Jack Davenport || Ὀδυσσεύς (manofexploits) wrote in monte_logs, @ 2012-02-18 21:15:00 |
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Entry tags: | odysseus, penelope |
when I find you there's gonna be just one thing you gotta know
Characters: Jack/Odysseus (manofexploits) & Kate/Penelope (unravler)
Date/Time: Saturday, Feb. 18th, Early morning
Location: Kate's bed dorm room
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Naked...angst? Implied adult situation(s).
Summary: The honeymoon effect from the past week ends abruptly. They're left to grapple with each other the reality of what they've done.
It was only after his heartbeat regulated that Jack realized the full extent of what him and Kate had done both last night and this morning. Really realized, his head now clear of whatever flights of fancy that had possessed him the past week. He hadn’t meant to rush things, he hadn’t wanted to in the first place. There was too much past between them, too much at stake.
But the cat was out of the bag, and Kate lay on his chest, head tucked securely under his chin. He wondered if she was in her right mind now or if she was merely reveling in the afterglow. Jack supposed if things were different, he’d be reveling, too. There was, however, nothing to do but break up this little moment of theirs. He was starting to feel the slightest bit awkward about being naked in Kate’s bed with her.
If this had happened later in time, if they’d worked through their issues more beforehand--what had occurred between them, anyway? He recalled their date the previous Friday going well, but not well enough to warrant physical affection to this extent a mere week later. No, he cared too much about Kate to assume that would even be a possibility so early in the game. Not then, perhaps not ever.
Ah, but now. Jack cleared his throat, unwilling to stop trailing the fingers of one hand up and down her back, yet realizing he could no longer do it with complete ease--although this did feel natural, more natural than anything he’d done with anyone else. He stopped abruptly, hand sliding off her back, dropping to the bed.
“Kate?”
Kate grumbled a response, tucking her head further beneath his chin, hugging her thighs more tightly about his hips. She was not a morning person, and she was so comfortable where she was. He was warm and solid, and with the blankets pulled up to her chin, she was tucked into a very comfortable bubble. Why was he interrupting this?
Then she realized whose voice that was. That voice belonged to Jack, and it was reverberating within the very comfortable chest she was laying on. She was laying on that very comfortable chest very, very naked. Her eyes shot open and she jerked herself upright, bumping her head on his chin. Hands on his shoulders, she held herself up and stared down at him in disbelief as the events of this morning and the night before began to replay in her mind.
Oh God, she did this. She initiated this last night, but why? While she and Jack had gotten along unusually well the entire week prior, it was not like her to take things to this level so quickly. Last night this had seemed like the natural course to take, everything about it had felt right. What happened?
A few hours after their date on Friday, Kate had suddenly found herself desperately needing to see him, and that feeling had carried through for the rest of the week. Their decades of history suddenly hadn’t mattered. What mattered was that Jack had somehow become someone she could not live without.
Kate suddenly realized where she was sitting and that in this position he had a far better view of her chest than she thought she’d ever want to give him.
“Oh my God!”
She rolled off of him, taking one of the blankets with her and wrapping it around her. She was now aware of how cold she was without the heat of his skin against hers. She pulled the blanket more fully around her, eyes confused as she pressed herself as tightly against the wall as she could.
“Jack....what? How did we..Jack?”
She was incoherent, unwilling or unable to articulate what had just occurred between them, she wasn’t sure which. She pushed a heavy lock of hair out of her face, lips pursed slightly as she tried to figure out what she needed to do. There were no books or rules to follow when one found themselves in a situation like this and that made her more anxious than she already was.
Jack made a jumbled protest of pain when she smacked him in the chin with her head, Kate pushing herself part of the way off him, fixing him with a look that was half shock and half horror. He was made more aware of their situation--as if that was possible--by this new angle she’d adopted, and his eyes widened accordingly. Jack swore under his breath as Kate moved as far away from him as her small bed allowed, a flurry of exposed flesh and blankets. Her hair was wild, framing her face in a very unpolished manner. In a roundabout way, Jack privately thought it wasn’t too bad of a look for her, mostly because he knew exactly why her hair was a mess.
And that thought gave him pause, reminded him that this wasn’t supposed to happen. At least, not yet. He pushed himself up and into a sitting position, grabbing the remaining blanket and pulling it around his lower half.
“The same as half the world does, I’d imagine.” Probably not anywhere near as good as they’d done it, but there was no way he was going to say that to Kate. Ever. Being with her had been like coming home, and how was he to put that into words without it sounding like he simply thought she was a good lay? As if their relationship hadn’t been fractured enough, as if they hadn’t slowly been making amends to it, and then last week came upon them out of nowhere. He remembered the details with surprising accuracy, from picking out the prettiest rose he could find at the florist’s early Tuesday morning to the feeling of Kate’s nails digging ever so slightly into his shoulders.
It hadn’t been all bad, had it?
Unfortunately, that didn’t change the fact they’d moved far too fast.
He ran a hand through his hair self consciously, averting his gaze from hers; the look upon her face was nothing like it’d been last night, and thus it was much harder to meet her eyes. She was just as conflicted about this as he was. Hard to believe a few minutes ago they’d been cozy underneath the blankets together, instead of divided like this. He hadn’t minded her warmth, the way she’d wrapped herself around him like she’d never let him go. Jack had opened his big mouth, as usual, and broken the moment.
She closed her eyes, letting her hand slide out of her hair to settle on her now flaming cheek. She had to figure out how to fix this, there had to be a way. All she had to do was think, but thinking was hard. Her mind was preoccupied with the way his hands felt as they held her hips.
This experience was unlike anything she had ever felt before. This was the feeling she had been searching for with Carl. She had found Carl in Sweden after Jack left. Carl was the perfect man, good looking, smart, charming and giving. Getting with Carl was suppose to be the answer to forgetting Jack, but it hadn’t been the right answer. Even though she and Jack had only shared a few kisses, those kisses had left their mark, and everything with Carl was compared to what she felt with Jack, and it never added up. Now she knew why. She doubted there was anything that would make her feel the way Jack had.
That didn’t make this acceptable. There was still too much to overcome between them, too much still to settle. They had only just begun to find a tremulous truce to work with, and a tremulous truce did not lend itself to a relationship that was stable or healthy enough for sex.
She opened her eyes to glare at him, finding his response flippant and unhelpful. She quickly looked away, unable to meet his eye without recalling the intensity of their gaze the night before. She couldn’t look at his bare, broad shoulders without remembering how she clung to him or gently sank her teeth into the crook of his neck. The red marks were the same color as her cheeks as she viewed the physical sign of their passion, not quite able to believe that woman last night had been her.
“That’s not what I meant and you know it. Jack what did we do?”
She hugged the blanket, wishing she could just disappear beneath it. She tugged at a loose lock of hair, itching to get up to get a hair tie but unwilling to risk moving and losing her cover.
“This is not okay.”
It wouldn’t do to state the obvious, and Jack knew Kate wanted more than a simple answer. She wanted analyzed reasoning behind their actions, a way to better process the events from the night before and only recently this morning. Kate did not operate via impulses and gut feelings, not to the extent that Jack did. It was the cold, hard facts she was demanding from him, but Jack had never felt so empty handed.
He looked at her sharply when she stated none of this was okay, though she was still refusing to meet his eyes. Kate’s cheeks were as flushed as they’d been when she’d had her legs wrapped around him--with an entirely different intention in mind than snuggling up to his chest. She spoke the truth; none of this was excusable, and it wasn’t okay on the surface. But underneath it’d been what both of them wanted and needed, just enacted far too soon. Surely she could admit that much. The heightened chemistry between them hadn’t rang false; there had been nothing but the most purest of affection in every kiss and caress. It wasn’t, he felt, your basic one night stand. Kate meant too much to him for it to ever be such a thing.
Though Kate had jerked away from him, there was not much room to hide on her twin bed. Jack knew he was taking up most of the space, and Kate quite literally had her back to the wall. She was distraught and attempting quite poorly to curl into the safety of the blanket, using it as a protective shield. It didn’t help much if her intention was to hide from him what he’d already seen, touched, and tasted more than twice over by now. Even covered, he could still make out the shape of her, as familiar to him as his own. He knew scooting closer to her wasn’t a good idea, but he did it anyway; Kate looked too upset for him to keep sitting there closed off as if he was removed from the situation.
“Kate, look at me,” he said softly, hoping his tone was comforting enough. Jack turned her face towards him with one hand, gently cupping her cheek. He tried not to focus too much on her lips, or anything that was below face level. “I’m not going to regret this. Maybe it wasn’t okay, but it wasn’t wrong. Do you understand? Something happened last week--something brought us here.” Whether it was Odysseus and Penelope, or merely a strange twist of fate, Jack felt there was no sense in denying they’d been together. Too soon, yes, but that didn’t take away that it’d been somehow right, despite their confusion in the present.
Jack was moving, and he was moving in the wrong direction. If he was intending to get out of the bed, he needed to go the other way, not come towards her. She was already as scrunched as she could get, back to the wall at the foot of the bed. He kept coming, though, filling her space with his size and his warmth. She could feel it radiating off him, even through her blanket. The smell of the sea filled the air, forcing her to close her eyes and concentrate on focusing on things that weren’t him. It was hard to do that when there was nowhere to go to escape him.
He made it even harder by touching him, forcing her to look his way. She had to restrain herself from nuzzling her cheek against his palm. She took a brief moment to steel her resolve to resist, then she opened her eyes. She wanted to attempt to be polite and meet his eyes, but in doing so, all she remembered was the intense gaze they held the night before, and what occurred while they did so.
She heard his words, tried to take them in and understand them, but her head was too unfocused, too overwhelmed by his presence and what the two of them had done the night before. She didn’t need words. She thought she did, words had always helped her before. They gave her something to attach to. She could manipulate them and operate with them to make things happen. Here, words did nothing to stop him from overwhelming her, or curb her desire to just hold him. Confused brown eyes held his reassuring blue ones for a few silent moments before she shook her cheek free of his hand, that wasn’t where she wanted it. Still clutching her blanket, she awkwardly scooted forward, shoving aside his arms, nudging his legs over with hers before she climbed into his lap. She tucked her head right back beneath his chin, where she had so happily placed it earlier, and placed her hand on his chest, fingers finding comfort in the texture of his chest hair.
“Shh.” It was the only reply she could think of. They had communicated exceedingly well last night without words. Maybe that would work for them again this morning.
And just like that, Kate was in his arms again. He didn’t bother resisting when she forced herself into his space bubble, though the blankets did make things a tad graceless. Jack shifted to lean back against the wall, one arm automatically going around Kate’s middle, holding her in place. Despite the blanket covering her, his hand trailed along the upper portion of her thigh. She’d silenced him like a school kid, and he bit his tongue to not say what he was thinking, or rather, feeling. If Kate didn’t want to talk about this, then perhaps it was for the moment all right with her.
But with her this close to him, he wasn’t sure how long he could keep quiet, or how long he could keep himself from rolling them both over and covering her in kisses like he had last night. It was hard for his thoughts to not stray to their bedroom activities, not with her upon his lap like this, the two of them separated by mere blankets, neither of them dressed beneath the covers. Her hair was tickling his chin, and every breath in brought the scent of her orange shampoo to his senses. Jack closed his eyes, trying his best to repel any notions he had of recreating their morning and evening. It was to no avail.
His other hand rested upon her shoulder, then moved the blanket down the smallest amount. He paused, waiting for a reaction; she seemed perfectly content to stay where she was, and if he was only being animalistic in his intentions, it could very well backfire in the future. But being around her, especially like this--as he had quickly learned--drove him crazy. Being close to her, as close as possible, was the only solution to this problem. Jack dropped one hand to push away from the wall and turn, taking Kate with him as he threw caution to the wind, tumbling her back down onto the bed. His legs were caught in the blankets along the way, and he sought to right the mess, afterwards fixing Kate with a private look he knew she’d understand. Jack held himself up and away from her nonetheless, not wishing to take for granted their new level of intimacy. He sought her gaze, searching for permission.
He didn’t fight her or question her, for which she was grateful. In fact, he started touching her almost immediately. She really should have stopped him, she lost all sense of reason when he touched her, but that was too much work. Instead, she turned her head just a hair and pressed a kiss to his collar bone, then resettled herself beneath his chin. Why couldn’t they just stay like this? There were no decisions to make here, nothing to confront and nothing to understand. Everything was so simple here, skin to skin and perfect. If they could just stay like this, Kate could accept this and not find a reason to negate this. There were so many reasons that made this a bad idea, but here it was hard to remember what they were.
He lowered the blanket from her shoulder, she had known he would, and she didn’t resist. Honestly, she was rather grateful he was making the decisions so she didn’t have to. If it was left to her they would sit there while she fretted. She liked that about Jack, and at times was rather envious it was so easy for him.
She sighed a quiet, contented hum and let her hold on the blanket fall. There was no point in fighting it, not when the emotional part of her wanted this just as much as he did. So when he changed their positions and settled himself on top of her, she kicked her legs free of the blankets and twined them with his, answering his questioning look with an encouraging kiss. She was too tired to fight the inevitable any longer.