The Perfect Weapon Chapter 10: Part 1

[camillecarelli]

Chapter 10: Part 1

“Jack, I just thought of something.”

Great. He really had to stop giving her time to think. Rolling over, he covered half of her body with his and began nibbling on her jaw. “What now, Irina? Think of some other way to try and get me to lose some control?”

She hissed at him, “Stop it. I’m starting to think it’s impossible anyway. You still - that last time - you still held back! What do I have to do?” she moaned as his hand reached between her legs again. “Stop. I can’t think when you do that….Oh, wait a minute, that’s why you’re doing it, aren’t you?”

“I am so offended,” he said in mock affront, as he sat up and leaned across her hips, looking up at her face. He cupped one breast in his hand and began toying casually with the nipple. “You think I have some ulterior motive in playing with your body? You underestimate your…allure to me.” And she did, she did underestimate how much effort it took to resist her, to resist the temptation she represented, to ignore what she had said about loving him then while he waited for what he needed, how much effort it required to use the coldness to control the heat.

He bent his head and began kissing her stomach, flicking his tongue into her bellybutton as he reached under her and lifted her buttocks up, lifted her body toward his mouth. Irina moaned and then recalling herself, said disjointedly, “I was trying to ask you…” She tried to push his hands away. Sliding his hands around to her hips, he kissed his way to her mouth. Taking it in a slow, sensual kiss that caused her to arch against him in a silent plea, to unwind her arms from around his neck and sinuously lay them above her head in total abandon, he pulled back for a moment to look at her. Then staring at her lips, at the tongue that licked her lips looking for his, he shook his head and pressed his mouth back to hers again, whispering, “Beautiful,” right before he lost the ability to talk. He let his fingers speak for him. Her body answered. His fingers pressed and circled, her body wet his fingers, they slid, she arched. He moaned. She sighed. The cycle began again between them. Suddenly he realized that he was starting to feel that…spinning, that dizziness that happened only between them. No, no.

Calling on a reserve of self-protection he was not sure he had possessed, he released her lips and slid partially off of her. Propping his head on one hand, the other still drawing circles on her body, he asked, “So, what was your question?”

“You’re going to leave me like this?” she asked panting.

“Mmm. You told me to stop, before, didn’t you? I would never want to be accused of doing something against your will, honey.”

“Aaaah. I will…Like I have any will around you! You, this, us, is my greatest weakness.”

“Is it?” he purred as he bent his head back down and began to suckle, so lightly, on her nipple that she involuntarily lifted her body to press it further into his mouth.

“Jaack… I want…Now!”

“No. Let’s do this for a while.”

“What, keep me on the edge, like this?”

“Yeah. Like me,” he shrugged his shoulders. No, wait a minute, he was not on the edge like her because…she had not forced, teased, taken him to the edge yet. She wanted to smack herself. What was wrong with her? She had made the same mistake tonight that she had made in their relationship in the beginning, until Dave had opened her eyes. She had accepted his dictum that he would take care of her, had accepted what he gave without giving back or giving back enough to get inside him. She had not used her own power for his, their benefit. Well, better late than never, she thought with a smile and a quick glance toward the window.

“Like you…oh, I see - so we’ll both be feeling the same way,” she said with a smugness that warned him. Her eyes brightened as she reached down and began to fondle him; he jerked back in surprise. She had revelled in their...was it lovemaking? but had not been aggressive in touching him. That was one reason he had been able to hold on to his control for so long tonight. It was so similar to when they had first been together. Gradually she had changed from acceptance - not a passive acceptance to be sure, but never terribly aggressive after she made the first move…but then after that one night - it had all changed to…something like this, he groaned as she began to use both hands and her mouth. Oh no, he could get lost if she...She smiled, oh no, he remembered that smile, as she said softly, “Keep us on the edge - like in the beginning? So we both - when it finally happens it will be like that first time - that fire in our blood that has to be extinguished together or we’ll burn up?”

“Mmmm. Remember that?” he groaned the words, struggling for control.

“That first time…of course. I could never forget it. Never. I wish I had my earrings, too or my---“

“This” he interrupted her, not wanting to discuss the chain, having had to deflect her from that once already tonight with the substitution of the sapphire ring he had given her when Sydney was born. But the chain - that had been a mistake - he felt the heat recede slightly, just enough for a hint of the coldness to return. He bent his head to her lips and plundered her mouth until she moaned again but maintained enough control herself to use her hands until he felt the moan rising up with him. He took a breath to say, “This…feeling of being on the edge…It should give you some incentive to finding the key. Or one of them. Maybe that’s what you need - a personal stake to increase your motivation?”

“When I figure this out, Jack, when I found that key, those keys, I swear you will get--” She scraped her nails along him. Oh no, she had remembered that.

He gritted his teeth as he asked, “No mercy?”

“None. No limits, isn’t that what you said?” she asked archly. She had an idea, something she had wanted to try the night of the toaster fire….Something she had lost the courage to do later. But now there was no reason not to try, she had nothing to lose. After all, her thoughts skittered to a surprised halt, she would probably never see him again after tomorrow. Her eyes slid to the window, she just prevented herself from sucking in a harsh breath as she saw the incipient lightening of the sky beyond the curtains. Forcing herself to calmness, she said again, when he did not answer, just watched her - what had her face given away, she worried, “No boundaries, no rules, no limits, right? That’s what you wanted?”

He sighed, knowing she had seen that dawn was coming, as he slanted her a look, “Yes, some time ago. I’m still waiting. You know if you don’t figure it out soon, well, I might have to take matters into my own hands.”

She gasped in outrage, then smiled. Here it comes, he thought to himself.

“Well, you could do that. I wouldn’t mind watching.” He felt his eyes widen involuntarily, just the slightest bit, watched her smile turn triumphant as she noted that fact. Then he smiled and it was her turn to tense.

“Hmm. Well, maybe you could learn something from watching. Let me show you,” he murmured, beginning to move his hands down his own body. Watching her breath catch, he delivered the punch line, “I mean, you seem to have forgotten the correct tech---“
She rolled over and lunged at him.

Catching her before she slammed her full body weight into him, he began laughing. Laughing in relief that he had distracted her for a little while, at least.

“So, Irina, what was your question? I seem to remember you having one before you were so easily and inexplicably distracted. Where’s your focus? It’s a mystery to me how you developed such a syndicate if you’re this distractible,” he said shaking his head in mock dismay, as they lay together side by side.

She thumped his shoulder with her fist. “You idiot! You weren’t there to distract me.” Her hand slid down his shoulder to his chest, then his stomach, tracing circles in his skin this time, moving slowly, slowly downward.

“No, I wasn’t.” He said calmly, calling upon decades of facial control to prevent his features from contorting into rage, instantaneous rage. Because it was not pain he felt, no, it was anger. “Even though you haven’t completed your…goal yet, I have been, let us say…. enjoying this. So, I’ll reward you. You remember? Positive reinforcement? What was your question?” he asked as he curved his hands around her rear end and then moved inward, inexorably opening her legs to allow him to touch her from the back.

She ground her teeth and then groaned. She looked confused at the mixed messages, the pleasure of his touch, the teasing sting of his words. “Don’t bite me,” he joked, forced himself to smile and not grit his teeth, not squeeze her too hard in his rage.

“Not yet. But, this was my question. Why is all your gear in this room? Why isn’t it in your room?”

“Irina, Irina,” he said shaking his head, relaxing. “Do you honestly think I booked two rooms for us?”

She stared at him for a moment and then said softly, “Oh. You were planning on staying in this room to make sure I wouldn’t bolt?”

“No.” He slid one hand up over her butt, over the inward curve of her lower back, up her spine, onto the nape of her neck and pulled her forward. He angled his head toward her and said against her lips, “I trust you. I thought we already established that.” He swallowed down the lie, like so many others.

“So….?” She asked, kissing his lower lip, then sucking it into her mouth, then lifted her top leg to curl it around his thigh, giving his hand easier access.

“Mmm. Thanks, honey,” he murmured as his hand moved in deeper. God, how could he feel such desire when he knew what she was, what she was planning? “So? I planned on staying in this room to share your bed,” he said flatly, honestly. Then said huskily, as his fingers discovered that spot, yes, she moaned, “Share your body.”

“But you didn’t tell me…why?....you must have known what I wanted…But I didn’t feel…” she stuttered to a confused halt. Damn him! He knew how to play this game. And what he was doing with just those two fingers…her head was spinning. No, no, she needed to get back in the game, she thought frantically, grasping for control, some, any control.

“Yeah, I could have told you, let you…swim in anticipation. But I decided I’d rather…surprise you.” She snorted, then moved her head forward and began licking the base of his throat. He tilted his head back for her, even as he said, softly, “And besides we had to plan the mission, didn’t we? Had to keep our minds on the game, didn’t we?” She nodded. Yeah, right, he thought. Her mission had been in place for a while, she did not need to go over the details of ‘their’ mission because it did not really exist, now did it?

“But, Jack, I…”

“You were worried, wondering will we or won’t we?”

“Yes. It was driving me crazy. You! That was your plan, wasn’t it? Your game?”

“Hmm. Maybe,” he said slyly, laughing as she stuck her tongue out at him. Then stopped laughing as she angled her head upward and began licking at the curve of his bottom lip. He held his breath, not even realizing for a moment how he was waiting for her to kiss him, to capture his mouth, how the soft, slow strokes of her tongue on just that one point, no where else, were….”Driving you crazy wondering how it might happen, when…who would make the first move? Didn’t that add to it - to your feelings - didn’t it make the adrenaline pump through your veins as you thought about how it might happen?”

“Another one of your little foreplay games,” she said, smiling and shaking her head, dragging her lips across his.

“You always loved them,” he shrugged. And I know!” he said, laughing when she began to interrupt him, “I know! You always liked the anticipation too, knowing that sooner or later…..But, now - that’s what we’re doing now by staying on the edge, isn’t it?…” he murmured and rolled her under him again. He bent his head to one breast and then another, waiting until she was gasping again to continue, “You didn’t feel that this was a foregone conclusion because I wanted to make you….”

“What? What!” she exclaimed as he bit softly on one nipple, then licked it slowly before answering. She held his head to her, running her fingers across his hair, skirting the edge of his ear. He turned his head and began licking his way from her palm up to the tip of her middle finger, then sucked it in his mouth for a moment.

“You wanted to be alone at least since the bathroom in the plane home from Kashmir, right? I did too. That’s no secret. You wanted me to come up with an idea and get rid of the kids then, didn’t you? And you’ll notice they’re not here with us on this mission, are they?” He looked at her with a smug smile, that faded as she slowly shifted her legs under him until he slid between them, her thighs on the outside of his hips.

She shook her head, remembering the bathroom in the cargo plane, how that small space had held so much within it. Remembered, suddenly their words in the bathroom. “What are you thinking about, Irina?” he asked. “What we said in the bathroom then and what we said right before you kissed me tonight?” He rocked against her.

She bit his shoulder. “God, you are so irritating!” She wiggled her lower body, trying to get him where she wanted him. He smiled at her and moved away.

“Because I’m right. Then you said, ‘If you’re okay, I should go.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, you should.’” But neither of us---

“Really wanted me to go. Because we both wanted this…” she whispered and used a hand to press his hardness between her legs, press the length against her softness. Then she reached her hand behind him and watched him try and hide the shudder. Said softly, “And tonight, you asked me, ‘Are you okay?’ And then I said, ‘We should get to bed,’ And you said---”

“’Yeah, we should.’ And then…” he struggled for control - when was the last time someone had touched him like this - with feeling? “This time, you pulled me down, while last time you looked like you wanted to push me down on that seat, like the night we made Sydney.”

“You saw that?” she asked, then shook her head at her own foolishness. Of course he had seen that. She had not tried to hide anything from him - why would she - and he could read her like a book. “So, tonight, you let me…pull you down onto the bed….” She said, smiling softly, remembering.

Remembering how she had had to force herself to leave him in the cargo plane, remembering her relief earlier tonight when he had not pulled back from her first move. Remembering the last time how her knees had shaken as she walked away from him, feeling his gaze on her from the bathroom, turning around and nearly falling down from the heat in his eyes. Remembering tonight, how she had pulled him down before she fell down from twenty years of misspent, misplaced desire and…need. She could acknowledge it now, it was not want, it was need.

“Wait a minute,” she said, half to herself, “Before - you were saying you did not tell me your plans for us…You said you did that to make - what?”

”To make you work a little harder. And it worked, didn’t it? You made the first move. But we’ve already had this conversation.”

“Have we? When did I say I liked the challenge?” she said, baiting him, wondering if he would take it as she distracted him with her hands on his chest, tweaking the nipples, running her thumbs in circles around them. Did he feel like he was drowning in sensation too? She had forgotten how touching him, exciting him, made her feel, how it made her feel powerful, how it increased her confidence, which made her want to touch him more, give more to him and then he would grow more intense and the way he would touch her would set off hotter fires and…. Another endless cycle. How had she forgotten that?

“Isn’t that what you said thirty years ago? On the quad--” Then wanted to kick himself. He should not have remembered that….

“You remember that? That time after we had the fight on the quadrangle and I was teasing you about being shy? You remember that.” She said with a gleam of triumph in her eyes as she bent her head and touched her lips to his nipple.

“So do you,” he pointed out. They were even. He put one hand in her hair and pulled her head back. As he started to kiss her, she began to speak.

“I’ve never pretended not to remember anything, everything about us, Jack. That’s the difference.” She wound one arm around his neck and pulled his face down to hers, kissing him so fervently, so passionately, that had he not known better, he would have been fooled, fooled by the present, fooled as he had been in the past, when he thought there was a future in her kiss.

No, Irina, the difference is that you used those memories as talismans against your fears, your sadness, your loneliness. They comforted you, consoled you. You wanted, needed to remember them And I, and I, until recently, for twenty years those memories had been something I wanted, needed to forget. They were unending evidence of my own stupidity, my own foolishness, my own humiliation. Unending sources of pain…and then they became tools, weapons.

Until tonight, when they finally became…something else as well. Tonight when I realized that the memories, our life together, now - tonight - was heaven and hell all rolled up in one lovely, lying little package in my arms. After tonight, I ….hesitated to use the word, but did…hope I’ll have recovered some of those memories for myself. He bent his head and kissed her lips, lips that spoke the right words but meant none of them. Or at least not for…forever, just right now. Pressing her lower body into his, he said, “These are the differences between us that I find relevant, honey. These are the differences worth exploring…” he purred against her lips as his hands moved around and over and under and into. Then moaned when her hands and mouth started to rove as well. He must be the weakest man alive, he thought to himself.

She lifted her head from his shoulder to ask, ”I still can’t believe - did you really only set up one room? You made no pretense about it?”

”You are so obsessive. Let it go. I didn’t take out a billboard, but I don’t need to explain or justify everything,” he said, smiling. “I’m a senior officer, remember? Who’s going to question me on something like that given the way I operate on any given day? One room instead of two? The only one to blink would probably be…”

“Our daughter?”

He ignored that. Yuck. “And besides I saved the taxpayers money, didn’t I?” He smiled, and lifted her wrist to his mouth, traced the delicate veins on it with his tongue.

She stroked her hand, one of those strong hands he had always loved, up his thigh and over his hip, moving inexorably inward as she asked, “But, Kendall, won’t he know, won’t he---“

“What? Do you care that he’ll know we shared a room tonight?”

“I…suppose not,” she said slowly, biting her lip and looking away. Of course, you won’t care, he thought, you plan on never seeing him again, do you? She turned her head back and kissed his chest, wet, open-mouthed kisses as she slowly moved toward his nipple.

“He won’t say anything to you when we return, I would not allow such disrespect. Besides,” he said, “Technically, we’re still married,” S***, he should not have said that. She was distracting him with her mouth. He hurried up to add, “And everyone thinks married people are boring and have no real sex life to speak of, especially at our age, so---”

“Apparently they don’t know you,” Irina said softly, stroking his chest with one hand, moving the other around to his back and running a lone finger down the length of his spine.

“Or you,” he agreed, holding her close to his side and curving his hand around her bottom to lift her against him. They both groaned involuntarily and then smiled at each other.

“Us. It’s us, together,” she said against his throat, feeling the strong pulse beat there. Absently, she began to kiss it, then lick it once again, in time to the beat of his heart.

“Is it?”

“Yes. You know that. I mean, I never…with…Only with you…is everything…I needed you, this, us…Did you?” she asked hesitantly, offering honesty reluctantly, wondering what his response would be. He had not answered her before. She tilted her head back, wanting to see his face.

He bent his head, but she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed back. ”I’ve asked you this question, twice. Do you,” she swallowed hard, “Need me too?”

He had her or was so close to having her that victory was within his grasp. He looked away from her eyes, that he had always thought so warm. Looked away so that she could not see what was in his. Would it be fear? Or triumph? Or happiness? Or sadness? Or coldness? Or, warmth? He was feeling all of those emotions. What should he show? But he could not assume the mask, she would know immediately that he was hiding something if he did that.

He kissed her lips, softly. “Jack,” she whispered, “What are you thinking, feeling? I can’t tell.”

“Neither can I. That - what you said, I still don’t know…” He sat up and swung his feet over the side of the bed.

“Jack, don’t retreat from me,” she demanded, with a hand on his shoulder, holding him back. At that he smiled. That was Laura - never implore, when you could demand.

And then he remembered. No, that was Irina. Who took instead of gave. She wanted him to tell her that he needed her because it would make her feel good, better. For tonight. With no thought of tomorrow. He stood up, felt her hand slide away like an aching loss already and walked over to the window. Parting the curtains he saw what she had seen. The sun was starting to rise over Panama.

“Jack….” She said softly and he turned.

This was so difficult, the worst torture he had ever endured. He had thought he was colder than this, less vulnerable, less…empathetic. He had not expected that this perfect weapon would be so heavy to wield. Seeing the vulnerability and love in her eyes and knowing that if this scenario went as he knew it would - that she would betray them in the morning - that she would feel betrayed. Even knowing that truth, it was so hard, his plans went against everything that was good in him - anything that was left of goodness in him - to hurt someone who loved him.

But, he reminded himself, that was exactly what she was planning. Even as she asked him to tell her truths, to trust her, to love her, to need her, she was planning on betraying them in the morning. She knew, had to know, it would hurt but somehow that was less important, always less important, than her goals. But how could she do this? How? How could she look at him like that, how had she looked at Sydney like that - he had seen the tape after Sydney had called her “Mom” for the first time, seen those tears - how could she do that and plan on using them, betraying them? And for what? Rambaldi?

What, in the name of all that is holy, did she see in Rambaldi that was greater than love? How could someone so brilliant, with so many gifts, be so blind to the benefits and costs of her choices? It seemed so simple to him. Always had. Until this moment.

She had made choices. He needed to make his.

“If you want an answer to that question, I need you to say it, them,” he demanded, albeit very softly. Looking out the window, his back to her, he added, “Three things, remember?”

“Of course. Of course.” She took a breath, glad he was looking away so that she could compose herself. “Please, Jack, will you make love to me? Will you show me how you love me? The way, the way,” she stumbled to a halt, realizing that she should have said this hours ago, that he needed to hear the words, that she needed to say them, that she had been afraid, that her unacknowledged guilt had tied her courage in knots, that she had been afraid that if she said it, he would not accept it, “The way that I love you?”

He closed his eyes as he felt everything inside him spin, wildly, out of control, felt something inside him shift in the vortex, possibly even crack. Was it the coldness? Was it the heat? Was it his heart? Or was it just another, previously-untapped reservoir of foolishness?

Was this what he needed, part of what he needed? Or would this be another agent of his own destruction? Could he use it or would it use him? Did it matter? Now in this moment?

“Jack,” she said softly. “Look at me.” What should he show, what should she see? Truth? Or some variation on it? Trust? How odd, he thought randomly, striving for control, that truth and trust were only separated by one letter of difference.

He turned, lifted his eyes, slowly. She sucked in a breath at what she saw in them. “You’re here. My Jack. Mine. At last.” Lifting up on one elbow, she spread her legs apart, lifted one hand to him.

“Come to me, come in me.” Never breaking eye contact, he stepped over to the bed and crawled forward between her legs. Looping her arms around his neck as he slid slowly, so slowly she whimpered, slid so smoothly inside her, she whispered, “Moya, moya, Ia tebia liubliu.” She was not even aware of speaking her love, her possession to him in Russian for what she thought was the first time, so lost in his eyes was she. She saw something - was it heat, incredible heat - flicker in those eyes.

It gave her the courage to state, demand, unconsciously switching seamlessly to English, “It’s your turn, Jack. Talk to me.”

TBC at Chapter 10 Part 2