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The doorbell, which was almost never used in this apartment, startled her out of a tv show she was watching. When she looked through the peephole, she was unsurprised but still kind of shocked to see Jack Abbot standing there looking both sad and determined.
It served him right.
We can't, he'd said. Until we're on the same level, it's too big a risk.
It hadn't been a risk the night before that, apparently, when he'd only said a cursory, We shouldn't, then let himself fall completely, just as surely as she did, finally.
Then he'd pulled the rug out from under her, and them: Not again, not until…
Three and a half months: that's how long before she took her boards and finished R4. Robby had all but guaranteed her an attending position if she wanted one. She had been sure they were home free, or she wouldn't have made a move at all.
When she pulled open the door, she pressed her face tight against a smile and let out a deep breath. She didn't say hello or ask why he was there.
He was searching her face, who knew for what, and when he apparently realized she was stonewalling him, he said:
"Can we talk?"
"Do we have something to talk about?"
"Please?" he added, his voice so very small.
She sighed and stepped aside, ushering him in, although as soon as he was over the threshold she shut the door and headed back toward the heart of the apartment, leaving him to trail behind her.
After a few steps, though, she stopped in the middle of the living room, impatient to get this over with. Besides, there probably wasn't a best place to have a fight and probably embarrass herself by bawling her eyes out. He drifted to a halt just inside her personal space, but he had his hands shoved down into his pockets.
She said, "Are we allowed to…?"
Somehow, he knew what she was asking for because he nodded and opened his arms to her, and she accepted a quick hug. Quick because she pulled out of it before she could just drown herself in the emotions of it all.
They continued on to the kitchen, where they planted themselves on opposite sides of the room, her leaned up against the counter, him with his hands in his pockets.
"I should have called," he said.
"What for? You made yourself pretty clear."
"I mean, showing up here."
"Why are you here, Abbot?"
He looked a little stung to hear her go back to carefully using his last name, now that they both knew what it sounded like when she playfully teased him as Jack, when she murmured it in his ear, when she moaned it as she came, when she whispered it into his skin as he woke her with his fingers on her lower back, slipping down until they were pressing inside her.
For a brief second, it made her feel good to hurt him, but that feeling didn't last. She was gratified to know that something reached him in all this, but that wasn't a secret. She wouldn't have feelings like this for him if he was the kind of man who could shrug off her pain. It helped knowing he was in pain, too — not that she wanted him to feel it, but that she didn't want to feel like a deluded fool.
The look in his eyes right now told her that she wasn't.
"I have a solution, maybe," he said. "But you’re not gonna like it."
"Great," she murmured.
"I told you I'm not willing to ruin your career. But I’m more than willing to risk mine."
She already felt a little shaky with him here, trying to keep her emotions in check, trying not to hope for anything. What the actual fuck? she thought. All she could manage was a face of bewilderment, which made him instantly hold up a hand.
"Not really," he said. "Places wanna hire me. And this is only if admin decides they won’t play ball. Even the real academic Trauma 1’s. Combat experience will get you some ass kissing and a whole lot of ignoring your so-called scholarly output. Hell, if they're only willing to play hardball, I could probably get Presby to give me an offer. Might get me a raise."
She narrowed her eyes at him and said firmly: "You’re not gonna quit your job."
"Not trying to. Hoping for a leave of absence."
Everything in her head rearranged to fit this new potentiality, but it was still...
"For four months?"
He shrugged, then he met her eyes and said, "Yeah. I've got the email drafted. I just have to fill in the dates and hit send."
"I can’t let you…"
He smiled at her, bitter and tired and maybe a little condescending.
"Remember this feeling, Samira," he said pointedly. Then, with soft sincerity: "Try to live with it for a minute."
She felt hot anger rush to the surface, springing suddenly like a hidden bleeder.
Like she'd been angry for every second of these past three days.
"So you just came here to prove a point?" she said through gritted teeth. "You can fuck right off and get out."
He didn't move, just said calmly (although with a little tremor in his voice):
"I'm not screwing with you. It's a solution, and I'm willing to do it. But you have to understand you asked me for something too big. You basically asked me to hurt you. I can't. I won't."
"So I'm supposed to hurt you?"
"It's not the same thing. I'll live. I promise. Might even be good for me. I have way too much PTO. Gloria's been on my ass about it. I have a dumb amount of money saved up. They’ll have to get a temp, but that could be an opportunity for somebody. If the worst happens and they let me go, I'm telling you I'm very employable, and the market here is good."
"Just to…?"
For her? He'd put his job on the line? He'd upend his world for over 100 days? Her heart started to pound a little, and he stepped toward her and took hold of one of her hands. It was good to feel him this close, but it was hard to look in his eyes at the moment.
He gave her a soft smile and said, "It seemed important to you."
"But."
"But what?"
Her voice broke as she said, "It’s important to you, too?"
He looked genuinely surprised, and his eyes went wide — liquid and open. Sad.
"Baby," he said, finally threading their fingers together. "Are you kidding me right now?"
"I mean, why would you…?"
He gave her a pointed look. "Why would you?"
"The other night, you wanted to wait."
"I didn’t want to wait. We had to." His other hand came up to rub at his face, rasping against a few days' worth of stubble. "But when I realized how serious you were… I can’t wait, either. God help me."
He looked down at the floor.
She pulled her hand away from him and stepped back, mainly so she could talk with her hands. The anger had been packed back down, but she could now feel the frustration rising to the surface, pushing against the tension in her shoulders.
"You didn't know I was serious?" she asked.
He shook his head. "I don't understand it. That's all. Why you would throw the most important time of your life away for—"
"It's my fucking time," she barked at him. "I wanna spend it with you." Then she muttered, a little pleadingly: "Why is that so hard to believe?"
He just shook his head again. She was reminded that there were so many wounded parts of him still, deep bruises that might never heal. She probably didn't know all of them yet, much less the things that caused them, at least beyond the obvious markers of pain in his story. But there was a look of self-deprecation he had when his view of himself went beyond sardonic and amused into bitter and defeated, and he wore it now.
"I hope you're not making a mistake," he said, "but I don't have the strength to fight it. I really don't."
"I'm pretty sure you have the strength to do anything," she said, stepping closer again. "Not that I want you to fight it."
"I wish I was the man you think I am."
She sighed, then she said forcefully, "Do you trust my judgment or not?"
"C'mon."
"I'm serious. Do you think it's possible you don't see yourself clearly? From the outside, I mean. We all think we're broken on the inside, but that doesn't necessarily impact who we are to other people. Are you blowing smoke up my ass about being the smartest person in any room? If you don't think I'm too young or naive or damaged to know when something is good for me or not, then you have to trust I know what I'm doing. "
He reached out with his hands and held her face in them for a long moment, then he released her. Everything in his posture said he was still trying to stay way from her, even if she could feel their bodies pulling toward each other. He also looked skeptical, still, though she could see that he had conceded her argument.
She added, "I'm not putting you on a pedestal, by the way. Being strong means you're damn stubborn, and you've had more years to practice that than I have. I'm not always gonna deal with that the right way."
"I wouldn't love you if you didn't have a spine of steel."
"Jack," she said, but anything else got stuck in her throat as she swallowed against a lot of emotion.
"I know," he said with a subtle roll of his eyes. He tried to step back. "I would take it back, but I meant it."
But she threw her arms around his neck and tucked her face against his shoulder. She couldn't stop the tears. She didn't even try. But since they were not body-wracking sobs of misery, it took him a minute to realize she was crying.
"Hey," he said. He tipped her face up with his fingers and began wiping the tears away. "Oh, sweetheart."
"Happy tears."
"Yeah?"
"I thought…" she said, smiling in spite of it all. "But now I know."
He shook his head as some of his confusion lifted.
"That I love you?" He traced his thumb over her bottom lip. "I'll tell you over and over if I need to."
"Not necessary. I get it now." She added, clutching him, "Not that I would complain."
They rested there together, silent for a moment. Her head was against his chest, and she just breathed in and out and listened to his heart hammering away.
"We kinda jumped into the deep end, didn't we?" he asked.
"Yeah."
There were so many things she could say to that, but none of them felt substantial enough, or they felt like way too much. Being sure about this didn't mean they had it all figured out. She couldn't see the whole path ahead, but she trusted that it was there, and it would take them where they wanted to be.
So she just said, "In case I haven't been clear, I am so in love with you, Jack Abbot."
His smile in response, instant and warm, looked like it hurt a little, but he held her tight. When he let her pull back a little, he was looking at her a little like he did that night they spent together, when they slept naked in each other's arms — not with desperation but with the kind of need that fills you up until you can't contain it anymore.
"Can I…?" he said. "Can we…?"
"Words, babe."
"I need to feel you," he said.
She nodded her head, not trusting her voice at all, then she pulled him down to kiss his mouth with everything she couldn't say.
They didn't waste time. They just went back to the bedroom and each took their own clothes off. Once they were both naked, she pressed herself against him, shivering at the heat of his body and the way she'd missed skin and strong curves of muscle that she shouldn't know so well yet. When her breasts came to rest against his abdomen, he closed his eyes.
"So beautiful," he murmured, like feeling her was even better than seeing her. She understood the sentiment. She could live forever in the thick muscles of his thighs and the length of his cock resting between their stomachs and the way he arched his neck to give her better access when she kissed it.
"Samira," he murmured. "The leg. Let me…"
He sat down and flipped the release on his prosthetic and pulled it free. She watched as he pulled off the sleeve and soothed the muscles with his hands. He didn't seem self-conscious about it at all, which made something bloom and grow within her. There was such a rightness about this. The doctor in her had so many questions, but now wasn't the time. Now, she just needed to be skin to skin with him again, wrapped in him completely.
He reached out and pulled her close. She wanted to press him back onto the bed, climb up over him, but he held her hips there in front of him and leaned forward to kiss her stomach. He was breathing deeply, like he was trying to steady himself. His mouth wandered down below her navel, closer and closer to the strip of hair that framed her pussy, but he didn't touch her there, not yet. He just kissed her soft and slow, breathing in and then letting his lips drag across her skin. By the time he had satisfied himself with kissing her like that, she was wet and aching for him. He turned his head and rested it against her stomach for a long second, and both of her hands on his head held him close.
Eventually, he pulled back a little, and one of his hands swept clever fingers up the inside of her thigh, stopping only when they could trace the line of her slit, ghosting over her public hair.
"Jack," she murmured. "Don't tease."
"Not teasing, gorgeous. Just trying to get you ready for me."
As his fingers followed her labia, pressing farther back, she whimpered a little, and when he finally dipped them in near the opening of her cunt, where she was already so slick, she moaned and he shuddered.
"Samira," he said with real amazement in his voice. "I do this to you? Just kissing you and touching you?"
She nodded and closed her eyes tight. Why should she feel ashamed of that?
He stroked her without pressing those fingers in. "Don't do that," he said. "Don't hide. I want it, too. You have no idea what you're doing to me."
"Please, Jack."
"What do you need? Anything. You hold my heart in your perfect hands, you know?"
He took up one of those hands and kissed the palm. She pressed the other into his chest and made a motion to push him down, and he went willingly.
"On your back," she said.
He shifted until he was lying back against the pillows. He watched her climb onto the bed with completely unfiltered lust, letting himself take her in, eyes sweeping up and down. Normally, being naked makes her a little nervous, but, while his attention was a lot, and it would take some getting used to, she didn't want to hide.
She was on her knees on the bed, her inner thighs bracketing the outside of his, vastus medialis to vastus lateralis. She let him look his fill. His hands reached for her, tracing some of the lines his gaze followed. Between her legs again, the curve of her hips into her waist, the teardrops of her breasts and the hard points of her nipples.
He brushed some of her hair back over her shoulder, and he reached up to caress her face. She wasn't crying anymore. She was suddenly aware that she probably looked a little blotchy, her eyes a little puffy, but that didn't seem to matter a fuck to him.
Before he could ask her, again, what she wanted, she dropped down and pressed herself against the length of his body, equally turned on by the shock of so much heat and the groan of surrender he made as his arms circled her waist. He took the cheeks of her ass in his hands and squeezed as he pulled her closer, made her shift definitively against him, her pussy against his cock, and she dropped her head onto his shoulder at the arousal that shot through her at that. She couldn't help but bite at the skin over his trapezius. For a moment, she felt a little like a vampire, like what she wanted was to break the skin and lap up his blood.
But no — what she wanted was to feel the life pulsing through him, and she could feel that in the throb of him between her legs. It would be so easy to let him roll her over and press himself inside. That would be so good. But more than anything else she wanted to take him deep and watch his face as she worked herself on his cock.
"Can I ride you?" she asked.
He just nodded and she got up to fetch a condom.
Propped up against the headboard, he watched her tear the packet open. When she looked down at the thick length of him, she couldn't help herself. She bent over and pressed kisses up the side of his cock from root to tip, feeling a little smug but mostly just giddy at the way he had to fight to keep his hips still.
"Baby," he moaned. "Fuck."
She repeated the process, dragging her lips open and wet up the other side of his cock. When she got near the tip, she let her tongue flick out and taste the soft skin of his crown and then take him down halfway, as wet and slow as she could.
He was moving her hair out of her face and holding it back at the nape of her neck so he could look at her.
Voice already a little wrecked, he said, "You don't have to…"
"I do, though," she said with a softly seductive smile. "I needed to have my mouth on you."
"Fuck. It's… That's so…"
"I'm going to have to learn to read your mind, aren't I?" she said with a sly grin.
Her teasing pulled him out of his head enough for him to drop back into his more cutting voice.
"If you keep kissing my dick like that, I can't guarantee coherence."
Now she was just tracing a finger up and down his length, following the vein on the underside. Her face was still pretty close to his cock, though, and she could see that he would be very, very fun to give slow, teasing blowjobs to. Not tonight, though.
"You don't like?" she asked, switching to using her whole hand now, properly stroking him.
"I love. I really do. Your mouth is so goddamn distracting on a normal day. Right now? Put the condom on me so I can fuck you. Please, honey."
She leaned over and swallowed him down again, bobbing her head a few times for good measure. When she felt his body tighten with tension, she pulled off and slicked the condom down over him, suddenly a little desperate herself.
She let him hold himself and slot their bodies together, his fingers brushing the entrance to her cunt, where she was still wet, as she sank down and began to take him. His cock was a pretty normal length, but it was a little thick, and it took her a moment to adjust to the stretch. Once she was fully seated, she looked down at him and saw an adorable level of concentration on his face.
She knew he still had hesitation about their age gap, especially as he crept up on 50. She wished she could make him understand how attractive it was to have a lover that had exchanged the fire and reactivity of youth for stamina and focus and carefully developed skill in touching her in exactly the ways she needed. Not that he didn't have any fire or reaction; she could just hope for more than that.
She started by rocking against him, not letting him pull out very much. It was slow and deep, but it was also light and easy. She leaned over to kiss him, and his hands came up from her hips to her breasts. He rubbed and lightly squeezed her nipples in tandem, and she shamelessly thrust her chest eagerly into his hands.
"Sensitive?" he asked, softening his touch a little.
"Yes," she said, and she let the word turn into a hiss and then a bit of a moan. She added, "But draw the opposite conclusion."
He grinned and let his fingers tease with more pressure, finally catching one of her nipples and giving it a pinch.
"Yes," she said again, this time as a deep groan.
She had been rocking her hips into his more quickly, but at that, his pace faltered a little. His eyes slipped closed and he looked pretty fucking overwhelmed. So she raised up and off of him a little and sank back down, which made his eyes pop open. He palmed her tits and rolled the other nipple between his fingers, nice and easy, before squeezing it hard.
"Fuck," she murmured. "Please."
As she took in his face, flushed with arousal, jaw clenched a little tight, she knew she needed to give him a little more besides just turning him on. She began to fuck him in a slow, easy rhythm, bouncing on his lap until he reacted to the thrust of her hips with a groan. Eventually, he was making noise on every thrust, his hands on her hips helping steady her so she could keep pace without letting him slip out.
She slowed down for a moment so she could take him in long, deep thrusts, and a beautiful flush started on his chest and spread up over his freckled shoulders. His head was back, and she watched the line of his throat and neck as he swallowed, as his jaw clenched, as he shivered at the touch of her hands, now on his chest.
"You close?" he asked.
She wasn't there, really. The pleasure was satisfying in itself, but she hadn't been going after an orgasm.
"Worry about me later," she said. "Wanna feel you. It's so good, Jack. I feel so full."
"Samira. I can't—"
"Let me make you come. Please. Feel me around you? Feel how much I want you?"
His hips were driving up to meet hers, so she let him push the speed, hoping she wouldn't have to do this long enough to make her thighs absolutely burn. It would be fucking worth it, of course. But the way he was looking at her, and the way those thick hips pressed her open as she came down around him, it was too much to sustain. He whimpered her name and thrust into her sharply and came with a grunt.
After he pulled out of her and tied off the condom, he kept one hand clasped to her hip, holding her in place. The other was suddenly thrusting two fingers inside her and curling them against that spot that made her knees weak. Not as satisfying as his cock in some ways, but now they were definitely chasing her pleasure.
"Come here," he said, making her shuffle forward a little — apparently so he could part her folds and lick into her.
"You don't— It's—"
She could only taste of latex now. But he slicked his tongue into her anyway, alongside his fingers, chasing her wetness, pulling it out, licking it off her vulva as his tongue sought out her clit.
"Oh," she said, hands clutching his neck as he found it. "Jesus."
He traced his tongue around it and probed against it, then he went back to licking and sucking a little.
He pulled off just long enough to say, "Tell me what you need."
"Circles. Not too direct."
With just that much directive, he easily found where and how to flick his tongue. He stopped sometimes to suck or tease, but once her body fell into that driving groove, winding herself tighter and tighter as she pressed her hips toward his fingers and his mouth, he let her set the pace, and his tongue never faltered.
For a moment, she thought she'd need to insist he use his fingers there, too, but then she realized she was concentrating so hard she had her eyes closed. When she opened them, she looked down at his silver curls and the lines on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes, themselves closed. His lips were soft and sure against her, and his mouth was absolutely sinful, if the combination of indulgent sloppiness in keeping her wet and perfect focus in the motion of his tongue worrying her clit could be considered unholy. It couldn't be, though. It felt good and true, his steady hands and the lust that spilled over from him in so many ways, generous and needy all at once.
When she was close, she told him so, and she sank her hands into those curls, just to hold on. She came with a whine, and he kept working at her clit until she pulled his head back.
She shuddered, saying, "Sometimes, I can go two. But not when it's that, like, complete."
He gave her a satisfied, sleepy smile and lay back against the pillow. Quickly, she was allowing herself to be pulled down, heedless of the way she was rubbing her wet pussy against his thigh. Actually, that seemed like exactly the thing to do, cover him in her so he couldn't forget this. Not that she thought he was likely to, given the way he was holding her, unable to settle on whether he wanted to clutch her tighter or let his hands roam soft over her skin, palming curves and tracing lines of bone and tendon and ligament with his fingers.
"I couldn't live without this for four months," he murmured. "You knew before I did."
They didn't speak for a long time. She wasn't sure if it was out of some fear of breaking the spell or else they'd said all they needed to say for the moment. She just listened to his heart still thumping away in his chest, knowing now that it was most definitely beating for her.