Absolutely nothing to see here. Move along.
Title: Reversal
Author: Annerb
Summary: Nothing has been normal between them since Earth died. Sequel to ‘ Compliance’
Categorization: Smut, aaaaangst, Sam/Jack
Rating/Warnings: NC-17, explicit sex, language
A/N: Wtfbbq? Someone please take my keyboard away now. Thanks to Trout and Kat for their encouragement, though I probably would have preferred them telling me to hide this on my hard drive and pretend I never wrote it.
Reversal
Jack is fully awake. It’s like a switch, the way his senses have gone from slumber to full alert. The camp is quiet, the hour late. No one should be up but the sentries.
There’s someone in his tent. Just a whisper of canvas, movement near the opening, but despite that he doesn’t move, doesn’t reach for his weapon. Somehow, he knows it’s her. It’s been almost a week since their rather spectacular confrontation, a week since they made a strange sort of peace with each other.
Not being alone together seemed to be an unspoken part of that tenuous truce, an attempt to cobble together some form of professionalism. Until now, apparently, because she’s crouching near his feet, and somehow he doesn’t think she’s here to discuss defense strategies.
“Hey, Carter,” he says like this is just another normal day. Nothing has been normal between them since Earth died.
She’s only wearing a black tank top and a pair of shorts, her feet bare, and for some reason it’s the bare feet he can’t keep his eyes off of.
“Do you remember what it was like to be a cadet, Jack?” she asks, her voice soft in the darkness.
For a second he thinks it’s a rhetorical question, some bizarre late night philosophical discussion that she’d be better off having with Daniel, but there is something in her eye, in the set of her shoulders, that tells him she is completely serious.
“I’m sorry?” he asks.
She crawls up his body from his feet, her knees settling on either side of his chest, effectively pinning his arms to his sides, trapping him, and a thousand muffled, half-forgotten nightmares are brought to life by the claustrophobic sensation.
He thinks she sees it, knows what it means even, but doesn’t shift off.
She leans down low over him, hands pressing down against his chest. “Do you remember what it was like to have to do everything you’re told without question or hesitation?”
“Carter,” he protests, his voice hard as the sense of being trapped only increases. “Get off.”
“No,” she says, but lifts the pressure just a bit, letting a little more air in. It’s enough for the blind panic to recede slightly.
“What are you--?”
“Shhh,” she says, her thumb dragging across his lips, stifling his words. “No talking.”
He can’t say what makes him comply, what makes him bite back the counter move burning in his muscles. Maybe the unfamiliar glint in her eyes that tells him she’s possibly a little lost in the wilderness herself these days. Maybe even more than him.
Her breath is warm against his neck when she presses nearer, her breasts flush against his chest, and the entire tenor of the situation abruptly shifts. The first touch of her mouth against his skin is like a jolt of electricity down his spine, his entire body flushing warm with the poorly repressed memory of her, the sensation of her body eager and willing and open to his touch.
His muscles tense, but this time it has nothing to do with self-defense, but rather a bone deep urge to work his hands free so he can flip her onto her back and bury himself in her. Apparently one week of restraint has been harder on him than he thought.
He’s never been great at staying away from her.
She shifts, the pressure on his arms increasing as if she’s somehow read his intent. Her teeth graze his collarbone, biting down in rebuke.
He recognizes this now as a taste of his own medicine, exactly what he’d done to her that day in the pond, but he thinks it may be even more than that. He’s seen the way she flinches just the slightest bit every time someone calls her Captain. The way it sits heavily on her, the fact that she’s subordinate to those who only weeks ago had looked up to her as a superior. He doesn’t think she regrets it-she’s too damn stubborn for that-but it’s got to be eating at her nonetheless.
This is about Carter wanting to feel in control.
She sits up, pulling away from him, and he has to repress a sound of complaint. But rather than leaving him here, she merely shifts her attention, one hand pulling the fabric of her shirt up, fingers trailing tantalizingly over her own skin. With one smooth movement, she pulls the fabric up and over her head, her hands lifting to cup the heavy weight of her breasts. Her hands slide along her skin, doing what he can’t, her mouth falling slightly open in enjoyment of the sensation.
Jesus.
“I think you’ve thought about it,” she says, her voice low and smoky, and he lets himself wonder a moment if this is what Carter is like always like when the lights are turned off-heat and smoke and complete control.
He swallows, his eyes riveted to the languorous movement of her fingers. “Thought about what?” he asks, his voice rough, sounding almost out of breath to his own ears.
“I think you’ve imagined me under your desk, your hand in my hair, my mouth…” She trails off, her tongue darting out to touch her lower lip, and God help him, he almost loses it just from that look alone.
She shifts, grinding down against him. “Have you fantasized about that?” she presses. “About me?”
He feels his skin flush with heat, the image she’s painting warring with a rising tide of indignation that she’s asking him something like this. Is that really what she’s after here? Humiliation?
Her hand slips under the elastic waist of his boxers. “Do you think about me? When you’re all alone and it’s just you…” Her fingers wrap around him, firm pressure smoothly sliding upward.
“God,” he breathes, his eyes nearly rolling back in his head. “Yes, dammit.” He’s pissed as hell to realize that he’ll admit almost anything to keep her here, to keep her hands on him.
If she’d had even the slightest smile of triumph on her face at the admission, he’d have swiftly put an end to this convoluted game she’s playing, but when he meets her eyes he just sees desire perfectly matching his, a sober intensity in her gaze that only partially manages to mask the emotions roiling just underneath.
She leans towards him, her mouth near his ear. “Me too,” she confesses against his skin, the words wavering and cracking.
He closes his eyes, the hard won distance they’ve cobbled together the last terrible week shattering with ease. “Sam,” he says, turning his head towards her.
Her fingers curl in his hair, her face burrowing into his neck, and he thinks maybe this is about something else entirely.
They’ve been fooling themselves thinking they could find distance again, but when it comes to each other that’s always been what they’re best at.
With a soft sigh, she pulls away, her weight shifting off his arms. His hands finally free, his first instinct is to bury his hands in her hair, to pull her closer, to finish what she’s started, but she’s staring down at him and he thinks he finally gets it. He doesn’t move because it occurs to him that this strange late night visit isn’t about payback or humiliation, or even dominance. This is about vulnerability.
Lifting his hips, he slides his hands under the small of his back, trapping them in place.
Clearly she expected something else entirely from him, not this willing submission. “Why?” she asks, her eyes bright with something that makes his chest ache. He’s only more certain that he’s making the right choice.
“Because I trust you,” he says.
Her jaw tightens. “Do you?” He can hear the unspoken question: even after everything that’s happened?
“Yes,” he says.
She closes her eyes, some of the tension in her shoulders softening with something he hates to call relief. When she opens her eyes, he can tell that something has already subtly shifted. She nods. “Then take off your shirt,” she says, the hard bite of an order underlying the words, her thighs squeezing against his hips.
He’s never done something like this, playing games, being on the submissive side of things. It goes against everything ingrained in him, and he’s uncomfortable as hell being dictated to, but somehow…somehow it’s doing it for him in ways he never would have expected. He doesn’t know if that’s because this is Carter, a woman he trusts more than anyone in the universe, or maybe that somehow he actually does want to give up power, just this once.
He shifts up to a seated position, reaching back for the collar of his shirt, tugging it up and over his head.
Her eyes drink him in and it’s disconcerting to be the passive object of her scrutiny, her obvious desire, like something meant to be used for her pleasure. Her fingers travel from shoulders to chest down to his stomach, nails dragging gently. He feels his skin pucker and tighten and he doesn’t think that has anything to do with cool night air.
“Lie down,” she instructs, hands pushing him back. She follows him down, dipping low over him. Her mouth latches on to the base of his throat, her breasts brushing tantalizingly against the bare skin of his chest. His hands itch to touch her, to draw her closer, to flip her over on her back and take back the upper hand. He clenches his hands into fists to resist the temptation.
She doesn’t miss it, smiling down at him, something powerful and approving and hot as hell in the look she gives him. “Good,” she murmurs. “Well done.”
She rewards him with the swift twist of her tongue across his nipple, her teeth nipping gently. He bites down on his lip, his entire body tensing in his attempt to remain passive, still.
She shifts lower, her mouth hot and open on his stomach, fingers digging under the edge of his boxers. She looks up at him, an implicit order layered in there for him to hold her gaze as she pulls the fabric down. Her lips curve into a smile full of mischief and desire and power, and she has never been sexier, all uncertainty gone now as she takes control, her confidence building like a buzz on his skin.
“Do you think reality will be even better?” she asks.
Before he can answer, she takes him into her mouth. He groans, his hands digging into the blankets, his hips fighting to come up off the bed, but through it all, he keeps his eyes on her. Watches as her tongue runs the length of him from base to head, her teeth gently grazing the tip.
Fantasy has absolutely nothing on the reality of Carter, warm and wet and real.
He recognizes the same concentration and attention to detail he’s always associated with her but now it’s focused entirely on him-pressure and suction and friction and heat-her equations perfectly balanced and optimized, and he just hangs on for the ride, giving himself over to her and trusting her to pull off miracles just like always.
Only she pulls back far too soon, slipping away from him.
Jack blinks blurrily at her as she gets to her feet. He feels his heart stutter, hoping to God she isn’t going to try to leave him like this. He’s torn between grabbing her and just ordering her to damn well finish what she started, but doesn’t do either.
He trusts her.
She gets to her feet, but only long enough to slide her shorts down off her legs, leaning all the way down to the ground to lift her feet out of them. He had no idea she was that…bendy.
Rather than settling back down between his legs, she turns her back on him, kneeling across his chest. She leans down, taking him in her mouth once more, only now her ass is hovering mere inches from his face.
God, this close he can smell her. This has got to be a deliberate test of his restraint and he very nearly fails. The only thing that keeps him from reaching for her is his promise, the knowledge of what this means to her. But honestly, he doesn’t think about it too long because his brain is short-circuiting and there is no way it’s possible to feel this good--.
Holy mother of God.
He bites down on his tongue, some sick part of his brain still peripherally aware that he’s in a tent surrounded by people, breaking a rule he used to think was important. Whatever sound he may have made ends up trapped in his throat, a guttural noise too much like a death gurgle, but really, it’s actually a lot like dying, the way everything stops-heart, air, sound, sensation-and there’s that moment he can’t be sure it will ever start up again. Maybe doesn’t want it to.
Then his hips lower back down to the cot, his hands releasing their death grip on the blanket, and his heartbeat slams back into motion, filling his ears, fighting with his ragged breath. He opens his eyes, not sure when he closed them.
He has his hands thrown wide, head collapsed back against his pillow, and he’s not sure the muscles in his body will ever be useful ever again. He has the vague thought that it’s a good thing he doesn’t actually have a desk anymore, because he’ll probably never be able to look at one again without remembering this, imagining this with concrete details he will never forget.
The sharp bite of teeth on his thigh snaps his brain back into the present and the very real and warm woman still crouched over him.
“You still with me, cadet?” she asks, her lips pressing soothingly against abused patch of skin.
It’s amazing how quickly his senses can jump back to alert, realizing she’s not quite done with him yet. Whatever reluctance he’d started with has long since evaporated. He could get used to her being the boss of him. “Yes, ma’am,” he says.
She shifts, looking at him back over her shoulder, giving him an impertinent little smirk. “If I let you touch me right now, what would you do?” she asks, a challenge in her gaze.
His fingers twitch, imagining it so vividly that he can practically taste her already. He’s not really one for flowery words or alliteration, so he sticks to the truth. “I would grab your thighs, spread you wide, and make you scream my name.”
Her lips part on an unsteady breath, her fingers digging into his thighs. “You sound very certain of your abilities,” she says, her voice stern, but with the tiniest edge of a waver that tells him he’s getting to her. “Are you that arrogant?”
He gives her a slow grin, his eyes sweeping up the pale expanse of her back. “No. Just that certain.”
She draws her bottom lip through her teeth, her eyes dark and warm, and he can see her desire battling with her need to maintain control.
He thinks he can give her both. “Requesting permission to demonstrate.”
She seems to consider it. “Grant--.”
She doesn’t even completely get the word out before he reaches for her thighs, tugging her back and burying his face in her. He’s going to show her just how good he can be at following orders.
She doesn’t quite scream him name, more like expelling it on a heavy breath, but he’s happy enough to take that, feeling the way the shudders work down the entire length of her body, her thighs tightening and releasing under his hands as her back arches.
By the time he finally pushes her over the edge, she’s completely inarticulate, and he’ll take that-Sam Carter at a loss for words-as a mission accomplished.
Her arms wobble dangerously where she’s still bracing her weight, her forehead dipping down against his hip, her breath heavy against his skin.
He pulls her back around, reveling in the ability to touch her now after being denied. His hands slide down her back, never pausing in their movement as they settle down together into the impossible narrowness of his bunk. She melts into him, seeming to fill all the empty spaces, and he lets himself bury his face in her hair, take a stolen moment to just breathe her in.
She won’t stay, he knows, even if he asks. She’ll slip away as quietly as she arrived.
Tomorrow they will wake up in their separate tents and the world will still be over. He’ll call her Captain, and she’ll try not to flinch, and he’ll try to pretend that he’s supposed to be here after all.
But maybe underneath all of that, she’ll be able to remember this. She’ll think of his absolute trust in her in every way, even in the ways that shouldn’t matter-can’t matter. She’ll remember that and for a second it might all be a tiny bit easier.
Maybe that can be enough.
.fin.
Author: Annerb
Summary: Nothing has been normal between them since Earth died. Sequel to ‘ Compliance’
Categorization: Smut, aaaaangst, Sam/Jack
Rating/Warnings: NC-17, explicit sex, language
A/N: Wtfbbq? Someone please take my keyboard away now. Thanks to Trout and Kat for their encouragement, though I probably would have preferred them telling me to hide this on my hard drive and pretend I never wrote it.
Reversal
Jack is fully awake. It’s like a switch, the way his senses have gone from slumber to full alert. The camp is quiet, the hour late. No one should be up but the sentries.
There’s someone in his tent. Just a whisper of canvas, movement near the opening, but despite that he doesn’t move, doesn’t reach for his weapon. Somehow, he knows it’s her. It’s been almost a week since their rather spectacular confrontation, a week since they made a strange sort of peace with each other.
Not being alone together seemed to be an unspoken part of that tenuous truce, an attempt to cobble together some form of professionalism. Until now, apparently, because she’s crouching near his feet, and somehow he doesn’t think she’s here to discuss defense strategies.
“Hey, Carter,” he says like this is just another normal day. Nothing has been normal between them since Earth died.
She’s only wearing a black tank top and a pair of shorts, her feet bare, and for some reason it’s the bare feet he can’t keep his eyes off of.
“Do you remember what it was like to be a cadet, Jack?” she asks, her voice soft in the darkness.
For a second he thinks it’s a rhetorical question, some bizarre late night philosophical discussion that she’d be better off having with Daniel, but there is something in her eye, in the set of her shoulders, that tells him she is completely serious.
“I’m sorry?” he asks.
She crawls up his body from his feet, her knees settling on either side of his chest, effectively pinning his arms to his sides, trapping him, and a thousand muffled, half-forgotten nightmares are brought to life by the claustrophobic sensation.
He thinks she sees it, knows what it means even, but doesn’t shift off.
She leans down low over him, hands pressing down against his chest. “Do you remember what it was like to have to do everything you’re told without question or hesitation?”
“Carter,” he protests, his voice hard as the sense of being trapped only increases. “Get off.”
“No,” she says, but lifts the pressure just a bit, letting a little more air in. It’s enough for the blind panic to recede slightly.
“What are you--?”
“Shhh,” she says, her thumb dragging across his lips, stifling his words. “No talking.”
He can’t say what makes him comply, what makes him bite back the counter move burning in his muscles. Maybe the unfamiliar glint in her eyes that tells him she’s possibly a little lost in the wilderness herself these days. Maybe even more than him.
Her breath is warm against his neck when she presses nearer, her breasts flush against his chest, and the entire tenor of the situation abruptly shifts. The first touch of her mouth against his skin is like a jolt of electricity down his spine, his entire body flushing warm with the poorly repressed memory of her, the sensation of her body eager and willing and open to his touch.
His muscles tense, but this time it has nothing to do with self-defense, but rather a bone deep urge to work his hands free so he can flip her onto her back and bury himself in her. Apparently one week of restraint has been harder on him than he thought.
He’s never been great at staying away from her.
She shifts, the pressure on his arms increasing as if she’s somehow read his intent. Her teeth graze his collarbone, biting down in rebuke.
He recognizes this now as a taste of his own medicine, exactly what he’d done to her that day in the pond, but he thinks it may be even more than that. He’s seen the way she flinches just the slightest bit every time someone calls her Captain. The way it sits heavily on her, the fact that she’s subordinate to those who only weeks ago had looked up to her as a superior. He doesn’t think she regrets it-she’s too damn stubborn for that-but it’s got to be eating at her nonetheless.
This is about Carter wanting to feel in control.
She sits up, pulling away from him, and he has to repress a sound of complaint. But rather than leaving him here, she merely shifts her attention, one hand pulling the fabric of her shirt up, fingers trailing tantalizingly over her own skin. With one smooth movement, she pulls the fabric up and over her head, her hands lifting to cup the heavy weight of her breasts. Her hands slide along her skin, doing what he can’t, her mouth falling slightly open in enjoyment of the sensation.
Jesus.
“I think you’ve thought about it,” she says, her voice low and smoky, and he lets himself wonder a moment if this is what Carter is like always like when the lights are turned off-heat and smoke and complete control.
He swallows, his eyes riveted to the languorous movement of her fingers. “Thought about what?” he asks, his voice rough, sounding almost out of breath to his own ears.
“I think you’ve imagined me under your desk, your hand in my hair, my mouth…” She trails off, her tongue darting out to touch her lower lip, and God help him, he almost loses it just from that look alone.
She shifts, grinding down against him. “Have you fantasized about that?” she presses. “About me?”
He feels his skin flush with heat, the image she’s painting warring with a rising tide of indignation that she’s asking him something like this. Is that really what she’s after here? Humiliation?
Her hand slips under the elastic waist of his boxers. “Do you think about me? When you’re all alone and it’s just you…” Her fingers wrap around him, firm pressure smoothly sliding upward.
“God,” he breathes, his eyes nearly rolling back in his head. “Yes, dammit.” He’s pissed as hell to realize that he’ll admit almost anything to keep her here, to keep her hands on him.
If she’d had even the slightest smile of triumph on her face at the admission, he’d have swiftly put an end to this convoluted game she’s playing, but when he meets her eyes he just sees desire perfectly matching his, a sober intensity in her gaze that only partially manages to mask the emotions roiling just underneath.
She leans towards him, her mouth near his ear. “Me too,” she confesses against his skin, the words wavering and cracking.
He closes his eyes, the hard won distance they’ve cobbled together the last terrible week shattering with ease. “Sam,” he says, turning his head towards her.
Her fingers curl in his hair, her face burrowing into his neck, and he thinks maybe this is about something else entirely.
They’ve been fooling themselves thinking they could find distance again, but when it comes to each other that’s always been what they’re best at.
With a soft sigh, she pulls away, her weight shifting off his arms. His hands finally free, his first instinct is to bury his hands in her hair, to pull her closer, to finish what she’s started, but she’s staring down at him and he thinks he finally gets it. He doesn’t move because it occurs to him that this strange late night visit isn’t about payback or humiliation, or even dominance. This is about vulnerability.
Lifting his hips, he slides his hands under the small of his back, trapping them in place.
Clearly she expected something else entirely from him, not this willing submission. “Why?” she asks, her eyes bright with something that makes his chest ache. He’s only more certain that he’s making the right choice.
“Because I trust you,” he says.
Her jaw tightens. “Do you?” He can hear the unspoken question: even after everything that’s happened?
“Yes,” he says.
She closes her eyes, some of the tension in her shoulders softening with something he hates to call relief. When she opens her eyes, he can tell that something has already subtly shifted. She nods. “Then take off your shirt,” she says, the hard bite of an order underlying the words, her thighs squeezing against his hips.
He’s never done something like this, playing games, being on the submissive side of things. It goes against everything ingrained in him, and he’s uncomfortable as hell being dictated to, but somehow…somehow it’s doing it for him in ways he never would have expected. He doesn’t know if that’s because this is Carter, a woman he trusts more than anyone in the universe, or maybe that somehow he actually does want to give up power, just this once.
He shifts up to a seated position, reaching back for the collar of his shirt, tugging it up and over his head.
Her eyes drink him in and it’s disconcerting to be the passive object of her scrutiny, her obvious desire, like something meant to be used for her pleasure. Her fingers travel from shoulders to chest down to his stomach, nails dragging gently. He feels his skin pucker and tighten and he doesn’t think that has anything to do with cool night air.
“Lie down,” she instructs, hands pushing him back. She follows him down, dipping low over him. Her mouth latches on to the base of his throat, her breasts brushing tantalizingly against the bare skin of his chest. His hands itch to touch her, to draw her closer, to flip her over on her back and take back the upper hand. He clenches his hands into fists to resist the temptation.
She doesn’t miss it, smiling down at him, something powerful and approving and hot as hell in the look she gives him. “Good,” she murmurs. “Well done.”
She rewards him with the swift twist of her tongue across his nipple, her teeth nipping gently. He bites down on his lip, his entire body tensing in his attempt to remain passive, still.
She shifts lower, her mouth hot and open on his stomach, fingers digging under the edge of his boxers. She looks up at him, an implicit order layered in there for him to hold her gaze as she pulls the fabric down. Her lips curve into a smile full of mischief and desire and power, and she has never been sexier, all uncertainty gone now as she takes control, her confidence building like a buzz on his skin.
“Do you think reality will be even better?” she asks.
Before he can answer, she takes him into her mouth. He groans, his hands digging into the blankets, his hips fighting to come up off the bed, but through it all, he keeps his eyes on her. Watches as her tongue runs the length of him from base to head, her teeth gently grazing the tip.
Fantasy has absolutely nothing on the reality of Carter, warm and wet and real.
He recognizes the same concentration and attention to detail he’s always associated with her but now it’s focused entirely on him-pressure and suction and friction and heat-her equations perfectly balanced and optimized, and he just hangs on for the ride, giving himself over to her and trusting her to pull off miracles just like always.
Only she pulls back far too soon, slipping away from him.
Jack blinks blurrily at her as she gets to her feet. He feels his heart stutter, hoping to God she isn’t going to try to leave him like this. He’s torn between grabbing her and just ordering her to damn well finish what she started, but doesn’t do either.
He trusts her.
She gets to her feet, but only long enough to slide her shorts down off her legs, leaning all the way down to the ground to lift her feet out of them. He had no idea she was that…bendy.
Rather than settling back down between his legs, she turns her back on him, kneeling across his chest. She leans down, taking him in her mouth once more, only now her ass is hovering mere inches from his face.
God, this close he can smell her. This has got to be a deliberate test of his restraint and he very nearly fails. The only thing that keeps him from reaching for her is his promise, the knowledge of what this means to her. But honestly, he doesn’t think about it too long because his brain is short-circuiting and there is no way it’s possible to feel this good--.
Holy mother of God.
He bites down on his tongue, some sick part of his brain still peripherally aware that he’s in a tent surrounded by people, breaking a rule he used to think was important. Whatever sound he may have made ends up trapped in his throat, a guttural noise too much like a death gurgle, but really, it’s actually a lot like dying, the way everything stops-heart, air, sound, sensation-and there’s that moment he can’t be sure it will ever start up again. Maybe doesn’t want it to.
Then his hips lower back down to the cot, his hands releasing their death grip on the blanket, and his heartbeat slams back into motion, filling his ears, fighting with his ragged breath. He opens his eyes, not sure when he closed them.
He has his hands thrown wide, head collapsed back against his pillow, and he’s not sure the muscles in his body will ever be useful ever again. He has the vague thought that it’s a good thing he doesn’t actually have a desk anymore, because he’ll probably never be able to look at one again without remembering this, imagining this with concrete details he will never forget.
The sharp bite of teeth on his thigh snaps his brain back into the present and the very real and warm woman still crouched over him.
“You still with me, cadet?” she asks, her lips pressing soothingly against abused patch of skin.
It’s amazing how quickly his senses can jump back to alert, realizing she’s not quite done with him yet. Whatever reluctance he’d started with has long since evaporated. He could get used to her being the boss of him. “Yes, ma’am,” he says.
She shifts, looking at him back over her shoulder, giving him an impertinent little smirk. “If I let you touch me right now, what would you do?” she asks, a challenge in her gaze.
His fingers twitch, imagining it so vividly that he can practically taste her already. He’s not really one for flowery words or alliteration, so he sticks to the truth. “I would grab your thighs, spread you wide, and make you scream my name.”
Her lips part on an unsteady breath, her fingers digging into his thighs. “You sound very certain of your abilities,” she says, her voice stern, but with the tiniest edge of a waver that tells him he’s getting to her. “Are you that arrogant?”
He gives her a slow grin, his eyes sweeping up the pale expanse of her back. “No. Just that certain.”
She draws her bottom lip through her teeth, her eyes dark and warm, and he can see her desire battling with her need to maintain control.
He thinks he can give her both. “Requesting permission to demonstrate.”
She seems to consider it. “Grant--.”
She doesn’t even completely get the word out before he reaches for her thighs, tugging her back and burying his face in her. He’s going to show her just how good he can be at following orders.
She doesn’t quite scream him name, more like expelling it on a heavy breath, but he’s happy enough to take that, feeling the way the shudders work down the entire length of her body, her thighs tightening and releasing under his hands as her back arches.
By the time he finally pushes her over the edge, she’s completely inarticulate, and he’ll take that-Sam Carter at a loss for words-as a mission accomplished.
Her arms wobble dangerously where she’s still bracing her weight, her forehead dipping down against his hip, her breath heavy against his skin.
He pulls her back around, reveling in the ability to touch her now after being denied. His hands slide down her back, never pausing in their movement as they settle down together into the impossible narrowness of his bunk. She melts into him, seeming to fill all the empty spaces, and he lets himself bury his face in her hair, take a stolen moment to just breathe her in.
She won’t stay, he knows, even if he asks. She’ll slip away as quietly as she arrived.
Tomorrow they will wake up in their separate tents and the world will still be over. He’ll call her Captain, and she’ll try not to flinch, and he’ll try to pretend that he’s supposed to be here after all.
But maybe underneath all of that, she’ll be able to remember this. She’ll think of his absolute trust in her in every way, even in the ways that shouldn’t matter-can’t matter. She’ll remember that and for a second it might all be a tiny bit easier.
Maybe that can be enough.
.fin.