a thumb in the vague direction of the explosion. "Got so surprised t' see you, I went ahead and let you take de credit for blowin' up dat shithole. But, chere – while I thoroughly approve of de end result, I gotta tell you y' lack a whole lotta style."

He was joking, bantering with her – and considering the situation he'd found her in, it probably wasn't the best way to go. Her eyes widened at his irreverence, as if she hadn't heard a joke in years and didn't know how to react to one anymore. It took a few more heartbeats for her lips to actually give way to a ghost of a smile, and when she did he was never so glad to see one in all his life.

"Lucky Ah don't care for your brand of style then, Cajun," she remarked coolly – although he could detect a twist of humour to her voice, as she finally turned away from him and began to pack the medical supplies back into her kit. It was enough to make the corner of his own mouth twitch into a lopsided grin. For a few seconds back there he'd been afraid she didn't know how to smile anymore.

He watched her as she went about her task, all the while ignoring him pointedly. It wasn't what women did when in his presence – usually they tried to get his attention, whether subconsciously or not. Rogue had never really played that game with him anyway – in his presence she'd often been nervous, wary that it might open up the opportunity for a lethal touch. But the way she ignored him now was different – less wary than weary. Less standoffish than tired. He couldn't quite work it out. By the time she'd finished packing her things away he still hadn't got it figured.

When she turned back to him, it was like she was surprised to see him still there.

For a long moment they stood there, only a few metres away from one another, each one silently appraising the other.

It was only in that moment – one without words or distractions – that he fully accepted that she was real. It was only then, looking into her eyes without either of them flinching or turning away, that he realised something profound.

Two years had passed, the world had turned to shit, and there was a lot he didn't care for or believe in anymore.

But something hadn't changed, and that was the way he felt when he was standing this close to her.

The realisation perturbed him somehow and he broke the suddenly painful silence, said: "Dat cut dere, on your arm… You go to a hospital, dey'll ask too many questions." And before he knew it he was adding quickly, lightly, "I can take you back to my place, fix it up for you if you like."

They both knew what his invitation really meant – he could see it in her eyes. He'd invited her often enough to his room back in the day. It had never been about sex – not entirely anyhow – the fact that they couldn't touch had meant that invitations to his room had taken on a unique complexion when it came to her.

It had meant stuff like getting to know one another, and talking shit, and spending time alone together. Kid's stuff, really.

It hadn't meant he hadn't tried it on now and then, because he knew there were ways of messing around without having to touch skin on skin; but she'd rarely let things get very far and most of the time they'd just ended up hanging out.

And that was all he really wanted right now.

Just some time alone with her.

Just an opportunity to reconnect with her, away from the noise and the sirens and the stench of the explosion, from this dank dark alley where the Sentinels were never far behind.

He wanted to relive a little piece of the life he had left behind, the one that she had belonged to.

That was all.

At least, that was what he was telling himself.

"Yah have your own place?" she asked him, and her voice was pointedly neutral, giving the lie to the fact that she was probably feeling exactly the same things he was feeling and trying desperately to hide.

"A safe house o' sorts," he explained nonchalantly. "Don't use it too much. Too dangerous t' stay dere more den a day at a time."

And there was that look on her face again. Eyes wide like he was just throwing surprise after surprise at her. For a split second he thought she might refuse, and when she said "all right," he was almost surprised himself at her assent. He watched on as she bent slightly, picked up her rucksack and hoisted it up over the shoulder of her good arm, thinking, great, so now whatcha gon' do, LeBeau? Make her some tea and talk about de good ol' times? And no sooner had he got that thought out than she did something unexpected, more unexpected than her showing up again at all.

She peeled off her gloves and slipped them into the pockets of her leather jacket.

He'd reacted even before it had sunk in.

"No gloves?" he asked.

Her eyes flickered to his, and she said in a voice that was low, soft: "Ah can control my powers now… Ah can touch."

In a single second everything had changed between them, and it didn't compute, but he knew exactly what it meant.

"Oh," was the only thing he could think of to say.

-oOo-

She could touch.

She could touch.

They drove through the city on his bike, her behind him with her arms wrapped round his waist, and he tried not to think about it, he tried not to think about the fact that her small, white hands were clasped right there over his stomach, that her head was resting right there between his shoulder blades[PJDSUA1M48] .

The more he tried not to think about it, the more he could think of nothing else.

The journey to the safe house passed in a haze, a haze of newly reawakened desires pushing dangerously to the surface, desires rendered all the more potent for the fact that now they could be realised in the basest, most fundamental sense.

He didn't like the way they pulsed through his veins, stole at his breath and tugged on his loins.

He didn't like what she did to him, peeled away that finely maintained control he so painstakingly wrought, stripped it slowly away to reveal all the mess, all the intensity of emotion he spent his life hiding.

He didn't like it and he loved it.

He loved the way she pulled at him with just the bare minimum of her presence. The way she unravelled him so effortlessly, the way she teased at him like a ball of thread without even having to say a single word.

What she did to him was what no woman had ever done before with their silvery laughs and their come-hither smiles, with their hungry kisses and their even greedier touches.

What she did to him right there, right then, as they drove through the city on the back of his bike… it was far more titillating, far more exciting than any or all of those things put together.

He mentally counted down the miles to his place, her proximity driving him to the depths of a tortured impatience he hadn't experienced before. Because the fact that she was there at all, the fact that she had accepted his invitation… it could only mean one thing. It could only lead to one conclusion, and he couldn't get to where he needed to go fast enough, he could hardly contain himself with the knowledge of what this all meant. By the time their journey was ended, it was already a given.

He knew he was going to have sex with her; he knew it was inevitable.

-oOo-

To be continued...