Black Market Goods
(the sequel, as requested and betaed by bsg_aussiegirl)
(Laura/Bill, fight, "is that how Lee does it?")
Adama leaned back on his couch, glasses up, fingers rubbing the bridge of his nose. He could hear the sharp staccato of her heels as she paced, even on his rugs. She was spoiling for a fight and for once he wasn't up to giving her one. Not when every time he looked at her he remembered her on her knees at his feet. Every time she opened her mouth he remembered it wrapped around his cock. Every time she darted her tongue out to moisten her lips he remembered the way it swirled around him. And the best part of that memory, he thought now, was that as long as she was sucking him off, she wasn't yelling at him.
"I cannot believe you backed your son up yesterday. The Promethus is a civilian ship. Are you trying to invoke military law again? Planning to throw me back in the brig?"
~If it would get you to be quiet, in a heartbeat~ he thought. "You're the one who brought the problem to the military."
"Actually, I didn't. I brought up the shortages. You brought up the black market."
"You also said that a few trades is a reality. A reality it seems you'd have been content to live with."
"Criminals taking advantage of the fleet is not 'a few trades'."
"We're getting it under control," Adama promised her. "We're getting the essential supplies out of the black market and back into the supply chain. Food, medicine. The black market will be limited to luxuries. No one will have to go without anything they really need for lack of trade goods."
"I wonder if my definition of 'need' is the same as yours, Admiral."
He chuckled, low in his throat, remembering her speech to him, her list of likes and wants, her manifesto of desire. "I think that's one issue we wouldn't have to fight over."
He stood, walked over to his desk, opened a drawer, pulled out a wrapped gift. An honest-to-gods wrapped gift, with wrapping paper and a bow, and when he heard her gasp, he realized it was probably something she thought she'd never see again after the end of the worlds. "A little show and tell," he told her. "My definition of non-essential, but still worth trading for."
Laura picked the gift up, turned it over in her hands. "A gift. You got me a gift," she whispered, her voice full of wonder and tenderness. "You got this on the black market?"
He nodded.
Her voice turned hard. "I can't accept it. You know that. I'm surprised at you. That may be how Lee does it, getting into bed with the black market -- literally. But I expected better of you, Admiral."
He took the package from her, started to put it back into the drawer.
"Aren't you going to open it?" she asked.
"You said you didn't want it."
"I said I didn't want anything from the black market. But watching someone open a wrapped gift, that's not from the black market. That's a little luxury I think I can afford. Please -- I want to watch."
Bill looked down at the package in his hands, sighed at how small their lives had become on the edge of survival, when seeing someone open a small ribbon bow could be a visceral pleasure. He sat down next to her and started unwrapping the gift, taking the care that he would with one of his models, that he would if he were unwrapping her clothes. He drew out the pleasure, for him and for her, running a fingernail under the tape, carefully undoing the folded corners, flattening the paper under his spread palms. And when he was done he turned the gift, the book, over so they could both see the spine. "Look at that. A copy of the Kama Sutra."
She took it from him, turned it over in her hands, looked again at the title. "You know I'm going to have to confiscate this, Admiral, right? Textbooks are essential civilian supplies. But don't worry -- I'll share all my findings with you."