Ficlet: I Call (Sawyer/Kate)
Title: I Call
Pairing: Sawyer/Kate
Rating: NC-17
Summary: set post-"Lockdown." For some reason, skanky het was the only thing that would appease my muse. But there’s also fallout from the poker game, so if serious smut isn’t your thing, you’ll know when to stop reading, and you won’t miss much in the way of plot. Forgive the card game metaphors. Oh, and if anybody’s already done something like this (but J/S instead) I’m sorry--I’m still playing catch up with the reading. Oh well, I hope this is different.
I Call
It took Sawyer about five minutes of sitting out at the poker table in naked defeat before Kate saw him retreat to his shelter. But he didn’t stomp or grouse or even act apathetic. The island tight-ass had beaten him at his own game and he didn’t have to cover his disappointment because it seemed as though his disappointment was carefully constructed. When Kate opened the flap to his tent to find him laying on his sleeping pallet, she saw him paste on his scowl and affect defensiveness and she shook her head.
“You let him win,” she said.
Sawyer’s face contorted, going through a series of faces from shocked to annoyed to incredulous to smirking. “Did you bring that ruler, Freckles?” he said, drawling it out in that way he had the betrayed just how thick he was laying it on. By now, she could tell genuine flirtation from diversion.
“Don’t bullshit me, Sawyer. I don’t believe he beat you at poker.” She stood with her arms crossed, glaring at him and thinking that even when she was arguing with him, it was better than waiting for Jack to stop being a dick. She didn’t trust Sawyer-this afternoon reminded her why she shouldn’t-but he was at least honest about his feelings for her. He had no choice. Even when he fed her a line, she saw it for what it was-except when the thing he was selling was something she was all too eager to buy. But she had learned the last time, and no amount of hatred for Ana Lucia or blindness about Jack would get in her way of understanding Sawyer.
Sawyer scowled, feeding her yet another line. “Darlin’, you must be awfully bored to cook up a scenario like that.”
She scowled in return. “Well, you specialize in scenarios, don’t you? I don’t believe you would let Jack humiliate you in front of everyone.”
Rather than anger, he only responded with sarcasm as he finally sat up, bending his knees and throwing his arms over them. “Well, well, well, Freckles, it’s good to know how you feel about me now that Jack took my mangoes.” He leered at her-over the top and insistent. When he really wanted something, he was more subtle.
“I just don’t believe it.”
“I don’t care what you believe. You saw what just happened. Doc’s apparently a card shark. Don’t make him Superman, but it does mean he cleaned me out.”
“Then why did he look like Superman when he walked away?”
Sawyer’s face did another flip flop: shock to annoyance to sarcasm. “I can’t help it you have a hero fetish.”
She simply rolled her eyes. Letting a smile come over her face, she said, “It would be easier if I had an anti-hero fetish, wouldn’t it?”
She walked closer to the side of his makeshift bed, and he suddenly swung his legs over the side. “Just what did you come for, Freckles?”
As close as she was standing to him, she could smell the spicy scent of his skin and she could also see that he was far from calm. His hands held fast to the side of the bed, making the muscles bulge in his forearm and she traced them all the way up until his bicep disappeared under his t-shirt. She had to force herself to look at his eyes, not that that was easier. Sometimes, his eyes could be dead, blocking out his intent like nothing in his body language or his voice could. But at times like this, when he was willing to own up to some real lust, his eyes could absolutely draw her in with warmth and promise. He reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her with a firm grasp until she was standing in front of him, between his open legs, feeling the heat radiate off him and fighting not to lean just a little closer lick and suck her way from the tan skin above his collar to the place where his stubble met the soft skin below his ear.
But she held his gaze. “You know why I’m here. Why did you do it?”
He still held her hand, and he placed it on his thigh, keeping his over it and leaning closer to her to whisper in her ear. “Now what motivation could I have for doing a thing like that?”
“You wanted to give him a false sense of security.”
This time, when Sawyer leaned in, he let his lips rest on her neck, sending a shiver through her body. He said, “If that was true, I’d ask you what the old boy’s looking to keep secure. Because it sure ain’t you, if that’s what you think.”
She tried to pull back, but he still held her hand, so she closed her eyes and her other hand shot out to steady her against the urge to do him some physical violence. Not that he wasn’t right. That was the problem.
His body instantly relaxed as he tried to make her calm down, and it was a mix of patronizing expressions and genuine movements to draw her in, closer, without pressing her too close. With the hand that held her right hip, he let his thumb skim under the front of her waistband, like a caress. He said, “Before you get mad at me and forget it should be the Doc you’re mad at, maybe you should ask me what I was trying to secure.”
Probably if she wasn’t so turned on, if she didn’t have some crazy adrenaline building in her body, she might have let that comment go. But she found herself jerking out of his arms so violently and so fast that he didn’t have a chance of holding her. She was a few steps out onto the beach before he threw his arms around her from behind. She stood stock still, feeling his breath on the back of her neck and wishing she didn’t want him almost bad enough to ignore the fucking chauvinistic things he felt and the stupid habit he had of articulating them, however accidentally.
His voice was gruff, exasperated, working back toward calm, when he said, “Shit, girl. I was just trying to warm you up a little. What the hell did I say?”
“Next time you try to ‘warm me up,’ don’t be so obvious about using me to get back at Jack,” she spat, and he let her go, nudging her into turning around so she could see his confusion.
After the confusion was serious frustration, and it wasn’t at all a show. “In case you hadn’t noticed, ain’t nobody got to take you away from Jack. You’ve never been his, and you damn sure aren’t now. But I can’t worry about what you and he do or don’t do. Am I allowed to want something for myself? You know what your problem is? You don’t have a fucking clue what I want from you, and it makes you antsy. If you want easy, go back to old Jacko. You can read that motherfucker’s intentions from a mile away, even if you don’t like them.”
After his diatribe was over, he let out a short, irritated breath and retreated back to his shelter, and Kate found herself following-curious and still more than a little flushed with a mix of anger and arousal. She said, “Do you even know what you want from me, Sawyer?”
“Right now I want you to go the hell away or climb up here on top of me. That clear enough for you, darlin’?”
If it had been real, she would have been too annoyed to stay. But this was not Sawyer being real-this was the crassness that served as the best wall he had. She wasn’t deluded enough to think he was in love with her or anything, but there was a good bet he was more invested in this than he wanted her to know…just as he was probably more invested in that poker game than he could ever admit to.
She shook her head. “Does it ever fucking end with you?”
He sighed. “Thought you’d know by now that I’m pretty blunt about things.”
“No. The con! He beat you. You misread him, and he beat you. But you read me well enough to sell your version.”
It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Yes, the good doctor kicked my ass at poker. I was having a bad day, and he was bound and fucking determined to get his mangoes back.”
Sawyer flopped back against his sleeping pallet, looking at her with a face that begged her to leave him to his misery. Not quite the look he’d given her when she read his letter and learned his secret, but it was close. But instead of leaving, she walked toward him and watched as he closed his eyes, ignoring her, shutting her out. Her hand slipped over his for a moment before she boosted herself up onto the pallet and knelt over his hips. When her hands settled into place on the pillow on either side of his head, he opened his eyes and she said, “I call.”
He broke out into an odd smile and slid his hands over her hips, pulling her down as his own hips rose to meet her. “You are one crazy woman, you know.”
“Would you rather I go away?”
He let out a breath and chuckled. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“What it is you want from me.”
Kate kissed his neck, just at his jawline. “I would think you could read me by now.”
“Hell, no. That’s half the fun. Now, if you don’t leave now, I’m gonna take that as a very definite sign.”
“I can be quiet,” she said, and she swiped her tongue up the side of his neck. “Even when I come.”
He didn’t answer that, only pulling her body tighter into his hips and stretching his lips up to meet hers. She had never forgotten what his lips felt like, so soft and wet, and now they were open and sliding against hers, then taking in her bottom lip, sucking gently before he swept his tongue over her lips and into her mouth. When his tongue met hers, it was so good she could feel it spread over her body, making what was only a warmth into a heavy feeling, wet, swollen, and she knew it wasn’t reasonable to move this fast or risk this here, but she was really a little beyond thinking rationally with hips against hips, the friction of jeans making Sawyer’s cock seem somehow harder as it pressed into her.
She pulled away from him to take off her pants, and he watched impatiently as she stripped her lower half bare, his hands sliding up under her shirt making her impatient to get him out of his pants and feel skin on skin. When she finally lowered herself back over him, this time feeling the heat of his cock sliding against her, they kissed hard and deep through the strange euphoria of first contact, bucking against each other without much design. Then she was pulling herself up and back down, taking his cock all the way in. His hands held her hips still for a moment, but then he let out a breath and set her hips into motion.
He liked it fast, and she liked it slow, but luckily with that first push into her, she was already close. When she slowed him down for the second time and he took the hint, thrusting deeply a few times with swift jerks of his hips upward, she felt an orgasm shake loose out of her, coming wild and erratic and it made her squirm against his body and he was speeding back up, now pulling her hips faster and soon thrusting hard and holding himself there, deep, coming with a gasp.
She pulled off him, but he wouldn’t let her get up, instead clutching her to his chest. It took a long time for his breath to slow, and when it finally did, he said, “Now, why ain’t we done that before?”
“You’re too mysterious for your own good.”
He snorted. “If you ever thought for a minute that I didn’t want you, you really can’t read people worth a damn.”
“I could say the same to you, but that would inflate your ego.”
“That’s okay. It needs inflatin’.”
She smiled and finally pulled out of his arms. As she scrambled off the pallet and rounded up her clothes, shaking out the sand, she said, “I think now it’s finally down to a manageable level.”
“You’re a very funny girl.”
“I know,” she said with a grin, sliding out into the sunshine, trying not to grin like an idiot, a very satisfied idiot. It had been a stupid thing to do, because now there was no denying that she needed it. But at least now some of the cards were on the table.
Pairing: Sawyer/Kate
Rating: NC-17
Summary: set post-"Lockdown." For some reason, skanky het was the only thing that would appease my muse. But there’s also fallout from the poker game, so if serious smut isn’t your thing, you’ll know when to stop reading, and you won’t miss much in the way of plot. Forgive the card game metaphors. Oh, and if anybody’s already done something like this (but J/S instead) I’m sorry--I’m still playing catch up with the reading. Oh well, I hope this is different.
I Call
It took Sawyer about five minutes of sitting out at the poker table in naked defeat before Kate saw him retreat to his shelter. But he didn’t stomp or grouse or even act apathetic. The island tight-ass had beaten him at his own game and he didn’t have to cover his disappointment because it seemed as though his disappointment was carefully constructed. When Kate opened the flap to his tent to find him laying on his sleeping pallet, she saw him paste on his scowl and affect defensiveness and she shook her head.
“You let him win,” she said.
Sawyer’s face contorted, going through a series of faces from shocked to annoyed to incredulous to smirking. “Did you bring that ruler, Freckles?” he said, drawling it out in that way he had the betrayed just how thick he was laying it on. By now, she could tell genuine flirtation from diversion.
“Don’t bullshit me, Sawyer. I don’t believe he beat you at poker.” She stood with her arms crossed, glaring at him and thinking that even when she was arguing with him, it was better than waiting for Jack to stop being a dick. She didn’t trust Sawyer-this afternoon reminded her why she shouldn’t-but he was at least honest about his feelings for her. He had no choice. Even when he fed her a line, she saw it for what it was-except when the thing he was selling was something she was all too eager to buy. But she had learned the last time, and no amount of hatred for Ana Lucia or blindness about Jack would get in her way of understanding Sawyer.
Sawyer scowled, feeding her yet another line. “Darlin’, you must be awfully bored to cook up a scenario like that.”
She scowled in return. “Well, you specialize in scenarios, don’t you? I don’t believe you would let Jack humiliate you in front of everyone.”
Rather than anger, he only responded with sarcasm as he finally sat up, bending his knees and throwing his arms over them. “Well, well, well, Freckles, it’s good to know how you feel about me now that Jack took my mangoes.” He leered at her-over the top and insistent. When he really wanted something, he was more subtle.
“I just don’t believe it.”
“I don’t care what you believe. You saw what just happened. Doc’s apparently a card shark. Don’t make him Superman, but it does mean he cleaned me out.”
“Then why did he look like Superman when he walked away?”
Sawyer’s face did another flip flop: shock to annoyance to sarcasm. “I can’t help it you have a hero fetish.”
She simply rolled her eyes. Letting a smile come over her face, she said, “It would be easier if I had an anti-hero fetish, wouldn’t it?”
She walked closer to the side of his makeshift bed, and he suddenly swung his legs over the side. “Just what did you come for, Freckles?”
As close as she was standing to him, she could smell the spicy scent of his skin and she could also see that he was far from calm. His hands held fast to the side of the bed, making the muscles bulge in his forearm and she traced them all the way up until his bicep disappeared under his t-shirt. She had to force herself to look at his eyes, not that that was easier. Sometimes, his eyes could be dead, blocking out his intent like nothing in his body language or his voice could. But at times like this, when he was willing to own up to some real lust, his eyes could absolutely draw her in with warmth and promise. He reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her with a firm grasp until she was standing in front of him, between his open legs, feeling the heat radiate off him and fighting not to lean just a little closer lick and suck her way from the tan skin above his collar to the place where his stubble met the soft skin below his ear.
But she held his gaze. “You know why I’m here. Why did you do it?”
He still held her hand, and he placed it on his thigh, keeping his over it and leaning closer to her to whisper in her ear. “Now what motivation could I have for doing a thing like that?”
“You wanted to give him a false sense of security.”
This time, when Sawyer leaned in, he let his lips rest on her neck, sending a shiver through her body. He said, “If that was true, I’d ask you what the old boy’s looking to keep secure. Because it sure ain’t you, if that’s what you think.”
She tried to pull back, but he still held her hand, so she closed her eyes and her other hand shot out to steady her against the urge to do him some physical violence. Not that he wasn’t right. That was the problem.
His body instantly relaxed as he tried to make her calm down, and it was a mix of patronizing expressions and genuine movements to draw her in, closer, without pressing her too close. With the hand that held her right hip, he let his thumb skim under the front of her waistband, like a caress. He said, “Before you get mad at me and forget it should be the Doc you’re mad at, maybe you should ask me what I was trying to secure.”
Probably if she wasn’t so turned on, if she didn’t have some crazy adrenaline building in her body, she might have let that comment go. But she found herself jerking out of his arms so violently and so fast that he didn’t have a chance of holding her. She was a few steps out onto the beach before he threw his arms around her from behind. She stood stock still, feeling his breath on the back of her neck and wishing she didn’t want him almost bad enough to ignore the fucking chauvinistic things he felt and the stupid habit he had of articulating them, however accidentally.
His voice was gruff, exasperated, working back toward calm, when he said, “Shit, girl. I was just trying to warm you up a little. What the hell did I say?”
“Next time you try to ‘warm me up,’ don’t be so obvious about using me to get back at Jack,” she spat, and he let her go, nudging her into turning around so she could see his confusion.
After the confusion was serious frustration, and it wasn’t at all a show. “In case you hadn’t noticed, ain’t nobody got to take you away from Jack. You’ve never been his, and you damn sure aren’t now. But I can’t worry about what you and he do or don’t do. Am I allowed to want something for myself? You know what your problem is? You don’t have a fucking clue what I want from you, and it makes you antsy. If you want easy, go back to old Jacko. You can read that motherfucker’s intentions from a mile away, even if you don’t like them.”
After his diatribe was over, he let out a short, irritated breath and retreated back to his shelter, and Kate found herself following-curious and still more than a little flushed with a mix of anger and arousal. She said, “Do you even know what you want from me, Sawyer?”
“Right now I want you to go the hell away or climb up here on top of me. That clear enough for you, darlin’?”
If it had been real, she would have been too annoyed to stay. But this was not Sawyer being real-this was the crassness that served as the best wall he had. She wasn’t deluded enough to think he was in love with her or anything, but there was a good bet he was more invested in this than he wanted her to know…just as he was probably more invested in that poker game than he could ever admit to.
She shook her head. “Does it ever fucking end with you?”
He sighed. “Thought you’d know by now that I’m pretty blunt about things.”
“No. The con! He beat you. You misread him, and he beat you. But you read me well enough to sell your version.”
It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Yes, the good doctor kicked my ass at poker. I was having a bad day, and he was bound and fucking determined to get his mangoes back.”
Sawyer flopped back against his sleeping pallet, looking at her with a face that begged her to leave him to his misery. Not quite the look he’d given her when she read his letter and learned his secret, but it was close. But instead of leaving, she walked toward him and watched as he closed his eyes, ignoring her, shutting her out. Her hand slipped over his for a moment before she boosted herself up onto the pallet and knelt over his hips. When her hands settled into place on the pillow on either side of his head, he opened his eyes and she said, “I call.”
He broke out into an odd smile and slid his hands over her hips, pulling her down as his own hips rose to meet her. “You are one crazy woman, you know.”
“Would you rather I go away?”
He let out a breath and chuckled. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“What it is you want from me.”
Kate kissed his neck, just at his jawline. “I would think you could read me by now.”
“Hell, no. That’s half the fun. Now, if you don’t leave now, I’m gonna take that as a very definite sign.”
“I can be quiet,” she said, and she swiped her tongue up the side of his neck. “Even when I come.”
He didn’t answer that, only pulling her body tighter into his hips and stretching his lips up to meet hers. She had never forgotten what his lips felt like, so soft and wet, and now they were open and sliding against hers, then taking in her bottom lip, sucking gently before he swept his tongue over her lips and into her mouth. When his tongue met hers, it was so good she could feel it spread over her body, making what was only a warmth into a heavy feeling, wet, swollen, and she knew it wasn’t reasonable to move this fast or risk this here, but she was really a little beyond thinking rationally with hips against hips, the friction of jeans making Sawyer’s cock seem somehow harder as it pressed into her.
She pulled away from him to take off her pants, and he watched impatiently as she stripped her lower half bare, his hands sliding up under her shirt making her impatient to get him out of his pants and feel skin on skin. When she finally lowered herself back over him, this time feeling the heat of his cock sliding against her, they kissed hard and deep through the strange euphoria of first contact, bucking against each other without much design. Then she was pulling herself up and back down, taking his cock all the way in. His hands held her hips still for a moment, but then he let out a breath and set her hips into motion.
He liked it fast, and she liked it slow, but luckily with that first push into her, she was already close. When she slowed him down for the second time and he took the hint, thrusting deeply a few times with swift jerks of his hips upward, she felt an orgasm shake loose out of her, coming wild and erratic and it made her squirm against his body and he was speeding back up, now pulling her hips faster and soon thrusting hard and holding himself there, deep, coming with a gasp.
She pulled off him, but he wouldn’t let her get up, instead clutching her to his chest. It took a long time for his breath to slow, and when it finally did, he said, “Now, why ain’t we done that before?”
“You’re too mysterious for your own good.”
He snorted. “If you ever thought for a minute that I didn’t want you, you really can’t read people worth a damn.”
“I could say the same to you, but that would inflate your ego.”
“That’s okay. It needs inflatin’.”
She smiled and finally pulled out of his arms. As she scrambled off the pallet and rounded up her clothes, shaking out the sand, she said, “I think now it’s finally down to a manageable level.”
“You’re a very funny girl.”
“I know,” she said with a grin, sliding out into the sunshine, trying not to grin like an idiot, a very satisfied idiot. It had been a stupid thing to do, because now there was no denying that she needed it. But at least now some of the cards were on the table.