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Okay.
The blowtorch, the breaking and entering, the short but satisfying fight with the sweaty underpaid agent – Shaw’s on board. For the sake of the mission and keeping the Machine alive.
Twiddling her thumbs in a musty CIA pick-up site while Root plays tic-tac-toe with her god via the landline telephone – not nearly as exciting.
“Seriously, what are you doing?” she blurts out when Root tilts her head, listens, nods cryptically, and hits another few numbers on the phone for the umpteenth time.
Root doesn’t even look up, just tilts her head again and smiles. “Playing.”
“Playing what?” She bites back the snide Tic tac toe?
Root’s smirk grows. “Probabilities.”
“What?”
Root crosses her legs where she’s still sitting on the table. “She gives me a scenario, I guess the chance of it happening, She corrects my guess, I learn from Her. An imitation game.”
Shaw snorts. “Aren’t you already enough of a robot?”
Root looks up, a curious glint in her eyes. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It wasn’t.”
Root hums noncommittally, and presses a few more buttons.
A beat of silence, but Root doesn’t offer anything else. Shaw sighs in annoyance. Fine. She’ll bite. “What scenarios?”
“Anything. Me needing that insurance. Us delivering the package according to plan. You – ”
“ – dying of boredom before tomorrow morning?”
Root tilts her head and smiles wickedly. “Oh, don’t worry. There’s a fairly slim chance of that.”
Root’s eyes shine uncharacteristically brightly, and Shaw narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Really.”
“Really.”
“The Machine tell you that?”
Root nods, types a few keys, listens, and types again, barely paying Shaw any attention. “She’s never wrong.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” she murmurs, and looks around absentmindedly.
Suddenly, Root hangs up the phone and hops off her perch.
“Did you graduate?” Shaw drawls pointedly, and Root eyes her playfully.
“No. I need something human: a shower.”
“Ah.”
Root stalks to the bathroom, but stops at the doorframe and looks over her shoulder, eyes crinkled flirtatiously. “Feel like joining me?”
Shaw rolls her eyes. “Screw you.”
Root tilts her head playfully. “If you want to.”
She scoffs.
Root smiles cryptically and slowly pulls off her shirt, never breaking eye contact. Shaw’s eyes widen in surprise before she rearranges her features into an irritated frown, and she quickly stands up and strides to the adjacent bedroom, banishing Root from sight.
What the hell?
She shakes her head to clear it, and subdues the eye-roll.
Psycho.
Her eyes fall on a plastic suitcase in the corner, and she raises an eyebrow in interest. The agent’s arsenal. Bingo.
Said agent is currently tied up in the bathroom. Hopefully still passed out. Shaw wonders if Root will even bother to move him to a more suitable location before she strips. Somehow she thinks Root wouldn’t care either way. She hears the shower turn on – too quick to have allowed time to move the body – and she has her answer.
She shrugs off her blazer, crouches, clicks open the suitcase, admires the contents, and completely misses the click of a heel behind her, until she hears Root’s voice – sultry, playful, and threatening all in one:
“Guess we both like our toys, mm?”
She whips around, hand whipping up to defend herself – too late. The taser sizzles as Root presses it into her neck. She goes rigid instantly, pain shooting through every part of her, and, she swears, half of the extended, teeth-gritted grunt she lets out in response as she falls to the side is a physical manifestation of her thoughts: Not fucking again.
The worst thing about being tased, she thinks, is that she knows that at no point will she lose consciousness. She’s aware of every excruciating second of it as her back and abs and thighs contract like a million muscle cramps at once – and with Root’s hand-taser, she controls the length of it, and she’s at her mercy for however long Root decides.
At least there’s a soft bed to catch her. She falls awkwardly, all tight muscles and epileptic jerking, and Root fucking laughs.
The current stops with a final sizzle, and she slumps to the bed, gasping for air as her diaphragm jumps from the spasms.
“Whannnghda hell…”
Root’s answer is the click of handcuffs over her still-twitching wrist. She jerks away, but Root’s hold is stronger than her limp, post-spasm arm, and she grits her teeth as the other handcuff closes over the headboard. Her free arm shoots up in a fast punch, but it still lacks strength, opposite muscle groups convulsing and sending her punch wide even without Root easily dodging it.
“Goddamnit, Root,” she grunts as Root pushes her free wrist into the bed. “What the hell is this?”
Root lifts her knee and places it gingerly on the other side of her waist, straddling her, and it takes Shaw embarrassingly long to realize she’s still shirtless.
“What are you doing?”
Root smiles wickedly, and her fingers play with the button on her jeans.
“Making sure you don’t die of boredom.”
Shaw’s eyes widen. No fucking way.
She brings her knee up sharply, aiming at Root’s kidneys, but Root dodges quicker than even remotely human.
“She told me you’d probably do that.”
She grunts in irritation, pushes up against her wrist where Root still traps it against the bed, and jerks up her hips against Root’s.
Root just smiles and goes with the movement like she was expecting it, falling lightly on her other hand and hovering above her, her hair framing her face as her grin grows and her eyes glint at the dominance she has.
“And that.”
Okay. Not. Fair.
Root grinds her hips against her stomach, sliding back down her body and roaming her eyes across her black top with her lip between her teeth, like Shaw is the next course of a meal and Root is starving.
Shaw does not appreciate it.
“Relying on the Machine to do the dirty work – lame,” she grunts.
“Dirty work?” Root laughs, a low chuckle trapped behind her lip as she bites it. “I’d say I did the most of it.” She swirls her hips across Shaw’s stomach, and Shaw’s eyebrows shoot up. “Gladly, of course.”
She bucks up her hips. Aggravatingly, Root’s smile only twitches in amusement as she rides the movement like it’s part of the game. “You aren't helping your case for me not killing you when this is through,” Shaw says through tight teeth as Root digs her nails into her wrist and plays with the edge of her shirt.
Root chuckles lightly. “Please. If you really wanted me off you, you’d have managed.”
Okay, truth be told, Root’s not wrong – she bucks up half-heartedly again as Root continues to mentally undress her – but it’s for a different reason than the one shining like triumph in Root’s gaze. She struggles again, covering the way she bends her neck and subtly pulls her cuffed hand to her hair, searching for the bobby pin. Getting Root off her is no use if she’s still cuffed to the bed.
“Keep telling yourself that,” she murmurs with a scowl.
“Well, at the very least, you’re not bored anymore,” Root points out.
Okay, she can’t deny that.
Her fingers close on the bobby pin, and she can’t hide the twitch of a smirk. Root tilts her head curiously and takes it as an answer.
“See it as part of the mission,” Root purrs.
Shaw snorts. “In no universe does us fucking contribute to a mission.”
Root’s breath hitches in arousal as she hisses the acrid words – on one word in particular, and Shaw has to suppress the eye roll at Root’s predictability.
“She seems to think it might.”
Shaw scowls. “What, did the Machine tell you to do this?”
“No,” Root replies with a chuckle. ”But She did tell me the probability you’d leave the handcuffs on.”
Shaw’s hand tightens reflexively on the bobby pin, and she’s suddenly acutely aware of the fact that she hasn’t used it yet.
Root leans closer, pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, and drags her eyes across Shaw’s body in a gesture so seductive Shaw can’t help her breath from hitching.
“I liked the odds.”
Her thoughts stutter as the temperature spikes, and Shaw’s groan of irritation at Root’s frustrating confidence dies in her throat instantly. Root’s eyes shine triumphantly at her sudden silence. She slowly lifts her hand from her wrist on the bed, laces their fingers, and drags her hand to her hip. Shaw digs in her fingers and tries to pull her down, but Root narrows her eyes – half suspicious, half playful – and resists. Her eyes flick to her lips, and she’s so close Shaw can see her breath condense in a thin film of moisture on her bottom lip as she breathes out sharply. The corner of Root's mouth pulls subtly up in a challenging grin.
Shaw stays quiet, holding her breath and waiting, taking the sudden opportunity eagerly – changing tactics. Just a little bit closer and she can –
She licks her lips, inviting Root closer, and causing Root to mirror the action.
Root’s chest heaves with a series of shallow breaths as her eyes continue flicking between her lips and her eyes.
“Something holding you back?” Shaw tries, straining forward against the restraint behind her and digging her nails into Root’s hip to pull her close. Her abs strain as she pulls herself up, but Root resists and pulls back, maintaining the minimal distance between them until Shaw’s at the end of the range that the handcuffs allow like a dog pulling at its leash. Root tilts her head suspiciously.
“Maybe your sudden… surrender…” Root murmurs.
Shaw’s lips twitch in irritation at the word – no way – and Root’s lips quirk like she can read her thoughts.
“Are you going to kiss me, or what?” she growls in answer.
Root breathes out sharply, but doesn’t move closer.
“That depends,” she says instead. “Are you going to knock me out as soon as I get close enough? The fifty-fifty chance She’s giving me of a head-butt or you kissing me back is a bit steep.”
Shaw’s inviting smile drops from her lips instantly.
“Fifty-fifty?”
Root’s wet lips quirk with a cocky smile.
“She’s never wrong.”
“She is now,” Shaw growls, and launches forward with a head-butt – the true intent of her so-called ‘surrender’.
50-50. Pff. Try 100-0.
Unfortunately – predictably – Root is ready, and dodges with an extremely frustrating laugh. Her fingers thread in Shaw’s hair at the back of her neck, holding her at bay, and Shaw digs her hand into Root’s neck, pulling her back into range. Their foreheads collide with a thump, and Root breathes out sharply. Shaw feels the breath on her lips, and something deep and urgent tightens in her stomach at the glint in Root’s eye and the way her chest rises and falls with superficial breaths as Root lets herself be pulled close. Shaw tugs again, abs straining, but Root pushes her hips against her and leans back out of range, pulling Shaw with her – a tense push and pull made threatening by the way both their hands tighten and pull on neck and hair until it stings. The handcuffs dig into her wrist, adding to the pain, and a groan she can’t quite identify pushes from her throat as Root breathes out sharply on her lips again.
A bit of pain, the tense struggle, and Root’s ceaselessly eager smile – her stomach tightens again in response to it all, and she stills with her forehead pressed against Root’s, breathing hard.
And though it’s a stalemate, Root’s smile twitches like she’s won. She waits, gauging the danger and searching for Shaw’s gaze, until, with another sharp, irritated gasp, Shaw gives it, holds it, and dares Root’s smile to widen.
She has not won.
Instead though, slowly, Root tilts her face and offers a hesitant invitation of a kiss: the lightest brush off her bottom lip over Shaw’s.
Shaw's hand twitches at the back of her neck, and she itches to either slide it to Root’s throat instead and choke her out, or to pull her further into range and try again – but a needy, aroused sound escapes from Root’s throat as she tightens her hand in her hair and grazes her lips on hers again, and her thoughts derail.
Oh, to hell with it.
With a grunt – half irritated, half aroused – she tilts her face up and kisses back.
The kiss is frustration made manifest. It’s annoyance, reluctant desire, and surrender all in one, and Shaw pulls her close and kisses her hard, mercilessly, like she’s making a point. Her wrist aches in the handcuff as she pulls forward, but Root acquiesces to the desperate pressure with a sharp intake of breath and lets herself be pulled closer, and Shaw forgets all about it. Root matches her turn for turn, parting her lips when Shaw flicks her tongue against them, and sighing in surprise when she pulls her lip between her teeth. She bites hard, but Root clearly doesn’t seem to mind and simply sucks her own lip into her mouth to ease the ache before Shaw kisses her again and she lets the kiss tend to the wound instead.
Slowly, the bobby pin drops from her hand as she unclenches her fist.
Shaw hadn’t imagined this. Kissing Root. Pulling a half-naked Root against her, willingly, no less, and really kissing her. But she supposes if she had, this kiss would match her imagination perfectly. It is push and pull. It is Root responding to her aggression with sharp, excited intakes of breath and coy tilts of her head as she dodges out of range until Shaw has to pull her close again. It is their game – the game they’ve played a few times now, and the game Shaw can’t deny she’s come to enjoy – if only for the chance to put Root in her place, throw out a threat or two, and hold a knife to her throat. Strangely, this kiss – it comes close.
Root groans in arousal and tugs at the edge of her shirt – something definitely new – and Shaw can’t help but smirk.
Well, it comes close enough.
She disengages just long enough to let Root strip her of her shirt. It gets caught on the handcuffs, and Root pushes it away in irritation. Shaw pulls her close again to kiss her, but with a sly smile, Root knocks her back on the bed. She’s about to protest, sit back up and demand back the control Root so easily steals, but Root pushes her wrist into the bed, leans down, and with flip of her hair, presses an open-mouthed, dragging kiss along her throat. Shaw groans, and she feels Root’s chuckle by her ear.
“Fifty-fifty was pretty accurate after all, mmh?” she teases.
Shaw digs her fingernails into Root’s neck. “Shut it.”
Root chuckles again, but stays otherwise quiet. She pulls back and looks down on her, brow half-tilted. And Root may be as lovable as a bloody machete during the day, but right now, with the lights dim, the threat of the mission adding urgency to the moment, and the handcuffs pressing into her wrist, she is flesh and blood and heat. Her nails dig into Shaw's free wrist, pressing it into the bed; her hair cascades by her tilted face and catches the glint of the handcuffs; and her hips offer slowly increasing pressure like she’s asking a question. And though Shaw’s instinct tells her to shove Root off her and give her a taste of her own medicine, a part of her feels every place they’re touching like a challenge, and she can’t help being… curious.
Besides, one hand is plenty to subdue Root or get out of the handcuffs, if she really felt the need.
She wonders if Root knows it, but left one hand free for a completely different reason.
As though the other woman sees the answer to the question she’s asking on her face, Root slowly lifts her hand from her trapped wrist and raises the questioning eyebrow higher.
“First things first,” Shaw says, her voice more raspy than she intends. She sits up as best she can, abs straining, and slowly loops her free arm around Root’s waist. She feels her own heart skip a beat when Root’s breath catches at the way their bare stomachs graze across each other. She tilts her head curiously and studies the way Root’s breathing speed up and she licks her lips and waits, frozen, as Shaw leaves steady exhales along her neck. Her fingers find Root’s back pocket, and she catches Root’s sheepish smirk when she pulls the taser from it and dances it between their faces.
“None of this.” She tosses it aside, and it clatters to the floor.
“I thought you kind of enjoy that sort of thing.”
“Oh, I do,” she purrs. She remembers the first time she and Root met with unusual clarity, and she can’t deny the thought makes her simultaneously eager to pull her hand from the handcuffs to turn the tables on Root for once and tempted to simply see what Root will do next. As long as heated irons aren’t on the menu and Root doesn’t push her luck too far, she can deal with the small sacrifice of the control her cuffed hand demands. Honestly, it evens the playing field.
Root’s breathing hitches again when she pulls back and her cheek brushes past Root’s neck, the lightest touch of skin on skin, and she leaves the words raspy and dark by her ear. “I’m hoping you have something else up your sleeve.”
Root’s breath catches and her pupils dilate when she comes into view, hovering close, breathing ragged, and eyes flicking between Shaw’s own equally bright ones and between her lips. The temperature oscillates with every ragged breath Root lets out as she prolongs the moment. Shaw’s smile grows.
“Well, shall we get on with it then?” she finally prompts with something between an impatient scowl and challenging grin.
Root lets out a shuddering breath and rolls her eyes. “You say the sweetest things.”
With a groan, Shaw kisses her again, digging her fingers into Root’s neck. Root pushes her back on the bed and falls on her with a soft oomph, and Shaw can’t resist the urge that grows from deep in her stomach and has her tilting her body up against Root’s so their stomachs and breasts graze across each other with tantalizing heat. Root breathes out into the kiss, and flicks her tongue against her lip.
Root's kisses range lower, across her throat, her collarbones, and then the edge of her bra. Her nails rake along her sides as she goes, and Shaw’s breath shoots into her throat. She tightens her hand on her neck, holding on to a semblance of control as Root claims her with sucking, lingering, and at times biting kisses across her chest and stomach. The control is slipping – she feels it – but the choice between control and pleasure is a hard one when Root makes her feel like she can demand one or the other, but never both.
Root dips her tongue into her belly button, and her fingers play with the button on her pants. Shaw kicks off her heels and lifts her hips, and languidly, leaving kisses all the while, Root pulls her pants down her legs. Shaw's hand slips from her neck and closes on the sheets below her instead, holding on to something if Root won't let her hold on to the semblance of control. She glances down, and her breath catches – not just at the glint in Root’s eyes as she roams her gaze across her suddenly nearly-naked form, taking in the black lace underwear with interest (in her defense, she spends as much money on Victoria’s Secret as ammo – kicking ass just feels twenty times more exciting in lingerie), but also in the way Root hooks her thumbs into her own jeans and slowly pulls it down her own legs, swaying slightly to a beat only she hears, and tilting her hips as she goes. Her back curves, her legs catch the light as inch after inch slides into view, and Root never breaks eye contact.
Shaw’s mouth goes dry, and though she’ll go to her grave denying it, if Root were to give her the choice of the keys to the handcuffs or a repeat of the excruciatingly short striptease, she’d unequivocally chose the latter.
Root steps daintily out of the fabric pooled at her feet and steps closer, one hand hidden behind her back. Shaw frowns curiously, but Root simply smiles and prowls closer, sliding between her legs and walking the fingers of her other hand slowly along the inside of her thigh. She kisses the path her fingers walk, holding eye contact, and the tendons in Shaw’s thighs shake in her effort to stay still and let Root continue the slow trek of fingers and lips. Because good god though she’s wet already just at the sight of Root leaving sucking kissing along her thigh, let alone the feeling of it, every second brings Root an inch closer to discovering just how wet she is – and that’s an admission she’d prefer keeping to herself just a little longer.
“Goddamnit, Root, are you trying to seduce me or torture me, because I’ve experienced both, and this is a special mix of hell I can’t quite classify,” she grits out, pulling hard against the handcuffs. Root’s eyes twinkle in response, and her fingers play with the edge of her underwear and her lips graze along the tense tendon of her thigh – ever closer. She slides her lacy panties down her legs, eyes intent on the dip of shadow between her legs in a way that makes Shaw suddenly feel utterly exposed and claimed in a way she isn't remotely familiar with (she hasn't quite decided how she feels about it, but her gut yells no while her body protests with something decidedly different). Root licks her lips, and Shaw swears she's going to go straight for the prize but then – thankfully – she pulls away, straddles her again, and pulls her hand from behind her back.
Shaw recognizes the double-edged boot knife instantly, and though she can’t be somewhat impressed by Root’s choice of accessories, when she dangles the tip of the handle between her fingertips, her heart speeds up with the instant rush of adrenaline. She can’t deny she feels a rush of something else between her legs as well, but her instincts don’t let her waste a moment to appreciate or analyze it, because Root’s fingers wrap threateningly around the handle of the blade, and instantly Shaw's hand shoots up, clamps around Root’s wrist, and holds her easily at bay.
Root’s eyes flash. “Trust me, Sameen.”
“I don’t.”
Slowly, Root twists her fingers around. Shaw feels the tendons in her wrist shift and tense as she changes her hold on the knife to a forward grip, parallel to their bodies.
“Better?”
It’s a little less threatening, but Shaw’s hand is unyielding.
Root sighs in light annoyance. “Shaw – ”
“No way. Have your machine calculate the odds for you if you think I’m being coy.”
Root tilts her head thoughtfully, listening, and slowly smiles. “Alright. Hold on to me then.”
Shaw frowns in confusion, but then Root increases the pressure on her wrist, and it clicks into place, especially when Root holds her gaze meaningfully, slowly pulls her lip between her teeth, and turns her hips in a tight circle. Shaw feels the instant rush of adrenaline and arousal between her legs. Honestly, she’s having trouble discriminating between them.
Tentatively, she eases up her resistance, and the knife comes down between them achingly slowly. She controls its descent, holding tight to Root’s wrist as she increases the pressure with each infinitesimal millimeter it gains on her until she feels the bitter burn in her triceps and the pounding of adrenaline through her veins. Her other wrist feels raw from the slow increase of the pull and tension on the handcuffs as the knife comes down, a battle between her instinct to hold Root off and the urge to let her take her.
Root continues holding her gaze, bare chest heaving with shallow breaths as the knife descends, and turns another deliberate circle with her hips that sends an embarrassing rush of heat between Shaw’s legs and makes her almost yield control of Root’s wrist. The knife stutters closer, and she feels the cool blade against her collarbone, a lot harder than she intended to let it hit. She lets out a low groan of desire and tightens her fingers on Root’s wrist, keeping the knife where it is. But with a wicked smile, Root bends her wrist – the one movement Shaw cannot control – and the sharp edge pushes deeper into her skin. She hisses in warning, and Root’s eyes flash again.
“Come now,” she purrs, keeping the pressure on the knife. Her hips continue making small, tight circles against her, and she feels the hot press of Root’s stomach, then her breasts, then her cheek on her own as she rolls down against her in an unhurried grind and leaves the words by her ear. “I know you want this.”
Shaw clenches her jaw, suppressing the shudder of desire she can’t help but feel building low and tight in her stomach at the combination of pain and pleasure, but keeps mum. Root pulls back, studying her with playfully narrowed, knowing eyes. She bends her wrist harder, threatening to draw blood, and Shaw presses her head back into the bed in response, unable to do anything but yield or fully push Root away – and she can try to deny it, but the latter is something she definitely does not want.
“Give in,” Root murmurs by her ear, pressing the knife harder and flicking her tongue against her earlobe before making a slow descent of heated, sucking kisses down her neck.
“Don’t push it,” Shaw hisses back.
Root’s eyes catch hers through her lashes and the cascade of hair across her forehead, and then, deliberately slowly, she presses another kiss – straight to the opposite edge of the double-bladed knife still cutting into her skin. Shaw feels the nearly indiscernible increase in pain on her collarbone, really threatening to break skin now, but as she looks – looking away when Root is looking at her like that is not an option – it’s not her skin that breaks at all. Root flicks her tongue across the edge of the blade, and the bead of blood that collects at the tip of her tongue has Shaw absolutely mesmerized.
“I like my odds,” Root murmurs, smearing the blood across her top lip purposefully. It shines red in the dim light, and Shaw feels her resolve break at the sight.
She nearly breaks her wrist trying to grab the back of Root’s neck to kiss her before she remembers both her hands are annoyingly occupied. She bucks her hips up instead, and Root falls against her with a satisfying whine of surprise and catches her waiting lips in a hungry, open-mouthed kiss that makes them both moan. Shaw can still feel her arm shaking in its effort to keep Root from slipping the knife between her ribs (Root strains as hard against her), can feel the edge of it where she thinks it may finally be drawing blood (the sting adds something definitely unique), and tastes Root’s blood on her tongue as she flicks it over her lips (the taste of copper, fighting, life). She groans and wonders why the fuck the combination of all that brings her instantly about ten times closer to coming.
Root suddenly releases the pressure on the knife, and Shaw jerks in surprise at the lack of resistance and the way the knife suddenly slaps against Root’s skin instead. She hisses in warning, and her heart shoots into her throat because goddamn, this feels dangerous.
Heat pools between her legs in the same instant, and she has to subdue the low laugh of surprise at Root’s wicked smile.
Of course. Psychopath.
When Root offers little resistance, she pushes up harder, and the opposite edge of the knife, still wet with blood, leaves a smear against Root’s throat. Root tilts her face and lets her. Shaw returns the smirk.
Quite a match. The psycho- and the sociopath.
Root holds her position, breathing shallowly as Shaw guides her wrist and scrapes the point of the knife over her carotid. Root is in a lot more danger than she was, and she’s pretty sure Root knows it. The knife is angled up, perpendicular to her neck, and the slightest shudder or deviation could drive the point straight into her throat – it’s a step further than the seductive, long-edged cut across Shaw’s collarbone that Root left her with. Root’s resistance is minimal, not daring to challenge her pressure, and Shaw smiles.
Good girl.
Root catches her glowing eyes, shivering slightly at the scratch across her throat, her collarbone, her breast, and what Shaw sees there – despite Root’s own bravado or demands – isn’t trust. Not even anything like it. But there is such gleaming lust and longing and willingness that Shaw’s breath catches – and she accidentally presses the tip of the knife up in her eagerness and her sudden reciprocal excitement.
Root’s breath catches as it nicks her sternum. A drop of blood leaks down her cleavage, and her eyes flash – in warning or in desire, Shaw can’t be sure. The fact that she feels both in equal amounts isn’t helping her figure out which it is.
Root lets out a low, shaky sound halfway between a moan and a sigh, and stays where she is, tip of the knife still pressed right above her heart as the blood drips slowly from the wound. She reaches behind her with her free hand, careful not to jostle the knife between them, and clicks open her bra before the drop of blood can soak and ruin it. Her bra strap slips down her arm and remains hooked on her other as they keep the knife steady, the point still slightly pressed into the shallow wound. Shaw’s eyes flick across Root’s suddenly bare chest hungrily, and her arm shudders and aches from the way she pulls against the handcuffs.
No hands free. Damn it.
Root eyes her like she hears it, and before Shaw realizes what she’s planning, she slowly presses down on the knife. It cuts deeper into her skin and Root hisses in pain and another bead of blood slides down her cleavage. Shaw’s eyes widen at the mix of pain and pleasure on Root’s face and the way she twists her hips against her again, like the pain is a rhythm she can’t resist grinding down against her to.
“You’re making a mess, Shaw,” Root murmurs, voice low and gravelly and sounding as ready to break as Shaw feels. The two tracks of blood between Root’s breasts glimmer in the dim light. The answer is easy, and when Shaw tilts her face and presses a hungry kiss to Root’s blood-smeared throat – the only place yet within reach – Root moans happily and slowly arches her back to give her access.
Shaw’s not sure what’s more of a turn-on: the taste of the blood, willingly given, as she reddens her lips with it, the feel of Root’s nipple contracting under her tongue as she takes it in her mouth, or Root’s subdued, high whines of desire as she does both.
Root breathes out sharply and moans again, a high-pitched, breathy yes, and the decision is made: the last. Definitely the last. Shaw pulls Root harder against her, narrowly avoiding impaling her on the knife. She scrapes her teeth across her breast, and Root’s free hand winds into her hair in encouragement.
Honestly, she really usually isn’t so attentive or reciprocating, and a more than insignificant part of her is still chomping at the bit at Root’s audacity for engineering all of this – the tasing, the handcuffing, the knife. She wouldn’t be surprised if this whole mission is a farce to get her into bed. But another part of her, a part that grows with each deliberate swipe of the knife against her skin as Root presses it back to her collarbone, with every moan Root lets out that she has to work hard to keep from returning, with every twist of Root’s hips against her stomach until she feels the wet heat dampening the skin below her bellybutton, even through Root's panties – wants this. Wants a hell of a lot more of this.
Jesus. She’ll go to her grave denying it, but Root is hot. Not just in a visceral, physical sense that she appreciates with the same part of her that takes what she needs from one-night stands and targets easier than on a short-distance shooting range – but in a way that stirs something deep, dark, and dangerous inside her. Something she hasn’t had many bed partners stick around for. Yet Root not only stays, but she brings it out in her, pushes her boundaries, and plays the risky game with her with a willingness and a complete lack of fear she both begrudgingly admires and can’t deny turns her on quicker than access to a well-stocked military-grade arsenal.
Under normal circumstances, the thought would make her grin, but Root groans again, another step in a building mantra she too feels pulsing deep and tight right beneath the place Root still grinds against her, and there’s nothing funny about Root’s undeniably dangerous and tempting allure. With a hard bite above her nipple, she gives in and returns the next moan, and Root’s hand tightens in her hair in instant acknowledgement.
And then Root pulls back. Shaw presses her head back into the pillow in frustration when Root’s breasts and neck stay out of reach, but her breath catches when she feels the press of the knife again – this time against her throat. And then Root kisses her – passionate, open-mouthed, and hard enough to bruise.
Shaw pulls at the restraints, desperately trying to reach for Root’s neck or breasts or hip as she kisses back – honestly, any part of her to pull her closer – but then Root slips her tongue into her mouth, and Shaw gladly returns the pressure against it until she tastes a hint of blood and suspects, with satisfaction that probably isn’t healthy, that she’s opened up the cut on Root’s tongue. Root groans – pleasure, pain, both – and she knows she’s right.
Root’s slithers her hand around her back and unclasps her bra. It remains hooked on her elbows, limited by her occupied hands, and she briefly considers putting the knife to good use and slicing through the straps to give Root full access, but Root doesn’t need it. She pulls the fabric down and without preamble, bites down on her exposed breast. Not even a fucking kiss first, Shaw thinks with a scowl that’s quickly replaced with a tense, warring expression of desire and pain as Root bites down again. She swirls her tongue against her, a brief reprieve, but Root’s wrist bends and instead of the bite, Shaw feels the threat of pain of another cut against her throat.
Jesus. She can’t catch a break.
Root bites again, and she shudders with desire.
God. Never mind. She doesn’t want one.
She arcs into Root’s mouth with a low moan, and she thinks she feels Root’s lips go taut with what’s no doubt an extremely cocky smile.
Luckily – for her, because getting so turned on is humiliating enough without Root drawing undue attention to it – Root doesn’t dwell on the effect she has, and gives her what she hadn’t even had a moment to remember she really needs. Root scrapes her nails down her stomach and slips her hand between her legs at the same time that she pulls a knee up between them.
Shaw bucks into the dual touch – one light (frustratingly so), one rough (the way she likes it) – before she can stop herself, and she feels Root’s sassy chuckle against her breast. Her reaction is instant – she won’t stand for being mocked, even for something as trivial as admitting how incredibly turned on she is – and the tip of the knife presses threateningly into Root’s neck.
Root looks up only briefly, catches her eyes, smirks, swipes her fingers through her wetness – embarrassingly abundant – and lightly presses her fingertips to her clit. Shaw’s pressure falters as she shudders in response, and she pulls back the knife just a fraction, just in case – not for fear of hurting Root, clearly (the woman can take a hit), but for the off chance she’ll stop if she pushes the threat too far.
Root doesn’t stop, and Shaw presses her head back into the pillow with a low, subdued groan of pleasure. God, she's having trouble controlling the pressure on the knife - keeping any kind of control, really.Her hand aches in exhaustion, especially in face of the pleasure coursing through her, but she holds on to Root’s wrist. She’ll resist the orgasm if it means she’ll stay in control of the threat Root still attempts to press to her skin. No way is she trusting Root with making her come and not stabbing her before she does.
Root lifts her face from her bite-marked breast and catches her gaze. Her fingers are still drawing slow, deliberate circles around her clit, and her knee is giving pressure everywhere else, but the look in her eyes is unbelievable cheeky.
“Don’t fight it, Shaw,” she purrs.
She bristles and her hand tightens instinctively on Root’s wrist, reminding her of the tip still aimed at her throat. “Is the Machine still running numbers for you?” she asks, her voice deep, throaty, even to her ears.
Root tilts her head. “Would you like her to give you the probability of something?”
She subdues the groan of pleasure as Root flutters her fingers lower, teasing but never entering. Maybe if she wasn’t teasing so fucking much, she might be able to keep control a lot easier, and be fine with letting Root press the knife to her throat instead.
Maybe.
“Mmm?” Root prompts, and Shaw rolls her eyes at herself for forgetting Root asked her something.
“How about the chance I let you come if you keep going like this,” she snaps.
Root raises an incredulous eyebrow. “Let me?”
“Yes,” she grits out against the rush of pleasure as Root presses harder with her knee, nearly pushing her fingers where she needs them.
Root chuckles darkly. “Trust me, watching me come is going to be the highlight of the night for you.”
She huffs in annoyance. “Slim chance.”
“Not really.”
“The Machine tell you that?”
“She didn’t have to.”
“Robot.” It comes out more as a groan of pleasure when Root swirls her fingers again and pushes her knee up.
“Thank you.”
Shaw shuts her eyes against the highly irritating smirk and grinds her hips up against Root’s knee.
Her breath shoots in her throat when Root sits back slightly and grinds down just as hard onto her thigh. She feels her wetness soaked through her flimsy panties, and she looks up in surprise. Root’s smirk only grows, but when she grinds down again, her mouth goes slack, her eyelids flutter closed, her head tilts back, and she lets out a slow, breathy sigh that sends a wave of unexpected reciprocal pleasure through Shaw. She licks her lips.
Okay, that’s kind of hot.
Root grinds down again, harder, and Shaw looks, her own search for friction briefly forgotten beyond the acute awareness of the rush of wetness that Root’s sudden, unmistakable commitment sends between her legs. Root smiles like she knows it, but doesn’t stop her rhythm, grinding down on her thigh as she continues to lightly trace her fingers between Shaw’s legs.
God, she’s wet. She being Root. Also she, herself, obviously. But she can feel Root through her panties as she cants her hips on her thigh, an unhurried, controlled rolling grind made all the hotter in the way Root’s whole body seems to follow her hips as the pleasure she’s clearly feeling slides up her body. Root’s stomach tenses, her breath hitches sharply, her neck arches, and she pulls her lip between her teeth to subdue the groan that seems to grow straight from the depth of the heat she smears across Shaw’s thigh.
Shaw knows she should stop watching. At some point. Soon. Start focusing on herself. Her modus operandi and all. She feels herself straining against the handcuffs and the knife still pressed to her collarbone in time to Root’s grinding, and she tells herself it’s to try to grab Root’s attention, but the way her bloodless hand clenches and unclenches in equal time to Root’s moans, she knows it’s both less and more than that. With each breathless thrust and moan, Root slips her fingers the smallest bit deeper, but Shaw doubts it’s even the reason she’s nearly groaning in time with Root. Root is confident, unscrupulous, and unyielding in what she wants – and takes, and Shaw watches in rapt attention at the unexpected sight that has her growing closer to climaxing than even Root’s fingers where she needs them would.
Still, it’s not enough. For either of them, but the slim, useless bit of fabric separating Root from her suddenly irritates her more than is anywhere near logical. She sharply pushes the knife in both their hands to Root’s hip, hooks the edge of her underwear, and pulls. The fabric frays easily against the blade, snaps in the opposite direction, and forlornly hugs Root’s opposite leg.
Root’s eyes widen indignantly, but Shaw cants her hips and raises her knee and Root’s mouth shuts as quickly as it opened as Shaw grinds up against her, smearing the abundant wetness across her thigh. Root groans and her eyes flutter closed as she slides across her, suddenly skin on heated skin, and seriously, the sight of Root’s face contorting and then going slack in pleasure as she continues snapping her hips across her thigh is just as satisfying as she way she slips her fingers deeper inside her.
Shaw tilts her hips up, urging her on and offering better pressure in return. Root licks her lips between two deep moans and smiles knowingly before accepting the exchange and filling her deeply with three fingers that add a stinging, unexpected stretch to way Root touches her exactly where she needs it. She groans in pain and pleasure, tosses her head back, and nearly loses grip on the knife. Surprisingly, it barely threatens to even break skin where Root holds it against her collarbone. Shaw's eyes shoot open. Has Root abandoned her twisted kiss-or-kill game? She nearly loses the train of thought when Root curls her fingers inside her, but she smirks when it clicks, because, though she doesn’t trust Root, she trusts the thrusts of her hips and the tightness of her brow as she grinds down against her that tell her she is far too preoccupied to bother slipping the knife between her ribs.
The rush of adrenaline and satisfaction she feels at the thought just about triples the loudness of her next groan when Root slides her fingers deep inside her again and curls them exactly where she needs.
Good god, she can come from this. Definitely. Close her eyes, focus on the rhythm, and simply let Root take her – give in to the threat of giving in at its most absolute. It’s tempting. Extremely tempting.
But her eyes stay open and transfixed and her fingers hold on to Root’s wrist – and though part of it is definitely to hold the threat of the knife and Root’s wickedness at bay, another part of her can’t seem to look away from Root – naked, mesmerizing, and unbelievably hot in her complete lack of inhibition as she takes and gives simultaneously. There is nothing coy, covert, or dubious about her like this. There is no hidden agenda, no sly smirk before the punch, and the sudden thought that Root is so turned on by her has her tightening low and deep around her fingers completely out of sync with Root’s rhythm.
She smirks – humility never suited her anyway.
Root choses that moment to open her eyes, and slowly she matches Shaw’s smile – but it widens to something dangerous and challenging that makes Shaw’s stomach jump.
Okay, maybe she was wrong about the hidden agenda thing, because Root slowly slides her fingers out of her, leaving them sliding wetly and ineffectively around her clit, and the rhythm of her hips suddenly turns subtly… deliberate, calculated, and seductive. It’s not at all surprising when Root follows it up with a breathy moan:
“Shaw… Touch me.”
Her eyes widen, and her breath shoots out in a surprised, choked shudder.
She’d have expected Root begging would flip the game in her favor, but she tightens her hand like a vice on Root’s wrist and clenches her other into a fist in the handcuffs and realizes she’s the one left desperate. Because though she’d been tempted to give in to Root’s rolling rhythm and measured thrusting, her hand had never wavered on her wrist.
“Drop the knife,” she demands, hand tight like a threat over Root’s wrist.
Root pushes against her hand, grazing the tip of the knife dangerously close to her throat as she continues her uninhibited rhythm.
“Let go of my wrist.”
No. She will not give up that control.
“Drop it.”
“No.”
“Root.”
Root swirls her hips in a very methodical grind and moans loudly. Shaw instinctively knows it’s more than a little embellished. She grits her teeth at the fact that her body doesn’t seem to know or care about the difference.
“Damn it, drop it.”
Root smiles and her knuckles turn white on the knife. “No.”
She will not beg. She pushes the please away. She also pushes back the I want to touch you, because that feels even worse than begging.
She pushes her hand up, scratching the tip of the knife across Root’s collarbone as she continues to move – a dangerous game. “Drop the damn knife.”
Root’s eyes just widen inquisitively in response, gaze flicking between the flashing tip and Shaw’s flashing eyes – and she increases her rhythm, unfazed. If anything, her breathing hitches harder at the thought of the danger as the knife threatens closer.
Shaw groans at the look, and Root smirks.
“Just let go,” she murmurs, leaning down ever so slightly so she changes the angle, and Shaw knows she’s getting pressure where she needs it, and not just to entice her to touch her. Root’s face breaks into a wicked smile that alternates to something utterly gratified and primal as she simply takes what she needs. She slides her hand out from between her legs and lightly traces a wet finger on her neck. Shaw shudders when Root’s lips and lightly flicking tongue follow her finger’s wet trek, the heat shoot back between her legs with embarrassing insistence.
Root's lips graze across her cheek, hot exhales moistening her skin as effectively as the trail her fingers left. “Let go and – oh – touch me.”
Shaw swallows thickly as Root’s eyes flutter closed and she whines close by her ear, another breathless touch me, and Shaw feels her resolve leave her with the heat that shoots ever predictably between her legs.
"Root – god, oh – please just drop it."
Okay, she did not intend for that please to make its way into that question – ahem: demand.
Root’s eyes flutter open as though she’s said the magic word, and a slow smirk makes it way onto her lips.
Goddamnit.
Root leans back, hand still tight on the knife and never breaking the rhythm, and Shaw’s breath shoots in her throat at the glint in Root’s eye even before she sees her other hand slide between her legs – Root’s legs – and she begins to touch herself. Shaw’s breath hitches as she watches Root’s fingers explore herself, feels the brush of her knuckles on her thigh as she slides deeper, hears the next breathy moan, and she nearly loses it – but the desire and rage hit at the same time and in complete equal measure.
Thing is, with her, rage has always been a much more accessible emotion.
She hooks her leg over Root’s, pulls her hand down harshly, and flips them over, the knife trapped dangerously between them. The handcuffs slide along the thankfully free horizontal headboard and as she rolls. She knocks Root’s arm up as soon as her back hits the mattress, and with a satisfying rip, lodges the knife firmly in the pillow by Root’s ear. Root lets go reflexively, eyes wide, and Shaw pulls it from the fluff, tosses it next to the taser, and clamps her suddenly free hand on Root’s throat before Root can even think to try to subdue her.
“Finally,” Shaw growls, flexing her aching fingers against Root’s windpipe as she hovers over her. Root’s hands slide up to her wrist, holding, tightening – but, to her surprise, not even threatening to tear her away. Shaw tilts her head curiously, holding Root’s gaze, searching. She feels Root’s subdued swallow against her palm, and her breath hitches though the pressure on her throat is not nearly enough to cut off her breathing – and the invitation, anticipation, and devious sparkle in Root’s eyes falls easily into place.
Well then. In that case…
“So… touch you, you said?” Shaw growls with a cocky tilt of her head. Root breathes out as an answer, and Shaw tightens her fingers. Roots breathy shudder cuts off instantly, and the groan of encouragement vibrates against Shaw’s palm instead, trapped without the breath it needs to escape. The tables are turned – Shaw with the threat in her hand, Root holding tight to her wrist to control it – and Shaw can’t deny she much prefers this way. The natural order of things. Shaw holds Root’s gaze, searching, waiting, as she squeezes and cuts off her breathing and Root’s cheeks heat up and her hand tightens on her wrist like a pressure gauge telling her both just how hot and how close to too much the boil starts to become.
Each second builds, and Shaw finds herself holding her breath in time with her, copying the heady high she’s sure is building with every second that passes. The silence is stifling, and Shaw feels the pounding in her head and the primal urge to breathe again – an urge she stubbornly resists until her body’s instincts take over and she breathes in harshly through tight lips. Root’s eyes sparkle, and Shaw feels another soft groan vibrate under her hand as she seconds go by, pushing the temperature in the room up with every moment longer. Shaw’s head swims, but she eagerly holds on until suddenly Root’s nails dig into her wrist, her throat constricts, and her eyes clench shut, and Shaw sees the sign. She holds five seconds more – she knows how this game works, and every second after stop feels like an eternity of pleasure in all its dark danger – and then lets go. Root takes a thankful gasp of air, chest heaving up and down in all its naked glory like she’s just run a marathon. The schoolgirl flush in her cheeks is nearly innocent. The eager glint in her eye and the rhythmic series of groans that follows the last desperate gulp of air she takes in are anything but.
Shaw doesn’t move her hand, nails lightly digging into the side of Root’s neck.
“Where do you want me?” she purrs, and pointedly twirls her hips between Root’s legs.
Root looks up at her, eyes wide and fervent, and eagerly hooks her legs around her waist. Shaw clamps her hand back against Root’s throat before she has a chance to take a preparatory gulp of air, and Root’s eyes widen in surprise. Shaw cants her hips between Root’s again, smearing her wet heat across her stomach, and Root’s eyes flutter closed again, giving in to the combined feeling of Shaw denying her air and offering her friction. She knows the latter isn’t much – both her hands a little bit occupied at the moment, thank you very much – and honestly, she’d touch her if she could (she wants to do both), but if Root’s slight moans, cut off at her throat, exactly in time to her grinding, are any indication, it’s most definitely enough.
Root signals her again, and this time, when Shaw holds for another few seconds and simultaneously rocks against her, Root’s eyes flutter closed in pleasure and her throat vibrates with a drawn-out moan that never makes it out. Shaw feels Root’s pulse – fast, thready – under her fingers, and counts, rolling against her as she does, the beat like a clock she times her hand and hips to. She smirks in satisfaction when she feels it speed up, and lets go. Instead of taking a breath, the first thing Root does is let out a shaky, primal yes that pulls at something deep inside Shaw and instantly has her rocking harder.
Root bites her own lip as she breathes hard, resetting her hypoxic brain and clearly trying to focus on Shaw’s movements. Though Root eagerly meets her rhythm and grinds against her, it’s not quite enough after all, so with a groan, Shaw sits up, throws one leg over Root’s hips, and slides down to meet her.
Root shudders in surprise and eagerly arcs up against her, shifting her hips to maximize the contact. Shaw lifts up on her knee, pulling at Root’s throat to keep on center as she slips across her, the wetness they both provided more than enough to make every rolling grind a lesson in the simultaneous satisfaction and frustration of the delicious lack of friction. But if the way they both arch against each other in tight, sure circles and let out reciprocal moans of pleasure at the unexpected position is any indication, it is definitely enough.
Shaw smirks at the thought, and tightens her hand around Root’s throat with both the threat and the promise. She curses the handcuffs for limiting her mobility, but Root eagerly grabs hold of her hips with two hands, nails digging into her hipbones and leaving raw, red crescents in her skin, and guides her against her, meeting her hips roll for roll. Shaw feels pressure against her clit, and her hand tightens reflexively. Root’s breath hitches again, and she realizes Root’s hands are no longer giving her direction in how long to hold the choke. She clenches her hand and smiles, and Root nods, granting her control, and presses her head back in pleasure at the combined feel of Shaw sliding wetly right where she needs it, and the slow, building loss of air that no doubt has her head spinning and pounding with a potent high.
She’s not nearly the only one, and Shaw has to work hard to keep from throwing her own head back and riding the growing high straight to oblivion. Jesus Christ. Her mind nearly derails when she dares to let herself linger on what they’re doing. She’s not a newcomer in the least in fucking women, but fucking Root is a whole new deal altogether. She can’t tear her eyes away, and she’s really, really glad Root’s eyes are clenched closed as she groans in time to the rhythm she sets. The handcuffs add a tinge of pain to every rocking grind as she pulls at them. Her fingers dig intermittently into Root’s carotid and windpipe, cutting off her blood and air supply with alarming but (she knows, to Root) exciting unpredictability. She feels every vibration of Root’s hitching gasps and building moans against her palm, and lets up the pressure half to let them fill the room with the sound of Root’s uninhibited sounds of pleasure. The hidden agenda is shut again, stashed away in the light of the unexpectedness of where all this went, and Root’s flushed face knits then with concentration then with surrender as she truly commits to everything Shaw offers her, and goddamn it may be the hottest sight she’s ever seen.
And heard, because suddenly Root’s lips start forming words, a breathless mantra of yes and oh and harder and faster, and Shaw complies reflexively even before the meaning of the pleas really registers with her higher executive functions. She’s pretty sure the sight and sound of Root on the edge of coming has shut them down completely anyway.
Root comes loudly. Shaw isn’t the least surprised – not when every moment leading to it has been filled with Root’s moans echoing off the walls. Root’s jaw drops open as the high, needy shocks of sound shudder from her throat, her head presses back into the pillow like the orgasm pulls her spine taut with pleasure, her fingernails dig hard into her hips and pull her against her, taking what she needs – and Shaw watches, eyes eager and wide, trained insistently on the sight of Root completely coming undone beneath her that pushes her about ten times closer to coming and has her groaning and grinding and tightening her hand in time with every panting moan.
Shaw comes hard on the aftershocks of Root’s orgasm. Part of her is dumbfounded, honestly – scissoring, really? She usually needs someone inside her, rough, fast, maybe a little painful if they really aim to impress – but just an inkling of the thought of Root coming hard and uninhibited against her tightens everything inside her instantly and then Root tilts her hips up just so, catching her right where she needs it, and she lets out a low groan as she tumbles over the edge anyway. Root’s uninhibited moans still ring in her ears loud enough to fill the subdued near-silence as she mutes her own moans with her teeth on her lip. Her hand tightens on Root’s throat of its own accord, clenching tight on every pulse of her orgasm that has her so high she can barely keep her eyes open. Root grunts against her hand, and her eyes fly open, but the glint in Root’s eyes is still encouragement, and she swears even just the thought of Root taking such pleasure from the simple tightness of her hand has riding longer and harder than she’d ever have expected.
Finally – after what feels as long as the eternity in every second she pushed the limit on the choke – she comes down. She shakes – silent, as always – with every panting, shuddering aftershock, and slowly sighs as her whole body relaxes.
Well – almost her whole body, because her hand, still tight on Root’s throat, playfully digs a little deeper. Root’s eyes twinkle up at her curiously as Shaw leans down over her, leaving panting breaths across her breast and neck and by her ear as she goes. She grazes her lips, loose and lazy, along Root’s sweaty neck and slides her hand from her throat down across her body, fondling a breast and digging her nails into her hip as she goes. Root follows the movement with her eyes eagerly, clearly more than a little surprised at the willingly given touch.
Shaw suppresses the smirk. Good.
“You were wrong, you know,” she murmurs around a heavy exhale.
Root’s eyes come up reluctantly from following the trek of her fingers as they tease along the juncture of her thighs – sticky with sweat and their combined arousal. “What?”
“Watching you come was not the highlight,” she says simply, and Root frowns in confusion as Shaw takes her hand lightly from her hip, threads their fingers, and holds her gaze – and, simultaneously, her utter attention.
“This is.”
The click of the handcuffs over Root’s wrist is more satisfying than finally letting the wicked smirk onto her lips.
Root’s eyes widen indignantly as she snaps the other one on the headboard and she dodges out of range of Root’s kicking feet.
“Shaw!”
Shaw laughs – hard, and wiggles the bobby pin between her fingertips proudly. “Why don’t you have your machine calculate the odds of getting out of this one, mmh?”
Root glares up at her in disbelief and rattles the handcuffs. “Don’t you dare.”
Her smirk widens as she shakes her sex-slowed limbs and stretches lazily. “I think I’m going to take a nice... long.. shower.” She turns on her heel, but freezes in the doorway, tilting her hip confidently and smiling wide at Root’s continued stunned disbelief. “Take your time joining me,” she throws over her shoulder, and strides out of the bedroom.