blindsided.
Title: Blindsided
Author: mia0112
Fandom: The Good Wife
Pairing: Blake/Kalinda
Word Count: Approx. 3,200
Genre: UST/Violence
Rating: R
Summary: There is a moment (the smallest fraction of one), when he flicks on the light and sees her heading towards him, that Blake wonders if he’s in over his head...
Author's Note: First off, this is the first fanfic I've written in two years. But... my bff sweetjamielee got me The Good Wife for xmas, and I admit to being completely hooked. And after 2.14 aired this week, I couldn't help it... I had the itch to write again. I'd like to make sure I say, however, that I am in no way a Blake/Kalinda shipper... unless of course that just means I want them to have more scenes together. I think they challenge one another, and I thought the scene was really telling about who they both are. I couldn't help but wonder about Blake, and couldn't help trying to make him a bit more 3 dimensional rather than think of him as just a flat-out bastard and nothing else. Hope you agree...
There is a moment (the smallest fraction of one), when he flicks on the light and sees her heading towards him, that Blake wonders if he’s in over his head. Not because she’d been having dinner with a federal agent, or because she might have dirt on him that he hasn’t even considered yet. No, he has his own secret tucked safely away. It’s her posture, that stance.
She’s blank as a sheet of paper again, giving nothing away. But she’d left that hotel room and was impatient with him in the hall, with the agent… something. She’d almost looked flustered. He can use that.
Maybe.
“Kalinda, the kids have all gone to bed, okay?” he murmurs. “It’s just me and you - the adults.” He’s trying to hit the right tone, here. Cool, yet truthful; he needs to give to get. Earnest, but not desperate. He needs to know what she knows. “It’s time to be honest.”
She doesn’t flinch. “You start.”
Setting his jaw, he considers this. He’s not in the mood to be taken by surprise. The search warrant was enough for one evening. “Are you armed?”
He finds he likes that she steps forward, her arms up. She uses her body to go to war without hesitation, but it probably gives away as much power as it takes. His hands slip over her hips and down to her boots, satisfied.
She regards him coolly, with a hint of contempt. “You missed a spot.”
Honesty from her. Tit for tat. When he discovers the gun holster strapped to her shoulder he isn’t really that surprised that she’s packing after all, but his hesitation in removing it irks her and she yanks it off impatiently, attempting to declare him inept by swatting his hand away and doing it herself. “My turn.”
He can feel the cold from the streets this close to the glass as she shoves him up against the window, but he lets her do it, throwing his own weight into it, helping her -- because he’s pissed, actually. That ASA in his place, digging through his things, putting him under the microscope - this is her fault. He can admit to himself, for a moment, that this was one of his less calculated moves, showing up here, talking to her now. It was one of his first spur-of-the-moment decisions in a long line of careful planning.
“You wrote that email to Bishop,” he states, not bothering to ask. “And you planted it in my apartment for your boyfriend to find.” She doesn’t say anything, her hands moving from his back pockets to under his arms, then back, holding onto his hips.
“The ASA? Cary?”
She ignores the accusation, but stays close. “You didn’t come to Lockhart Gardner as an investigator.” Another statement rather than a question. “C’mon -- honest.”
He turns around slowly, realizing he feels like giving her something. He’d asked for honesty, after all. Gotta give a little to get a little. But he’s not stupid, either. He takes a step closer.
“You wearing a wire?”
She shrugs off her coat in answer, her expression unchanged. When her hands drift slowly to the zipper of her dress, he works on his own clothing. He gets her game, this slow seduction she’s playing. He’s not going to look and give her the satisfaction. He keeps his eyes firmly on hers.
And he answers her question. What he does, and for whom. Tit for tat.
She seems truthful when she claims she didn’t send the email, and he feels a little tension slip down his body to the floor when her answer about the fed seems satisfactory. But when she mentions MS-13, his jaw locks, his anger flaming. She’s really making his life difficult after all.
She steps closer, and they trade answers. She pushes even closer, her mouth hovering near his. He finally sees a flicker of interest when she asks about Will. There is an investment there, so he holds back a bit, leaving his answer open-ended. Tiring of being the one on trial, he decides to aggress, dropping his lips low. He picks up a scent, something subtle and complex. Not perfume, not strictly her. His body stirs.
“You know, Donna thinks that… you like women more than men.”
He knows, from his previous pokes at this, that it would not knock her completely off balance, but there is not even a flicker of anxiety in her eyes as she lifts her chin, unfazed. “Sometimes,” she purrs, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Depends…”
His feeling from earlier returns - that he has underestimated her. Because now he feels the back of the couch against his ass as he retreats, there's an ache, strong and clutching in his crotch. Her face stays within an inch of his and he feels the power there, the way two magnets want to snap together on instinct, regardless of their owners’ will. He sucks in a tiny breath, lets it out in a tight, tiny huff as he tugs his eyes from hers and looks at her mouth.
Stopped by the couch, he braces himself against it, and she closes the last bit of distance, stepping between his feet, her mouth coming even closer. But she speaks instead, her voice as much a caress as the line of her jaw as she moves it across his. “Where’s my baseball bat?” she murmurs softly.
He almost laughs, but doesn’t hesitate in his response -- she always has an agenda. “It’s in my bag.”
Her eyes are like lasers on his, deep and dark, ringed with kohl. Mesmerizing. His brain is starting to feel fuzzy, his body taking over.
“I want it back.”
With her demand, the spell is broken momentarily, and he yanks his eyes from hers to reach around behind him, pulling it from his bag.
But he doesn’t let it go just yet, displaying it in front of her. It isn’t all he has on her, but it’s something. Experience tells him to consider every step carefully - even losing a pawn can end up meaning the capture of your king. He could give it to her, or he could keep it. He sees her eyes on it instantly. She wants it back, badly, and it gives him pause. It’s probably a good thing to hang onto, but in the spirit of sharing….
“So you’ll lay off?” He clears his throat, only holding onto the wood with two fingers, as if he’s dangling the offer in front of her.
She drops a shoulder coyly, those eyes back on his, still playing that game. “Lay off what?”
Blake wonders briefly if he hates her. But he likes this… oh, he definitely likes this. It’s been a long time since he had someone to play with who lasted longer than a single move. She keeps him on his toes, gets him hard. But business first.
He tightens his grip on the bat, his voice a murmur. “Everything.”
That’s when she quits messing around and makes a real move, her hand slipping from his hip to cup him firmly. Now there’s no mistaking what his body thinks, and he feels the bat slip from his fingers into hers as he sees a flash of her tongue, her lips parting. Funny thing about that game -- even if you know you’re being played, sometimes you still lose.
“Yeah,” she says softly, her gaze locked with his. Her eye contact is meant to impress truthfulness, he gets that, but he knows better. You watch your opponent when you lie… you have to.
You have to make sure they believe you.
As her fingers glide along his length lightly, she gazes up at him through her eyelashes. He’d expected her to walk away, bat in hand. She had what she came for. But he sees the heat in her gaze and with that, he realizes maybe, she came for more. He grows harder. They both have pieces left on the board. She’s been both a thorn in his side and a fun little opponent. But in front of him now, a whisper away, she’s fucking beautiful and he briefly entertains the possibility of blackmailing her into taking her hair down one day. He wants to drag his fingers through it.
Blake makes her come to him, reaching up to kiss him, but when she does, he finally closes his eyes in front of her. Feeling her hot little mouth on his is the little shove he needs, and he’s kissing her back, wondering what that mouth would feel like other places.
At the slip of her velvet tongue, he makes one last attempt to regain the upper hand. He’s hot for this, but there are bigger things at stake right now - like his life. He doesn’t work for forgiving people. A misstep, no matter how small, could mean ending up at the bottom of the river. He orders his brain to focus with everything he has left, her scent and skin and taste invading his senses.
“Why do you care about Leela?” he manages, his eyes still closed.
She is still seeking out his mouth with hers; he feels her breath against his cheek. “I don’t,” she insists, impatient. She’s interested in only one thing at the moment.
He pulls back with some difficulty, like yanking apart two magnets. And he pushes, partly because he wants to show her he’s still a worthy adversary, and partly because he suddenly finds that he really wants to know.
“Then what do you care about?”
For only a moment, just a flicker of a moment, really, she looks sad, and he regrets it. Her hand falls from his body, but he won’t apologize. Instead he gives her a pointed look, and it’s now anger on her face. She turns away from him, and he steps towards her, wondering how to fix it. He’s royally pissed her off.
Still, he doesn’t see the bat coming, until the breath is smashed out of his body and he’s hitting the floor.
Tit for tat.
__
She likes the feeling of her thighs being cold - her skirts leave enough exposed against the winter wind. It’s brisk outside as she half jogs to her car, and the heels of her boots make small tapping noises against the pavement. When she climbs in the front seat, she pauses for a moment, sticking her palms between her legs and taking a deep breath, feeling her skin slowly warm.
Glancing up at the hotel, she grits her teeth. She’s shaking now, flipping on the heat in her car and leaning towards the vents. She wonders if Blake can breathe yet. Her crotch throbs and her heart pounds.
Putting her car into gear, she turns towards his apartment. She knows she has some time before he’s up and moving again comfortably. Gives her time to go through his stuff.
She hadn’t lied to him - she didn’t plant the email on his computer. She hasn’t even been in his place yet -- not that she hadn’t planned on doing so. Circumstances kept arising, getting in the way. It was sloppy of her, she realizes now. And Cary’s gone through it, but what he’s looking for? It’s not what she needs to find.
She isn’t subtle about her break-in. Nothing too loud - doesn’t want the neighbors to know, but she certainly doesn’t waste time artfully picking a lock. He probably expects her to be here.
Flicking on a light, she surveys the room for a moment. After being as close as she was tonight, she recognizes his scent. This isn’t some generic home base he rarely sets foot in -- he spends time here. It’s less cold than she’d imagined. Pausing, she reaches down, unzipping one boot slowly while balancing on the other foot, lowering her nylon-clad toes onto the wood floor. Repeating with the other boot, she drops them where she stands, moving silently across the living room towards his desk, flipping the book lying open closed, looking at the cover. Georgia O’Keefe. Shaking her head, she sweeps it to the floor, grabbing the next one. The paintings lining the room are probably his. The lines of one remind her of a ribcage, and she thinks of his, of the sound it made when it met her bat. That was probably a misstep, letting him get to her like that.
The ipod plugged into some speakers on the bookshelf catches her eye, and she presses play. Cat Stevens croons softly and she snorts - does he listen to this and get out his paint set?
She makes her way to the bathroom, checking the vent covers, the linen closet. She sniffs his shampoo, and feels another tingle between her legs -- a reminder. Dropping the bottle to the bottom of the shower with a thud, she runs her fingers across his towels, pries the cover off of the small fan on his ceiling by standing on the edge of the sink. Nothing.
In the bedroom, she pauses, looking at the slightly mussed covers. She leaps lightly on top of his bed, her hands on her hips as she surveys the room. Using her toes, she flips over his pillow, drags down the blankets. Blake sleeps here. Maybe by himself, maybe with women. She thinks about that for a moment, remembering what it felt like to have his bristled jaw against her smooth one, to feel him in the palm of her hand.
She’s so angry right now, and she doesn’t know where to stuff it.
The song ends from the other room, and the first bars of “Sad Lisa” float in towards her and she rolls her eyes. Turning back to look at his dresser, she suddenly jumps at the rustling behind her,. A small, striped cat joins her on the bed, weaving between her legs, its tail roping around her calf. She stares at it for a moment, trying to reconcile all this new information. The cat flops over and curls up, the position the same one Blake was in when she left him, gasping, and she blinks, tearing her gaze away. “Sorry, kitty,” she murmurs, jumping from the bed.
Her body still feels like it’s thrumming, both from nerves and the memory of his breath on her cheek. She feels like a rubber band that’s been stretched back but wasn’t allowed to release. You don’t mess with physics like that.
She yanks a dresser drawer open, rummaging, then slamming it and moving to the one below. By the time she’s searched the bedroom she’s even more frustrated. The cat has sauntered out of the room, heading towards the kitchen, which she searches next, coming up empty-handed. Figures he wouldn’t keep anything here. She can’t even ask Cary what he may have found now.
She realizes, as she stands there, that she is literally on her toes, spinning to look around once again. Lowering her heels back to the floor slowly, she considers this. He is still one step ahead of her. It’s been a long time since anyone’s had her in that position. But she can’t say she hasn’t enjoyed it a little bit...especially pushing his buttons back, getting him riled up. He didn’t just roll over and play dead, and it felt good, almost like a child’s game for grown ups... tit for tat.
Her boots back on, she stands by the door and fishes her keys out of her pocket. Setting them on the table by the door, she walks slowly back to his bedroom, her hands sliding up under her dress and wrapping around the elastic of her panties. She shimmies them down over her hips, dropping them to the floor and stepping out of them before placing the scrap of fabric on his pillow. They’re still damp.
It’s when she’s picking up her keys by the table that she sees the novel, bookmarked with a small square of paper. She tugs it out, staring at if for a second. It’s blank, but there’s an impression from the page above it. Digging through the pens and other items in the cup on his desk, she fishes out a pencil and rubs the graphite over the small square, watching a number emerge. The area code makes her swallow, and her stomach flickers, her skin feeling tight. Time for a new plan.
__
It took him more than ten minutes to get to the bed. The hotel staff had knocked on the door after her heels had clicked away from his line of sight, and he’d managed to call out, telling them he was fine, it was just asthma, and he had found his inhaler. And then he’d lain there, curled up, his lungs burning and his ribs throbbing.
The sheets are cool, and his skin is still hot. From anger, yes, and humiliation. From his body processing damage, trying to heal. Groaning, he rolls over, his ribs protesting. What a little bitch she is.
He had come here looking for a temporary truce, at the very least. He can admit that ASA brat and the feds snooping in his business are a real problem, especially if certain people get wind of said snooping. And he hadn’t really meant to tip his hand the way he had, but when she’d literally knocked him on his face, he hadn’t been able to control his need to retaliate. As pain had radiated through his body so quickly it had felt hardwired, he’d lashed out, wanting to knock that smirk off her face. She hadn’t won, not really.
But neither has he, he realizes, as he struggles into his clothes, wincing as he pulls the t-shirt over his head. He’s lost something with this, he pushed her too far. She’d gone along with his truce and even given him some honesty. Even her hand on his cock was honest. Let’s fuck, let’s play...
The look on her face when he mentioned her husband haunts him as he shuffles his way through the hallway of the hotel and down to the street, his side pulling tightly and painfully as he reaches out to hail a cab. Calling her Leela has irritated her, but with the mention of this man, she shows him fear for the first time.
Stepping into his apartment, it takes Blake less than a minute to realize she’s been here. Doesn’t surprise him, and with music crooning and Jones purring contentedly between his feet, she apparently hasn’t been gone long. When he peeks into the kitchen, he sees fresh food in the dish on the floor, the container on the counter tugged out and left open. She better not have fucking poisoned his cat.
A glass dangles from his fingers by his side, filled with a (large) splash of bourbon as he reaches his bedroom. Glancing at his bed, he can’t help but laugh, shaking his head. He plucks up her underwear and balls it in his fist, feeling the damp crotch, and he groans, his body responding again despite his brain’s protest. Dropping onto the mattress, he settles the glass against his chest, her panties dangling from his finger. He needs a new plan.
Author: mia0112
Fandom: The Good Wife
Pairing: Blake/Kalinda
Word Count: Approx. 3,200
Genre: UST/Violence
Rating: R
Summary: There is a moment (the smallest fraction of one), when he flicks on the light and sees her heading towards him, that Blake wonders if he’s in over his head...
Author's Note: First off, this is the first fanfic I've written in two years. But... my bff sweetjamielee got me The Good Wife for xmas, and I admit to being completely hooked. And after 2.14 aired this week, I couldn't help it... I had the itch to write again. I'd like to make sure I say, however, that I am in no way a Blake/Kalinda shipper... unless of course that just means I want them to have more scenes together. I think they challenge one another, and I thought the scene was really telling about who they both are. I couldn't help but wonder about Blake, and couldn't help trying to make him a bit more 3 dimensional rather than think of him as just a flat-out bastard and nothing else. Hope you agree...
There is a moment (the smallest fraction of one), when he flicks on the light and sees her heading towards him, that Blake wonders if he’s in over his head. Not because she’d been having dinner with a federal agent, or because she might have dirt on him that he hasn’t even considered yet. No, he has his own secret tucked safely away. It’s her posture, that stance.
She’s blank as a sheet of paper again, giving nothing away. But she’d left that hotel room and was impatient with him in the hall, with the agent… something. She’d almost looked flustered. He can use that.
Maybe.
“Kalinda, the kids have all gone to bed, okay?” he murmurs. “It’s just me and you - the adults.” He’s trying to hit the right tone, here. Cool, yet truthful; he needs to give to get. Earnest, but not desperate. He needs to know what she knows. “It’s time to be honest.”
She doesn’t flinch. “You start.”
Setting his jaw, he considers this. He’s not in the mood to be taken by surprise. The search warrant was enough for one evening. “Are you armed?”
He finds he likes that she steps forward, her arms up. She uses her body to go to war without hesitation, but it probably gives away as much power as it takes. His hands slip over her hips and down to her boots, satisfied.
She regards him coolly, with a hint of contempt. “You missed a spot.”
Honesty from her. Tit for tat. When he discovers the gun holster strapped to her shoulder he isn’t really that surprised that she’s packing after all, but his hesitation in removing it irks her and she yanks it off impatiently, attempting to declare him inept by swatting his hand away and doing it herself. “My turn.”
He can feel the cold from the streets this close to the glass as she shoves him up against the window, but he lets her do it, throwing his own weight into it, helping her -- because he’s pissed, actually. That ASA in his place, digging through his things, putting him under the microscope - this is her fault. He can admit to himself, for a moment, that this was one of his less calculated moves, showing up here, talking to her now. It was one of his first spur-of-the-moment decisions in a long line of careful planning.
“You wrote that email to Bishop,” he states, not bothering to ask. “And you planted it in my apartment for your boyfriend to find.” She doesn’t say anything, her hands moving from his back pockets to under his arms, then back, holding onto his hips.
“The ASA? Cary?”
She ignores the accusation, but stays close. “You didn’t come to Lockhart Gardner as an investigator.” Another statement rather than a question. “C’mon -- honest.”
He turns around slowly, realizing he feels like giving her something. He’d asked for honesty, after all. Gotta give a little to get a little. But he’s not stupid, either. He takes a step closer.
“You wearing a wire?”
She shrugs off her coat in answer, her expression unchanged. When her hands drift slowly to the zipper of her dress, he works on his own clothing. He gets her game, this slow seduction she’s playing. He’s not going to look and give her the satisfaction. He keeps his eyes firmly on hers.
And he answers her question. What he does, and for whom. Tit for tat.
She seems truthful when she claims she didn’t send the email, and he feels a little tension slip down his body to the floor when her answer about the fed seems satisfactory. But when she mentions MS-13, his jaw locks, his anger flaming. She’s really making his life difficult after all.
She steps closer, and they trade answers. She pushes even closer, her mouth hovering near his. He finally sees a flicker of interest when she asks about Will. There is an investment there, so he holds back a bit, leaving his answer open-ended. Tiring of being the one on trial, he decides to aggress, dropping his lips low. He picks up a scent, something subtle and complex. Not perfume, not strictly her. His body stirs.
“You know, Donna thinks that… you like women more than men.”
He knows, from his previous pokes at this, that it would not knock her completely off balance, but there is not even a flicker of anxiety in her eyes as she lifts her chin, unfazed. “Sometimes,” she purrs, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Depends…”
His feeling from earlier returns - that he has underestimated her. Because now he feels the back of the couch against his ass as he retreats, there's an ache, strong and clutching in his crotch. Her face stays within an inch of his and he feels the power there, the way two magnets want to snap together on instinct, regardless of their owners’ will. He sucks in a tiny breath, lets it out in a tight, tiny huff as he tugs his eyes from hers and looks at her mouth.
Stopped by the couch, he braces himself against it, and she closes the last bit of distance, stepping between his feet, her mouth coming even closer. But she speaks instead, her voice as much a caress as the line of her jaw as she moves it across his. “Where’s my baseball bat?” she murmurs softly.
He almost laughs, but doesn’t hesitate in his response -- she always has an agenda. “It’s in my bag.”
Her eyes are like lasers on his, deep and dark, ringed with kohl. Mesmerizing. His brain is starting to feel fuzzy, his body taking over.
“I want it back.”
With her demand, the spell is broken momentarily, and he yanks his eyes from hers to reach around behind him, pulling it from his bag.
But he doesn’t let it go just yet, displaying it in front of her. It isn’t all he has on her, but it’s something. Experience tells him to consider every step carefully - even losing a pawn can end up meaning the capture of your king. He could give it to her, or he could keep it. He sees her eyes on it instantly. She wants it back, badly, and it gives him pause. It’s probably a good thing to hang onto, but in the spirit of sharing….
“So you’ll lay off?” He clears his throat, only holding onto the wood with two fingers, as if he’s dangling the offer in front of her.
She drops a shoulder coyly, those eyes back on his, still playing that game. “Lay off what?”
Blake wonders briefly if he hates her. But he likes this… oh, he definitely likes this. It’s been a long time since he had someone to play with who lasted longer than a single move. She keeps him on his toes, gets him hard. But business first.
He tightens his grip on the bat, his voice a murmur. “Everything.”
That’s when she quits messing around and makes a real move, her hand slipping from his hip to cup him firmly. Now there’s no mistaking what his body thinks, and he feels the bat slip from his fingers into hers as he sees a flash of her tongue, her lips parting. Funny thing about that game -- even if you know you’re being played, sometimes you still lose.
“Yeah,” she says softly, her gaze locked with his. Her eye contact is meant to impress truthfulness, he gets that, but he knows better. You watch your opponent when you lie… you have to.
You have to make sure they believe you.
As her fingers glide along his length lightly, she gazes up at him through her eyelashes. He’d expected her to walk away, bat in hand. She had what she came for. But he sees the heat in her gaze and with that, he realizes maybe, she came for more. He grows harder. They both have pieces left on the board. She’s been both a thorn in his side and a fun little opponent. But in front of him now, a whisper away, she’s fucking beautiful and he briefly entertains the possibility of blackmailing her into taking her hair down one day. He wants to drag his fingers through it.
Blake makes her come to him, reaching up to kiss him, but when she does, he finally closes his eyes in front of her. Feeling her hot little mouth on his is the little shove he needs, and he’s kissing her back, wondering what that mouth would feel like other places.
At the slip of her velvet tongue, he makes one last attempt to regain the upper hand. He’s hot for this, but there are bigger things at stake right now - like his life. He doesn’t work for forgiving people. A misstep, no matter how small, could mean ending up at the bottom of the river. He orders his brain to focus with everything he has left, her scent and skin and taste invading his senses.
“Why do you care about Leela?” he manages, his eyes still closed.
She is still seeking out his mouth with hers; he feels her breath against his cheek. “I don’t,” she insists, impatient. She’s interested in only one thing at the moment.
He pulls back with some difficulty, like yanking apart two magnets. And he pushes, partly because he wants to show her he’s still a worthy adversary, and partly because he suddenly finds that he really wants to know.
“Then what do you care about?”
For only a moment, just a flicker of a moment, really, she looks sad, and he regrets it. Her hand falls from his body, but he won’t apologize. Instead he gives her a pointed look, and it’s now anger on her face. She turns away from him, and he steps towards her, wondering how to fix it. He’s royally pissed her off.
Still, he doesn’t see the bat coming, until the breath is smashed out of his body and he’s hitting the floor.
Tit for tat.
__
She likes the feeling of her thighs being cold - her skirts leave enough exposed against the winter wind. It’s brisk outside as she half jogs to her car, and the heels of her boots make small tapping noises against the pavement. When she climbs in the front seat, she pauses for a moment, sticking her palms between her legs and taking a deep breath, feeling her skin slowly warm.
Glancing up at the hotel, she grits her teeth. She’s shaking now, flipping on the heat in her car and leaning towards the vents. She wonders if Blake can breathe yet. Her crotch throbs and her heart pounds.
Putting her car into gear, she turns towards his apartment. She knows she has some time before he’s up and moving again comfortably. Gives her time to go through his stuff.
She hadn’t lied to him - she didn’t plant the email on his computer. She hasn’t even been in his place yet -- not that she hadn’t planned on doing so. Circumstances kept arising, getting in the way. It was sloppy of her, she realizes now. And Cary’s gone through it, but what he’s looking for? It’s not what she needs to find.
She isn’t subtle about her break-in. Nothing too loud - doesn’t want the neighbors to know, but she certainly doesn’t waste time artfully picking a lock. He probably expects her to be here.
Flicking on a light, she surveys the room for a moment. After being as close as she was tonight, she recognizes his scent. This isn’t some generic home base he rarely sets foot in -- he spends time here. It’s less cold than she’d imagined. Pausing, she reaches down, unzipping one boot slowly while balancing on the other foot, lowering her nylon-clad toes onto the wood floor. Repeating with the other boot, she drops them where she stands, moving silently across the living room towards his desk, flipping the book lying open closed, looking at the cover. Georgia O’Keefe. Shaking her head, she sweeps it to the floor, grabbing the next one. The paintings lining the room are probably his. The lines of one remind her of a ribcage, and she thinks of his, of the sound it made when it met her bat. That was probably a misstep, letting him get to her like that.
The ipod plugged into some speakers on the bookshelf catches her eye, and she presses play. Cat Stevens croons softly and she snorts - does he listen to this and get out his paint set?
She makes her way to the bathroom, checking the vent covers, the linen closet. She sniffs his shampoo, and feels another tingle between her legs -- a reminder. Dropping the bottle to the bottom of the shower with a thud, she runs her fingers across his towels, pries the cover off of the small fan on his ceiling by standing on the edge of the sink. Nothing.
In the bedroom, she pauses, looking at the slightly mussed covers. She leaps lightly on top of his bed, her hands on her hips as she surveys the room. Using her toes, she flips over his pillow, drags down the blankets. Blake sleeps here. Maybe by himself, maybe with women. She thinks about that for a moment, remembering what it felt like to have his bristled jaw against her smooth one, to feel him in the palm of her hand.
She’s so angry right now, and she doesn’t know where to stuff it.
The song ends from the other room, and the first bars of “Sad Lisa” float in towards her and she rolls her eyes. Turning back to look at his dresser, she suddenly jumps at the rustling behind her,. A small, striped cat joins her on the bed, weaving between her legs, its tail roping around her calf. She stares at it for a moment, trying to reconcile all this new information. The cat flops over and curls up, the position the same one Blake was in when she left him, gasping, and she blinks, tearing her gaze away. “Sorry, kitty,” she murmurs, jumping from the bed.
Her body still feels like it’s thrumming, both from nerves and the memory of his breath on her cheek. She feels like a rubber band that’s been stretched back but wasn’t allowed to release. You don’t mess with physics like that.
She yanks a dresser drawer open, rummaging, then slamming it and moving to the one below. By the time she’s searched the bedroom she’s even more frustrated. The cat has sauntered out of the room, heading towards the kitchen, which she searches next, coming up empty-handed. Figures he wouldn’t keep anything here. She can’t even ask Cary what he may have found now.
She realizes, as she stands there, that she is literally on her toes, spinning to look around once again. Lowering her heels back to the floor slowly, she considers this. He is still one step ahead of her. It’s been a long time since anyone’s had her in that position. But she can’t say she hasn’t enjoyed it a little bit...especially pushing his buttons back, getting him riled up. He didn’t just roll over and play dead, and it felt good, almost like a child’s game for grown ups... tit for tat.
Her boots back on, she stands by the door and fishes her keys out of her pocket. Setting them on the table by the door, she walks slowly back to his bedroom, her hands sliding up under her dress and wrapping around the elastic of her panties. She shimmies them down over her hips, dropping them to the floor and stepping out of them before placing the scrap of fabric on his pillow. They’re still damp.
It’s when she’s picking up her keys by the table that she sees the novel, bookmarked with a small square of paper. She tugs it out, staring at if for a second. It’s blank, but there’s an impression from the page above it. Digging through the pens and other items in the cup on his desk, she fishes out a pencil and rubs the graphite over the small square, watching a number emerge. The area code makes her swallow, and her stomach flickers, her skin feeling tight. Time for a new plan.
__
It took him more than ten minutes to get to the bed. The hotel staff had knocked on the door after her heels had clicked away from his line of sight, and he’d managed to call out, telling them he was fine, it was just asthma, and he had found his inhaler. And then he’d lain there, curled up, his lungs burning and his ribs throbbing.
The sheets are cool, and his skin is still hot. From anger, yes, and humiliation. From his body processing damage, trying to heal. Groaning, he rolls over, his ribs protesting. What a little bitch she is.
He had come here looking for a temporary truce, at the very least. He can admit that ASA brat and the feds snooping in his business are a real problem, especially if certain people get wind of said snooping. And he hadn’t really meant to tip his hand the way he had, but when she’d literally knocked him on his face, he hadn’t been able to control his need to retaliate. As pain had radiated through his body so quickly it had felt hardwired, he’d lashed out, wanting to knock that smirk off her face. She hadn’t won, not really.
But neither has he, he realizes, as he struggles into his clothes, wincing as he pulls the t-shirt over his head. He’s lost something with this, he pushed her too far. She’d gone along with his truce and even given him some honesty. Even her hand on his cock was honest. Let’s fuck, let’s play...
The look on her face when he mentioned her husband haunts him as he shuffles his way through the hallway of the hotel and down to the street, his side pulling tightly and painfully as he reaches out to hail a cab. Calling her Leela has irritated her, but with the mention of this man, she shows him fear for the first time.
Stepping into his apartment, it takes Blake less than a minute to realize she’s been here. Doesn’t surprise him, and with music crooning and Jones purring contentedly between his feet, she apparently hasn’t been gone long. When he peeks into the kitchen, he sees fresh food in the dish on the floor, the container on the counter tugged out and left open. She better not have fucking poisoned his cat.
A glass dangles from his fingers by his side, filled with a (large) splash of bourbon as he reaches his bedroom. Glancing at his bed, he can’t help but laugh, shaking his head. He plucks up her underwear and balls it in his fist, feeling the damp crotch, and he groans, his body responding again despite his brain’s protest. Dropping onto the mattress, he settles the glass against his chest, her panties dangling from his finger. He needs a new plan.