Chopsticks.
This follows on directly from "Wild Horses"
There are also things in the text that refer to "Eames Gets To Drive"
I never know how to put a rating on these things. Basically, there are adults doing adult things to each other in this story. And some language that seemed appropriate at the time. On FanfictionDotNet it would be classified as an "M" - Contains content for mature teens and older.
Grateful thanks to Teri for the beta-read, all those months ago ..!
The beauty of eating with chopsticks, is that it leaves one hand free. Still coasting on the ebb tide of his own laughter, Goren snakes his right hand through the mass of ruined-temple-in-the-jungle takeout cartons and wraps his own fingers around Eames's. He gives them a reassuring little squeeze.
"Really, Eames. I'm good. You don't need to sleep on my couch tonight."
She flicks her head slightly, in a gesture that he recognises as one of either slight irritation, or of indecision. Cats do the same thing, he thinks, with their tails. When it is raining and they want to go outside. But it's raining. But they want to go outside. But it's raining ..
Rather deliberately, Eames stands up and comes around to his side of the table. A little too late, he sees what is happening. What might be happening. What really, really should not be happening. What he wants more than anything, to be happening.
She stands just a fraction too close to him. Wordlessly she reaches forwards and pushes two, then three of her fingers through the silvering hair above his ear. She pauses there for a moment, considering, then trickles her fingers downwards down to linger on the bump of bone at the back of his jaw.
He actually has to brace himself against the edge of the table.
"Eames - we said we wouldn't do this again."
This is not, strictly speaking, true. No words on the subject were ever actually spoken - the two of them had simply exchanged glances on the concourse outside One Police Plaza the morning after, and had come instinctively to one of their extraordinary joint conclusions that other detective teams so envied about them. All it took was a look, and expression, a reading of body language. And at that time they both knew what the other was thinking and feeling.
He licks his lips nervously. "Eames..?"
She seems not to hear him. Her fingers abseil lazily off the precipice of bone and down the side of his neck, diving lazily into the crevasse of his shirt collar. His eyes slide away, looking for something to distract him, but his hands seem to have other ideas about this. They leave the safety of the table edge and pull her down so she is sat in his lap.
Perfect fit.
A kiss is inevitable, really.
But she takes her time, nudging her nose repeatedly against the bottom of his, thereby coaxing his head upwards to a better angle. Her fingers are still playing just under his collar, in the smooth no-man's-land of skin between the battle lines of his beard and the hair on his chest. His shirt buttons fall back and take cover.
And so it is, that with even less effort than it took to steal his car and break into his home, Alex Eames takes Goren’s body for herself, too. There are so many reasons in Goren’s head why this is all a bad idea - a very, very bad idea - but he cannot hear what the voices are saying just now. He’s ... distracted, as her tongue slides neatly in between his lips and teeth - just like her key slipped into the lock on his front door. Sure enough, his lock clicks and he swings open for her.
He is no longer in control - has he ever been? But the thought of that simply excites him more. He thinks of how it felt to have her drive him in his own car. Truthfully? It was wonderful. So much of his life is all about being in control of things. But not this.
Having had a brother like Frank, a man hooked on drugs and compulsive gambling, Bobby Goren thinks he understands the nature of addiction with a stark clarity. But what is happening to him right here and now in his own kitchen, seems to make it all even clearer - it answers the niggling question of how Frank could be smoking crack-cocaine a mere three hours after attending a Narcotics Anonymous meeting and boasting of how he had been clean for weeks. Maybe Frank really had believed himself to be clean?
Likewise, Robert Goren thought that he had kicked his own habit. His grip around his partner's body tightens imperceptibly. Ahhh ... perhaps not.
His hands move up from her waist, working a leisurely passage around the coastline of her ribcage, up towards her armpits and then back down again. His palms brush fleetingly but deliberately against the sides of her breasts as they move. In return, she also pushes her hands northwards, gripping his face. She splays her fingers all over his cheeks and jaw.
"I don't want to sleep on your couch," she says into his mouth.
"No. I kind of gathered that - "
The kiss resumes entirely of its own accord. Somehow he - or, someone - has pulled her shirt out of the waistband of her jeans, and is pushing the buttons open one by one. The skin on her belly goose-pimples, and every single hair on her body stands to attention for him.
Fortunately his hands are warm. Once inside her clothing they move with remarkable rapidity, intent on their task of getting her undressed. He breaks the kiss for a moment so that he can get a better look at her. Pushing aside various pieces of fabric, he leans in and swirls the end of his tongue over one nipple and then blows very gently, his breath on the wet flesh chilling it erect. Who needs an ice-cube? A trick that makes him smile. It has a different effect on his partner though; she almost vaults off his lap and, grabbing his belt buckle, hauls him off the chair - not without some difficulty - and towards the bedroom.
The bedroom is even more wrecked than the kitchen. Strangely, Eames seems not to notice. Or, if she does, she doesn't care. Goren breaks free from her death grip on his waist band.
“Sorry about the state of this room,” he says in a voice that betrays his total lack of concern for the state of this room. “But before we go any further … I am having a shower.”
“Be quick. I’ll go after you.”
So he is quick.
He shaves. He cuts himself, and curses. He climbs into the shower. The shock of the water on his bare skin has the effect of throwing him back into reality. What on earth is going on here?
He and Eames have already tried this, and it didn't work. Fortunately they were both mature enough and knew each other well enough to have been able to avoid any of the major romantic cliches that Broadway musicals are made of.
Goren comes to a difficult decision. He stands under the shower and slowly and deliberately turns the water temperature down to as cold as he can possibly cope with. He grits his teeth. His ardour is chilled into insignificance. "You'll thank me in the long run," he says, looking down at his crestfallen friend.
###
Eames has showered. Quickly. Super quickly. But not quickly enough, it would seem.
She looks at Goren's recumbent form with more affection than she would normally show him to his face. In spite of the fact that twenty minutes ago she had her tongue in his mouth and her hand on his crotch, outright affection for him is still sometimes difficult for her to show. In her mind, it gives him too much power over her. She needs to remain in charge, of herself if not of him, a stand-alone partner.
Poor bastard. He must be exhausted.
His hair is dark from the shower, still wet, little curls waving at her from behind his ears. She thinks he may even be snoring. He is lying on his stomach with his head turned towards her - pillows thrown petulantly onto the floor. She is engrossed in watching him sleep - his lips slightly parted, breathing through his mouth like a small child with a cold. She can see his eyes moving restlessly behind their lids. Did he ever get teased about those eyelashes when he was a kid, she wonders. She remembers watching him dream - he was sedated, actually - in the hospital after she and Ross had hauled him out of Tates, and how she had imagined she could see all ages of the man in his sleeping face.
It's better this way, she decides. Sex between the two of them is too complicating a matter at this stage in his life - or hers, for that matter.
She stands wavering, naked, undecided. Should she go home? The thought is dismissed. A cab? To Queens? At this hour? No. Still shivering, she turns and roots around in his chest of drawers and pulls out a black tee-shirt - one of many, all of them ironed and folded neatly. (Goren watches her with one chocolate-brown eye. When the eye rebelliously comes to rest on the provocative curve of her ass, he screws it shut again. The tiniest of sighs escapes him.)
Eames slides the black tee-shirt over her head, pushing her goose-fleshed arms gratefully through the sleeves. The shirt is freshly laundered and ironed (he irons his underwear? Must be an Army thing ... ) but still smells of him. That is comforting, somehow.
She hits the lights and slides slowly and carefully into the bed.
(A few minutes after that Goren gives up feigning sleep, and actually falls asleep. It is the first time he has been in full agreement with his body all day long.)
###
At some point in the night, the rain finally gives up and goes home. With a great unheard sigh the city surrenders the last of the day’s hoarded warmth into the newly clear skies which seem to swallow everything - heat, light and noise - until all that is left early the next morning is coldness, darkness and silence.
The two people sleeping side by side in the big old bed are both New York natives and as such, this sudden cold dark silence upsets them. It stirs them both out of sleep. For a few moments Eames is frightened, disorientated, not knowing where she is. Then Goren stirs in the cotton-clad darkness at her side, and she breathes easy again, remembering.
Finito. For now, anyway.