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“I hired you because you are extremely pretty.”
Cameron stares at the salad in front of her.
“You hired me to get in my pants?”
“That’s not what I said, is it?”
He had told her that she didn’t have to work hard. She scoffs and bounces her knee and chews violently on a piece of cucumber as House’s words echo in her head. He’d told her she could do anything—why be a doctor? It didn’t matter that she was intelligent because she was hot.
“Like having a very nice piece of art in the lobby.”
An object. She’s a fucking object. Something for him—and Chase and Foreman, hell, probably Wilson, too—to ogle at.
“Christ, Cameron, relax. I’m getting anxious just looking at you,” Chase’s voice cuts through.
“Sorry,” she mumbles and pushes the vegetables around. The cafeteria is loud, almost overwhelmingly so, and she shoves her plate away.
“You’re not finishing that?” Chase asks.
She sighs, says, “Go ahead.” She stares at him as he eats her leftovers. Chase is pretty, too. Foreman is handsome. Clearly, House prefers looking at beautiful people. His collection of art on the wall.
/
The thing about House is that he’s dick. He’s an asshole. She knows that. He’s said worse. And he probably said all that just to mess with her. She wishes she had some of Foreman’s ability to just ignore him. Let all his rudeness just slide off. But she can’t. Because the thing about House is that he gets under her skin like no one else. She watches as he yells at Chase and she braces herself for when it’s her turn. They’re sitting ducks, the three of them, waiting for House to scold them.
After his tirade about their supposed incompetence he says with mock-sincererity, “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.”
She catches his eye then and she can’t help but let out a single, small chuckle. She thinks there’s something close to amusement on his face. And the thing about House is that every small form of praise is electrifying.
House; magnanimous and educational when he wants to be. Which isn’t often. And it’s not like he’s very flowery and generous in his praise. He’ll just level them with a look and say good job in a monotonous manner.
They all get off on it in their own ways. It’s not sexual. Well, for Chase it might be. Sometimes she imagines him masturbating furiously whenever House lets a rare compliment slip. It makes her giggle. Foreman probably has a little notebook where he writes down the when and where and why of each pat on the back.
Cameron? Cameron feels warm all over. Like melted ice cream… or butter that’s been out of the fridge for too long. She feels pliable. Like he could mold her through his praise.
/
She’s sitting in his chair behind the desk when he comes into the office. It’s late—after midnight—and Chase and Foreman are long gone. She stayed to rerun some blood work because House already called her an idiot once today and she isn’t aiming for twice in twenty-four hours. She went into his office to hope for some kind of epiphany. House seems to get them often enough, sitting here, throwing his tennis ball into the air. So that’s what she’s doing when he enters. She catches the ball and he arches an eyebrow at her. She’s even mirroring the way he always sits; leaned back, leg spread wide, feet planted on the ground. Fake it till you make it—maybe she’ll get struck with inspiration if she just wants it hard enough.
“You’re still here,” he says as he moves closer to her.
“Yep,” she fiddles with the felt of the tennis ball and he snatches it out of her hands, places it on the table.
He’s standing next to her and she doesn’t miss the way his eyes glance down her body. His gaze is scrutinising and it sends an embarrassing thrill through her.
“You think I’m pretty.”
“Oh for—” he rolls his eyes so exaggeratedly that she’s sure they’d get stuck in the back of his head. “Get over yourself. Or make up your mind. Either you want to be offended or you want to be flattered but don’t be both. That’s just plain annoying.”
“You’re terrible at this.”
“What—sexual harassment? There are some nurses who’d disagree. You’re the one who’s intent on pulling a Monica Lewinsky,” he says it in that way he does when he’s deflecting. She knows this. She knows he’s more crass when he’s avoiding.
She licks her lips and says, “So I should go down on my knees right here?”
There’s something that flicks across his face. Maybe he thinks about his hand on the back of her head. She sure does.
“I’d tell you not to.”
“Would you?”
He blinks down at her, slow, like he thinks she’s stupid. “You wouldn’t do it anyway,” he says.
“I’d have to—if you ordered me to,” you’re the boss, she supplies in her head.
He glances at her for a long time, leaning on his cane, his eyes do these minute movements like he’s assessing her. Probably is. She tries to school her face the best she can, keeps it expressionless.
“Open your mouth,” he commands and she does, almost instinctively. Her mouth falls open and she expects him to do something but he doesn’t, he just keeps staring down at her and it’s almost worse than if he actually wanted her to suck him.
He moves between her legs so he’s half-sitting, half-leaning against the table and then he leans forward, looking into her mouth, and she swallows compulsively.
He grabs her by the chin with one hand and prods at her teeth with his thumb.
“You ever had braces?” he asks and his face is still so serious but he has to be making fun of her.
She nods.
“How old were you? Thirteen? Fourteen?”
She nods again.
“I could’ve been your dentist,” there’s a smug glint in his eyes as he speaks. “I started medical school the year you were born. What do you think about that?”
He’s definitely making fun of her. Embarrassment squirms inside her, twisting and writhing, and she shifts in her seat. He’s holding her tongue down.
“What’s that?” he says and tilts his head so his ear is hovering over mouth. “Oh right,” and then he removes his thumb from her mouth. He looks so self-satisfied that she wants to slap him. But then he wipes her spit on his thumb on her lip. He pats her cheek and sighs exasperated, “Alright. I’m going home.”
He leaves her sitting there, dumbfounded.
/
House grabs her by the shoulder and pulls her closer and she tenses all over.
“Alright, Cameron. Third time’s the charm. Those dumbasses,” he jerks his head towards Foreman and Chase, both looking chastised and sulking, “can’t seem to come up with a diagnosis if it hit them on the head. So, what say you?”
His fingers dig into her and she stares intently on the list of symptoms on the white board in front of them. She shrugs the shoulder where his hand is warm and broad but he doesn’t release his grip and she’s sure she can feel him breathing on the back of her neck. Has he always been like this? She thinks he’s unusually close and he must be doing it to mess with her head.
He snaps his fingers in front of her face and she startles. “Hello? Anybody home?” He’s hovering behind her like a vulture waiting for its prey to die and her mouth is filled with cotton. She rattles off encephalitis (“Nope, try again.”) and meningitis (“No, are you even hearing yourself?”) and when she doesn’t come up with a third he says, “Maybe you really are just a pretty face.”
Her mouth clicks shut. She’s struck with shame for a moment before the anger comes, boiling hot. She can’t find the words, she’s a deer in headlights.
“House,” Foreman says admonishingly.
“Get out. All three of you. You’re useless,” House isn’t even looking at them and it’s only then that his hand on her shoulder disappears.
They walk down the hallway without saying a word to each other and when they’re out in the courtyard they all let out a long sigh simultaneously. The air is crisp and cold and she wraps her arms around herself, trying to close her lab coat tightly.
“I kind of wished I’d picked up smoking on days like these,” she says as she stares off into the distance.
Foreman chuckles and says, “It’s not all it’s hyped up to be,” at the same time that Chase says, “It wouldn’t suit you.”
She gives Chase a sour look and he stares at her, wide-eyed and apologetic. They stand in silence for a while until Foreman huffs, “He was in an unusually bad mood today.”
“Maybe Wilson pissed in his cereal or something,” Chase supplies.
Foreman scoffs. “I think he’d like that. Those two got some weird psychosexual thing going on.”
She laughs.
“I heard he was married, once. Before the thing with his leg,” Chase says, hushed. “So clearly he’s capable of being nice.”
She thinks about his thumb in her mouth and runs her tongue along her teeth. Maybe she should start smoking. Their pagers go off before she can imagine any more about things in her mouth and they all sigh at the same time, again.
Their patient is thrashing, yelling at the nurses, her husband is yelling too, it’s chaos. She’s ripped out her IV, the husband is saying she doesn’t want any more treatment, he’s shoved one of the nurses so Foreman and Chase both cut in to hold him back. Cameron goes to the patient, trying to calm her, telling her she needs the IV, she touches the patient’s shoulder and the patient jerks her head upwards, and then the world goes blindingly white.
Cameron stumbles backwards until she hits her back against something, someone touches her shoulder, the room is suddenly very quiet and when she opens her eyes again, there’s something in them and she wipes at her forehead, there’s something there and—
“Cameron.” She’s got hands on both of her shoulders, “Cameron,” it’s Foreman, “you need to get to the ER. You need someone to look at that.”
She blinks. The patient is groaning, throwing her head left and right, her eyebrow split. Cameron touches her forehead again and looks at her hand. Blood. “Shit.”
“Yeah. Are you good to go on your own?”
She nods. The world is swimming a little but she can find the ER. She gets some paper towels from Foreman, presses them to her head, and walks to the elevator. When the doors open, House is there. Of course. He raises his chin at her and arches an eyebrow as she ambles into the elevator, somewhat unsteady.
“I’m headed to the ER,” she mumbles when the doors close again.
“Let me see,” his whole body is turned towards her and she exhales shakily. Slowly she removes the wad of paper towels and he hums. One of his hands settles at the nape of her neck as he angles her head for a better view.
“The patient—”
“I don’t care.”
She nods dumbly. His other hand touches near the wound. The doors ding open and he says, “Come on,” so she follows him. He’s going to the ER with her, she realises.
“House,” she starts.
He points to one of the empty beds. “Sit,” he says, so she does. He tells her to do something so she does. It’s terrifying how normalised that has become. He pulls the curtain haphazardly giving them the feeling of privacy rather than the actual thing. She grips the edges of the bed where she’s sitting, she can feel her clammy palms against the sheets. He washes his hands, and wipes the blood from her forehead and then he disinfects the wound. It burns and she winces. He tuts at her.
“You’re a big girl. You can take it.”
She licks her lips. Her mouth is dry. Butter, she thinks. “Yeah,” she whispers. Butter, yellow and soft, indented where he presses his fingers into it.
He gets out some steri-strips and angles her head again. He’s so close, his hands broad and warm like they always are, and her mind is embarrassingly empty. He smoothes the strips to her hairline, she can feel it pulling her skin taut.
“You should see the other guy,” she manages to say.
His eyes widen just a bit and the tiniest of smirks flickers across his face. “Bet you got ‘em good.”
His gaze lingers for just a moment too long before he pats her on the shoulder and he’s gone. She exhales and her body tips forward.
“You should go home.”
She shakes her head. “I’m good.”
He gives her a long, pointed look. “You’re not concussed but you’ll get one hell of a headache once the adrenaline subsides. Don’t come complaining to me then. You stay, you do your job.”
“I can do that.”
He’s working his jaw, grinding, and his gaze is unrelenting. She wants to curl in on herself but she doesn’t. “Alright,” he says finally.
He sends Foreman and Chase away to run some tests. She gets to stay behind in their office. “Research,” he’d said. It feels like he’s punishing her in a particular wicked way though. The writing in the encyclopaedia is so small and looking at the computer isn’t much better. She rubs her eyes and drinks some coffee despite it being nine in the evening. The wound hurts too.
Outside the glass panes House walks by with Wilson on his heel. She shakes her head and tries to focus on the words in front of her. Twenty minutes later, they walk past again. They’re discussing something very animatedly but she can’t hear what. Ten minutes later and House stomps into his office and throws himself in his chair. Her mind is mush at this point. She can’t concentrate. She’s watching him spinning in the chair.
“Cameron,” he calls.
She rises and blinks the white spots away that dance in her vision. She has to steady herself on the table for a second before she walks to him.
He is analytical as always as he eyes her.
“Yeah?” she says.
He’s twirling his cane between the palms of his hands. He clears his throat. “My shoelaces are untied.”
She glances at his feet. “Oh.”
“Tie them.”
She gawks. “What?”
“I can’t reach,” he answers simply. If he’s embarrassed he’s doing a good job of hiding it.
Without thinking she goes down and starts tying his laces. She starts with one shoe, fastening it, knotting the laces into a perfect bow. She taps his ankle and he shifts his feet to extend the other and she repeats it on the other shoe. It’s only when she’s finished that she realises what she’s done and heat rises to her face. She looks up at him and sees that he’s watching her, head cocked slightly to the right—like an animal. She looks down again, too aware of the position they’re in, and then House is stroking through her hair. No, he’s petting it. It feels patronising and it makes her whole body run hot.
“How’s your head?” he asks, uncharacteristically nice.
“It’s fine,” she lies.
“Hm,” he shrugs like he can’t be bothered either way. He’s still petting her. She’s still on her knees. “You started this, you know.”
She’s got a hand around his ankle. “I didn’t,” she murmurs though she’s not sure. His words make her angry.
“You are very pretty. I’m not. I’m twice your age. I’m not charming. I’m not even nice. What do you actually want out of this? Because it’s not sex.”
She feels sticky with emotion. Her head hurts. She’s too warm. Everything is just slightly uncomfortable. She looks up at him again as she slips her hand underneath his pantleg and into the seam of his sock. He’s warm, the hairs on his leg coarse. “What if it is?”
His fingertips flutter over her wound. “Then I’d say you hurt your head more than assumed.” His mouth twitches as she presses her fingernail into his skin like she wants to see if he can be bent and dented too. He jerks his head down at her, “Get up from there.”
She rises slowly and grips his desk for balance. She brushes her pants at her knees, embarrassed.
“Go home, Cameron.”
/
It’s not always chaos. Sometimes it’s quiet. He doesn’t call them names, he doesn’t get impatient. Sometimes there’s a back and forth between the four of them that’s stimulating. Intellectual ping pong, even if House is always the winner.
So it goes. He’s got her feeling like taffy. Pliant and stretched between his hands. She’d connected the symptoms but they didn’t have a diagnosis. “Great,” he’d told her, head resting on the handle of his cane, “that’s good. We’re getting somewhere now.” Foreman figured it out some hours later when their patient was pissing blood. It was fine that Foreman got it. She was still riding the high from earlier.
The three of them are in the office. Chase is eating some protein bar and reading an article. Foreman is looking over the notes he wrote about their patient. She’s got the latest issue of The Lancet propped up in her lap.
Enter: House. Disruptor. “Kiddos, if a beautiful big-bossomed woman ever comes to you with promises of freedom in exchange for your soul; don’t do it! It’s the Devil in slutty disguise.” He sits down in the chair next to her.
“You made some bet with Cuddy in exchange for clinic duty?” she asks with an eyebrow raised and he sighs theatrically.
“I was bamboozled. Hoodwinked. Swindled.”
Foreman clears his throat, clearly indicating that he has no interest in this particular conversation. “I’m making another round of coffee,” he announces.
As Foreman musters about in the kitchen, Cameron feels the restless energy bouncing off of House. He’s tapping his foot, twirling his cane between his hands. She does her best to ignore it, goes back to reading her article.
Foreman puts a mug of coffee in front of both of them, black for House, milk for Cameron. She blows into hers, sips it, leaving a trace of her lipgloss on the rim. There’s no mistaking them. Yet House takes her cup, drinks from it, right where the stain of her is, stares at her. She looks around; neither Foreman nor Chase are paying attention to them. She slides her foot on top of his and applies just a bit of pressure. There’s the smallest upturn of his lips and she takes his mug, takes a long sip. It’s bitter and sour. It’s missing milk.
“You like it?” he asks, voice low.
Her whole body is thrumming. “Yeah. Yeah, I like it.”
/
He yells at her again. To be fair, he yells at all three of them but she doesn’t care nearly as much about the other two.
Foreman started their patient on some drug without consulting House first and Cameron covered for him. Chase, of course, snitched. So now everyone gets yelled at, even Chase. Life’s small victories and all that.
But then later, in the OR, he says, “Cameron, come here,” and he shows her the inflamed stomach lining of their patient. She feels Chase next to her, feels his discontent rolling over her like waves. On her other side there’s House, showcasing the patient’s intestines like they’re in some 19th century operating theatre. She gets to finish the gastrectomy and afterwards, as she’s washing her hands, he comes up to her and tells her “Good job,” his voice warm and it makes her breath hitch.
When their shift ends, Chase crowds her by her locker. “What the fuck was that?”
“What?” she asks.
“Come on,” he waves his arms around, angry and petulant. “I’m the surgeon. Out of the three of us, I’m the surgeon.”
“Get over yourself,” she hears herself saying. “Don’t take your daddy issues out on me.”
He takes a step back and crosses his arms over his chest. “Working for him is really turning you around, huh?” he scowls.
She sighs and places her forehead against the cool metal of her locker. “Look, I’m sorry. But what should I have done? Tell him ‘no, actually, I don’t want to learn more’? That would have gone over well.”
Chase scoffs. “Right,” he says. “Right.”
She goes home, annoyed and agitated, and opens a bottle of red to calm her nerves. House isn’t showing any preference. He isn’t. He isn’t nicer—if anything, he’s an even bigger asshole than usual. To prove a point. To tell her she’s not special. Well, it’s working, fuck you very much.
She drinks three glasses before she’s put on a dress and drives.
She hears the faint noise of piano playing through the door and it almost rattles her enough to leave again. Because outside of work; who is he, really? Apparently he plays the piano. Incredibly well, actually. She realises that she’s never thought of him as fully fledged human because he’s just House. He’s her hard-ass boss, he’s a jerk, he’s had his thumb in her mouth. Which is probably when the line between them started blurring.
She knocks on his door. There’s shuffling on the other side and then it opens.
His eyes go wide for a fraction of a second and then he says, “No,” and nearly slams the door in her face.
She stops him, hand smacking against the wood, and looks at him. “House.”
“You can’t possibly want this,” he actually sounds sincere and it makes her even more annoyed given everything he’s done to her these last few weeks.
“But you do?” She lets herself in when he doesn’t try to close the door again. She takes everything in as she steps inside; the crowded bookshelf, the sofa in the middle of the room, the crooked carpet, the piano.
“I’m an old, perverted man. You’re young and hot. Of course I want this,” he does that thing again. Crass and sardonic.
“You’re not that old.”
He hasn’t moved. She’s been striding through his living room and he’s been standing still, watching her, cautious.
“Come here,” she says.
He hesitates.
“Come here,” her voice is soft and gentle, like she’s beckoning an animal.
Slowly he steps towards her and she places her palms against his shoulders, smoothing them down along his arms. He’s stiff as a statue, unmoving. With a light shove she makes him sit down on the couch. She’s braced between his knees and she takes his hand, guides it up her thigh. She can hear him breathing when he touches her bare skin. Slowly she lowers herself to the floor. She hasn’t looked away from his face once, not wanting to miss out on any of his expressions, anything that might tell her how he feels.
On her knees in front of him, for the third time. Both of his hands come up and clasps her face, fingers gripping her hair. He drags a thumb over her lips and she licks it once, obscenely—the way you’d lick an ice cream.
“Christ,” he mutters, eyes fixed in her mouth.
Slowly she opens his pants and she notices he’s hard. She swallows down the spit flooding her mouth. It’s only when she sees how gray his pubic hair is, it’s then that she realises that he’s old, that he’s her boss, and she buries that thought immediately.
She wraps her lips around him, he’s big causing the corners of her mouth to stretch. She looks up at him and pinches his thigh to get his attention. With his eyes fixed on her she smirks—she tries to, at least—and his eyebrows pinch together. He looks like he’s in pain. She likes that. This is what he wanted. This is how he imagined her when he hired her. Hired her because she was pretty.
She doesn’t look away, his eyes bore back into her, and she wants to place a hand between her thighs so badly, she wants to scramble into his lap, but she doesn’t. He doesn’t deserve that satisfaction.
His head tips back and she gives him some teeth so he startles, looks right back down at her. Good. Her jaw starts to ache, she pulls off, works him with her hand, licks along his length for a bit.
“Cameron,” he says and his voice is gruff and low, pleading.
She closes her eyes briefly, intoxicated by the sounds he makes, and then there’s a hand on the back of her head, shoving her back down on him. She opens her mouth instinctively, moans as she almost gags on him.
“Oh shit,” he actually sounds sorry and she won’t have that. She stays where she is and so does his hand in her hair. She wants him to do it. She wants him to use her like he’s probably imagined. He grips her then, hesitantly at first, then more surely, and starts to guide her head up and down. She coughs and spit drips out of her mouth and when he removes his hand, she pulls her head back and gasps.
“Christ,” he whispers. “Come here, come here,” he takes her arm and heaves her on top of him so she’s straddling his thighs. “What the fuck are you doing?”
She could ask him the same question, given that he’s the one who’s pushing her panties to the side. The noise that leaves her is undignified, it’s wild and desperate, and he starts kissing along her jaw, biting her. She’s so wet and he groans as he slides a finger into her.
“I’m on the pill,” she tells him.
“Thank fuck,” he sounds rough and choked up.
He removes his finger, moves her so he’s lined up and then she lowers herself on him. She inhales sharply, the air seems stuck in her chest, and she’s bracing herself on his shoulders. And then he kisses her. Whatever was holding him back is gone and he kisses her like he wants to claim her. Mouth open and wet, tongue shoving inside. Like he wants to eat her. She kisses back just as eagerly and she wishes she was drunk. She wishes her mind was a little more uninhibited, swimming. His hands land on her hips and he makes her grind against him and she feels like she can’t breathe. He starts pulling at her dress and they get it over her head and it lands somewhere on the floor. It’s not a fair trade, considering that he’s still fully dressed so she pulls his t-shirt off and rakes her nails down his chest.
His eyes rove along her body and his mouth opens like he wants to say something but then closes like he’s thought better of it. He pulls the cups of her bra down and then his mouth is on her, hungry, and his tongue is warm, his stubble abrasive.
She manages a broken whine of “Oh my God, please,” as she rides him and she feels restless and animal. She’s so pitifully horny and it’s House and it’s her boss and he’s old and his chest hair is grey and all of these things make it so much better.
He grabs her ass, and she’s grinding on him, holding onto his shoulders so tightly, and then she’s coming. She continues riding him until her orgasm is over and she has no idea how long it went for but it felt like a long time and she’s throbbing. She slumps forward, forehead on his shoulder, and he starts stroking down along her back. “Give me a minute,” she says breathlessly and she thinks he huffs out a laugh.
She starts moving again and he makes a little noise. Her body is still buzzing and she clenches around him. She nips at his ear, “Can you fuck me?”
“What do you think I just did?”
“From behind. Fuck me on all fours.”
He does. He mounts her on the sofa, her face pushed down into the comforter and he nearly rips her panties off and gets his own pants off. He’s fucking her. Christ. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks it can’t be good for his leg but then she also thinks that she doesn’t care all that much. He could’ve said no. It feels like he keeps pushing into her, endless, and her body aches from it, and her thighs are wet and the pillow is wet because she’s been drooling on it and she squirms and moans. The whole thing is filthy and it’s so good and then he slaps her ass.
“Tell me you like it,” he says.
“I like it,” she gasps and he does it again.
Guilt and shame and desire swirl around inside her and she doesn’t think she’s ever been fucked like this. He smacks her again and then—and then there’s a thumb pressing against her rim, slick with spit, and she yelps. She can feel him hesitating so she whines needy and there’s a brief thought that she’s had him everywhere, that House has managed to possess every part of her body, both physically and mentally, hell, even emotionally, and he knows, he must know, and yet it seems like he wants more.
“Anyone ever do this to you?”
She moans, delirious. “A finger, sure. Not—” His thumb presses inside her and she can’t stop making noise because it’s so stupidly dirty that House is doing this to her. She says, “But you could. I’d let you.” The thought of House fucking her there is driving her insane. He seems like the type who’d like it. Something taboo. House certainly groans like it’s the dirtiest thing she could’ve said.
It stings in a good way when he pushes his finger further into her ass while he’s thrusting. She just lets him. Can’t do much besides bury her face in the cushions. He slowly slips his thumb out of her and she protests but then he bends forward with one hand braced on the couch, and then he’s truly fucking her. With his other hand he starts touching her clit and her body reacts instantly.
House makes a noise, obviously thrilled with himself, and says, “Go on, that’s it, fuck, that’s good.” He’s leaning on her with his whole body weight and he's sticky with sweat against her back. He’s rubbing circles against her front and she comes again. She barely registers that he comes too, just feels his mouth on the nape of her neck and then he makes a sound like he’s been hurt. He stays like that for a while, bent over her back, and reality starts to peer back into view. She’s sweaty. Her body aches. He’s dripping down her inner thighs. It’s weird. It’s gross. But in a good way. Her mind is sending her a lot of conflicting messages.
He extricates himself from her and they both slowly move so they’re sitting on the couch next to each other. There’s something very personal about sitting naked next to each other post-sex. She tells him she needs to pee and he waves a hand around.
“It’s not a big place,” he says, “you’ll find the bathroom.”
She does and she takes the opportunity to rummage through his belongings. There’s Vicodin, obviously, and a moisturiser that looks like it hasn’t been touched in years.
The door opens and House is there, a serious look on his. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you it’s rude to snoop?” He’s still naked, and he’s got a hand on the doorframe to take some of the weight of his leg. “I’m taking a shower.”
He doesn’t invite her to join but she does anyway.
“You’re like cling film,” he says.
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
“I know,” she simply raises her eyebrows at him and then there’s that glint of amusement in his eyes again.
She turns away from him to rinse the shampoo out of her hair—it’s some atrocious three-in-one because House really is a cliché—and he presses up close behind her.
“You know,” his lips graze her ear as he speaks, “if you’d found someone more age appropriate you could have round two right now, right here.” One of his hands travels down her body, cups her breast, then grinds against her and she has to steady herself with her palms against the tiles. “Did dad pay too much attention to you?”
She’s already laughing.
“Too little? Is that why you’re here?”
“You’re saying there has to be something wrong with me to find you attractive?”
“Yes. I’m sure Freud is having a field day in the afterlife.”
“Didn’t take you for religious,” she’s barely able to speak through the moan that leaves her lips. She tips her head back against his shoulder. She really doesn’t think she can come again but he’s rubbing perfectly on her clit and she arches her spine.
“A younger man might have been able to go down on his knees—”
“Shut up. That has nothing to do with your age and everything to do with your leg.”
He chuckles and his breath is hot against her face. “You wound me,” he says but she can hear him smiling. She grabs his other hand and sucks two of his fingers into her mouth. He swears and she’s grinding against his palm and then he says “Jesus, Cameron,” and her body must’ve still been wired from before because she somehow comes again.
/
She falls asleep in his bed. She’s not sure how that happened. She just knows he wrung three orgasms out of her and she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to look at his hands ever again.
He’s there, awake and next to her when she opens her eyes. She’s wearing nothing but a pair of his boxers.
“Your sheets are very soft,” she says because doesn’t know what else to say.
“You’re calling in sick today.”
She sits up. “What.”
He gets up with a stretch and a groan. “I don’t want to see you today.”
She splutters, “You can’t just—you can’t—”
“I can and I will.”
She glares at him from the edge of the bed and he comes over to her, presses his hand to the underside of her chin and says, “Close your mouth,” and her teeth click as her mouth is snapped shut. She watches him leave the room and she finds her dress draped over the foot of the bed and he definitely put it there because she didn’t.
“House,” she protests when she gets in the kitchen with him.
He shoves a mug of coffee in her hand and she realises he’s probably been awake for a while and he had probably been watching her sleep.
“You have two options. Option A; you come into work on time, in which case you won’t be able to go home first and have to arrive wearing that,” he gestures at her dress, “and then everyone’ll know. Or option B; you drive home first, get into work way too late, meaning I’ll have to yell at you, and you’ll look at me with your big sad brown eyes and everyone’ll know.”
“You said you didn’t want to see me.”
“Yep.”
She makes an exasperated noise. “Well?”
“It’s self explanatory.”
“Oh my fucking God.”
His face splits into a grin. “Just take a sick day, let me yell at Foreman and Chase instead, and then we’re good.”
She feels like she just got hit with too much information at once. Her head actually starts to hurt.
“Great,” he takes a long pull of his coffee and then looks at the mug in her hands. “Drink.”
She does. She drinks his damn coffee. And of course it tastes amazing. Three-in-one shampoo but excellent coffee. She shouldn’t be surprised. They finish their coffees in silence and he keeps looking at her as she drinks. She swallows.
“When do you have to go?” she asks.
“Now.”
“Right.”
He grins at her, smug. “Good. See you tomorrow.”
/
So she stays home. Of course she does. He told her to. And when she gets into work the next day he only raises his eyebrows in way of greeting.
Nothing has changed except for the way that shame curls deliciously in her stomach. She can’t stop picturing it. She can’t stop hearing the noise he made when she said he could fuck her in—Christ, what is wrong with her. She catches him looking at her once or twice and she swears he’s got a guilty look in his eyes. It makes her want to scream with humiliation. Like he made her do it.
She almost feels like she’s coming down with the flu. Her head is slow, her thoughts gluey and soggy.
“Cameron,” House snaps at some point. “Get your head out your ass.”
Who can blame her when she’s at his place a week later. He doesn’t try to slam the door in her face this time, just pulls her in and fucks her. Flips her over and starts licking at her asshole. Fixation, she thinks. Freud. Or something. She writhes and whines and he’s so good at it, hand snaking between her body and the mattress to touch her. He shoves his tongue inside her, rubs at her clit. She arches her back, lifts her ass off the bed, and he presses a finger into her hole, eats her out, and it’s like that she comes. Wrecked.
“You’ve got a real problem,” she says.
House actually smirks, his chin wet from her, and he stretches languidly next to her.
“I can’t afford another sick day just yet.”
His eyes are closed and he nods. “I think we’ll deal,” he mumbles, his voice sounds as fucked-out as hers. He turns over to his side, head propped up, a hand sliding down her damp body. “I don’t want to make a habit out of this.”
“No?”
“No.”
He leans over her and kisses her collarbone, down her chest to her breasts. It’s surprisingly tender and she sighs, scratches through his hair, earning her little moan from him.
“I mean it,” he says against her skin but she can feel him getting hard again.
Afterwards, she falls asleep in his bed. Malleable and pliant. And he yells at her work. Yells at the other two. Then tells her she did a good job.
Rinse. Repeat.