Lia Valencia | Aphrodite (philommeides) wrote in paxletalelogs, @ 2010-08-08 02:36:00 |
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Entry tags: | aphrodite, ares |
A Certain Tension
Who: Lia & Samuel.
What: A first meeting.
Where: The beach.
When: Mid-afternoon?
Warnings: PG-13. You kiss your mother with that mouth? Actually, they are from the Greek pantheon... Eugh. Grotty. (Translation: Seckshul tension, dirty words, skimpy bathing suits)
It was a perfect beach day. Of course, perfect beach days weren't hard to come by in Southern California, but this fact was part of why she loved it here. Of all the things she missed about New York, the weather was rarely one of them. As it was, the breeze was warm, the sky clear, and the Pacific, as always, the perfect shade of blue. Lia could easily appreciate the beauty of this place, and the fact that it was practically steps from her new building made it that much better. She took her time finding the right spot to lay out. There appeared to be a lone surfer on the water, but she didn't have any immediate plans to go in, so she didn't anticipate any issues.
Her white bikini wasn't the most scandalous one she owned, but it wasn't the most modest, either. She thought it was important to switch things up; due to public decency laws, tan lines seemed inevitable, so at least by changing her level of exposure, she could create a gradient rather than too stark a contrast. It was with the satisfaction of knowing her skin would soon be glowing that she set up her extraordinarily lightweight red beach chair. She stretched out on it, adjusting her white-rimmed sunglasses. Thus settled, she took another look at the surfer. He was still a ways out, but she could tell from here that he was tall, tan, and broad-shouldered - all of which were a lovely complement to the beautiful day. With a contented little sigh, she closed her eyes, smiled, and enjoyed the feel of the sun on her skin.
Out on the water, Samuel was experiencing rapidly increasing levels of frustration. The day's swell was pathetic even by Gulf Coast standards; had he been back in Corpus Christi, he would have sought the first skimboarder he could find and willfully, blatantly bludgeoned their little toy to pieces. As it was, the local surfing community had only just begun to trust him - after a particularly amusing incident involving a couple of tourists, pier support beams, and their own board leashes - and that was not a privilege whose boundaries he was yet keen to test. So he rode a few more lazy breaks, his form growing sloppy as anger overtook poise. A wave shifted beneath him, throwing him off in his rigid, unyielding posture. He tumbled hard into the water, feeling the snap of the leash as it threw the darting board back toward him. It was time, he thought, to call it a day.
He was still brushing water from his face as he trudged onto the beach, throwing a waterlogged glare at the gangly teenager already racing toward the surf, flimsy bodyboard in hand. It was all he could do not to shout some furious insult - or was, at least, until he saw what lay before him, trussed up like the perfect beachside Christmas gift.
"Afternoon," he said, sidling up alongside her. He took full advantage of her sunglasses - and the fact that she was, he hoped, catching a brief catnap - to better appreciate her choice of attire, a bathing suit that left only the very best things to the imagination. His initial inspection proving quite pleasant, he leaned down, resting his dripping board on the ground. The quiet rip of Velcro sounded the leash removed from his ankle; without further introduction, he dropped himself to the sand beside her, his legs stretched out across the warm ground. "You mind some company?"
"Not at all," she replied, her position unchanged except to turn her head slightly toward him and smile. Lia didn't know much about surfing - nothing at all, truth be told, despite living in SoCal for so long - but his body language hid very little, if anything. Even so, besides being built like a very tall Greek god, he had a cute accent and enough swagger to cover the coast. Her appraisal of him was more subtle than his of her, but it ended in the same conclusion; men like him were always worth at least a few minutes of entertainment; often far more than that! She reached into the little aqua beach bag she'd brought with her and retrieve a frozen, though rapidly melting, bottle of water. Unscrewing it, she took a sip, then held it, hand dangling from the arm rest. "If I knew anything at all about surfing, I'd comment on your board," she said with an impish little smile.
"Nothing else you can find to comment on?" He shook his head, clicking his tongue almost mournfully. "That's a shame. I've been here under a minute and I can already think of a lot to talk about." He grinned over at her prim little hand, sun-browned and slick with condensation. Those slender fingers made one potential topic, he thought; her bathing suit or near lack thereof, definitely another. He filed these points away for future reference. "The board, though," he said, his eyes leaving her briefly to flicker over to his prized possession. "You ever feel like learning anything, I've got two more. I don't live far, so if you wanted to see them..." He laughed, leaning comfortably back, his palms resting in the hot sand. "I'd be happy to teach you, is all I'm saying."
She grinned, turning her head to look at him; even slightly elevated as she was by the low-sitting chair, the disparity in their sizes made them about even. "Did you just sit down and offer to take me back to your place?" She laughed. "Now I knew when you were walking over that you had swagger, but that is definitely bold. You haven't even bought me a drink!" She laughed, sliding her legs up a bit so they were bent at the knee as she shifted to her side, looking at her visitor a little more closely. "As far as what to comment on, there are plenty of things I could say about you, sweetheart," she arched a brow and gave him a little grin. "But I'm sure it's nothing you haven't heard, or at least thought, before, and I do hate to be unoriginal." She lifted her bottle back to her lips and took a long sip, then pressed the icy plastic to her cheek, then her neck, before dangling it over the arm of her chair again.
"Is that so?" He held back the laugh that wanted to come, but there was nothing for that impish smile. "I didn't mention anything but surfing lessons. If you read anything else into that, well. That isn't my doing. I am flattered, though." Samuel found himself quite pleased with her shift in position. He had at first ignored her legs - long and slender for her height, he noted happily - and this now seemed an untenable oversight. He moved to rectify the situation, his head canting slightly as he perused that lovely length of limb. "I'm also glad you've got me so thoroughly pegged already. That's going to make the whole awkward, getting to know you phase so much simpler. We can still do the dinner and drinks thing if you think it's entirely necessary, but at this point it seems like a formality."
Now Lia laughed, full and sincere. "It is so, and you're not so tough to peg," she said with a grin, leaning a little forward over the arm of her chair. "You have that Southern charm, but like I said - swagger. And your accent isn't quite right for the South South. So my bet is you're from Texas somewhere, probably on the Gulf, since you surf," she observed. His quirked brow arched higher, his wolfish grin decidedly pleased. She looked at him a little longer, taking the opportunity to peruse his form in a leisurely fashion, noting his own long legs and tan skin - and his hands. Her gaze fell on a rather deep scar on his arm, and she reached out, skimming her fingers along that groove. "Also, you're a bad boy. Though my guess is that you're probably paid to be bad by some legitimate organization." She grinned. "I know better than to make any plans with a guy like you before at least dinner and drinks."
He shrugged, grinning still. Her appraisal of him was as accurate as it was complementary, to his mind, and silently he congratulated himself on having acted on the impulse to engage her. The faint touch of her hand was as pleasant as he had imagined; already he had begun considering the best approach to returning that small, quite desirable motion. "If you're good at something, why do it for free?" He reached up, extending a hand to her with mockingly overblown formality. "Sergeant Samuel Wolfe. And I hate being predictable and easily read, so I promise to be more unexpectedly entertaining over dinner. This weekend works great for me."
With another laugh, she gave him her hand. He gladly took the opportunity to allow his touch to linger, his thumb brushing soft at her skin. "Does it now?" she asked with a grin, shaking her head. "That's a shame, since it doesn't for me." When her fingers slipped from his hand, she settled back into her spot, pushing her hair back over her shoulder. Languidly, she stretched again, returning to her back, though she turned her head to look at him again. "I wouldn't say predictable is necessarily the right word - and as far as easy to read is concerned... well, reading people is what I do. Well, one of the things." She smiled as she took a sip from her bottle. "Though, to be fair, you're already very entertaining, Sam. Can I call you Sam?" Her smile turned mischievous before she took another sip of her water. "I'm Lia, by the way. Lia Valencia."
"Lia, you can call me almost anything you want, so long as one of your weekends isn't booked up." A new light gleamed in his eyes, something curious and hungry; hers was a challenge he had no choice but to answer. His grin had scarcely faltered, but had taken on a decidedly more questionable quality than before. Whatever thoughts coursed through his mind at that moment remained unspoken, to the benefit of all concerned. He shifted on the sand, fingers curling to brush hot, caked grains from his palms. When he settled in again, he was decidedly closer to her, sitting up the slightest bit straighter. "So what is it you do, that involves reading people, among other, presumably more interesting things?"
"Oh, I'm sure there's some weekend at one point or another I have free," she replied with a grin, watching the shift in his posture with some thoroughly enjoyable combination of enthusiasm and some small sense of satisfaction. He wasn't much for dissembling, that was for sure - but rather than it coming from a place of naivete, she felt certain it was a result of not giving a good goddamn what anyone thought of his honest reactions. She found herself very much wanting to touch that scar again. Instead, she took another sip of her slowly melting water. Her smile turned into a little curl, almost nothing at all but for that little press of the corners of her mouth and the sparkle in her eye that her dark sunglasses hid. "As for what I do," she replied, "I host a weekly radio call-in show - on Friday nights, in fact - and write an advice column for the Times." She shrugged one slender shoulder, that little curl of a smile widening just a little. "Not as exciting as being a Sergeant, I'm sure," she said. "Sergeant of what, exactly, by the way?" she asked, taking another look at his more than slightly delicious form.
"Orange County SWAT," he said, no small amount of pride bleeding into his voice. "Rangers before that, Third Battalion." He tipped his head back to his board, where the shield of the 75th Regiment had been painted and repainted again as the sun had drained its colours. "So yeah, it probably is more exciting than a call-in show and a column, but I guess that depends a lot on what you give advice about." That toothy grin flashed again. He had a few guesses as to what someone of her ilk might discuss when given such a podium; the particular brand of expertise she projected left few real options, but it seemed a waste to guess correctly on the first try. "Local elections? Tax preparation? SoCal real estate?" He shrugged. His eyes flicked back to her legs, following their smooth slope. "There's a lot of wiggle room in a field like that; could be totally interesting or completely NPR, insomnia-curing drivel. My job's a lot more... straightforward, or at least consistently engaging."
"Consistently engaging," she said with a little smile, then took a long sip of her water, the condensation slipping down her palm, then her arm. He was smart. That was unexpected, and a pleasant surprise, even if it probably just served to feed into his obvious cockiness. Even so, it was appealing - though to let on would be to give away too much, obviously. "I'd definitely say my job is consistently engaging." She smiled, crossing her legs as she looked at him. "I'm betting you're clever enough to know that I'm not the tax or real estate type." Shifting her position slightly to have a better look at him, she said, "I give advice about all the best things - love, sex, relationships." She smiled. "I'm very good at what I do." With another look at that scar, she said, "It sounds as though you might be, too." She grinned. "I bet the girls love you, all big and bad and sexy, shooting guns and breaking bones and what have you," she told him.
"Most of them, sure," he said. "Some pretend not to, but that only works for so long." At this, Lia laughed, shaking her head. His smile returned, sharp and self-satisfied. "I don't dare ask your advice on why that is, cos I think you just might tell me." She arched a brow and smiled brightly at him. He gave a quiet laugh, distracted somewhat by the path each little bead of water followed as it traced its smooth path down her arm. "That actually sounds like a great job, though. Aside from having to talk to sad sacks crying over Lifetime movies about their most recent breakups, I mean." He leaned forward, his voice a mockingly conspiratorial stadium whisper. "Does that mean dinner and drinks are a tax write-off for you?" Straightening up, he shook his head, attempting a contemplative look. "Condoms, porn... that's a great loophole you've got there. Or 'fringe benefit,' if you'd rather."
"Color me shocked that you lack sympathy for the emotional pain of my listeners," she said dryly, shaking her head with a smirk. "I actually don't mind talking to people who are distressed about heartache. I like to think I'm somewhat helpful, at least, to people who call in. And they're always very sweet." Her hand slid down to a little catch on the back of the seat; as she leaned forward, she pressed the small metal clasp down, and her chair went flat. That done, she reached into her bag, retrieving a hair elastic with which she tied her hair into a bun. Then, she turned over, lying flat on her stomach, stretching her body out luxuriantly before settling back down. "As for dinner and drinks," she said with a smile, "I don't really pay for those that often. Condoms or porn, either, actually. Don't they have the internet where you're from, Sam? It's kind of a big deal." She grinned at him.
Samuel had few complaints about this new position, which allowed him thinly veiled perusal of assets formerly out of his line of sight. Her back side proved to be as appealing as her front, and he grinned rather shamelessly in the wake of this discovery. "Who wants to watch four-minute clips?" he asked. "Seems like a waste of time, scouring the internet all night for something that doesn't involve weird fetishes or cartoon characters, only to find some rushed snippet of something only halfway interesting." His lips parted in a clearly put-on display of shocked epiphany. "I'm being unsympathetic again. You don't have any latex furry fetishists among your listeners, I hope. I hate to be the one to tell you, but there's a fine line between 'very sweet' and 'extremely creepy'."
His brow quirked, then, and he shifted back to an earlier, far more interesting point. "So you don't buy most of the time, huh? You didn't strike me as a traditionalist. But I'm a gentleman, so I'm happy to pay when we do go out. Whenever your schedule's free, I mean."
"That was smooth," she laughed, shaking her head, then resting it on her folded arms. "But I haven't agreed to anything." Lifting slender, shapely, perfectly pedicured feet, she leisurely swung them in the air behind her, then smiled at him. "As for being a traditionalist, I don't know about all that. But if someone invites me to dinner, or drinks, or Cabo San Lucas, then it's expected that he or she will pay for the outing, just like if I invite someone out, I'll pay." She smiled. "It's just etiquette." With that, she took another long sip of her water, then pressed the still-cold bottle to her cheek as she considered him. "As for my radio show, you know, Sam, it takes a lot of courage to ask for help, and to talk about your feelings." She smirked. "Besides, I'm betting that you're probably not exactly into vanilla sex yourself."
"'Or she', huh? Now there's an image." His grin turned positively boyish, so unguarded it could almost be called gleeful. "I'm definitely curious to hear what you think my kink involves, though. Flattering that you're already thinking about it." He beamed brightly at her, quite enthusiastically watching each of her small shifts on the lounge chair. His attempts at hitting on her may have been going nowhere, but at least the view was more than satisfactory. "Tell you what. You guess, and if you guess right I'll quit asking you out. For today. If you don't, a week from Saturday, eight o'clock, and I get to pick the restaurant."
Lia lifted her head with a smile, propping it up on her hand. "Trust me, there's no image in your mind that could compare, Sam," she assured him. His challenge, though, had her looking over the armrest of her chair at him, lips hitched in a half-smile as she surveyed his form from behind her sunglasses. "As for thinking about it, it's what I get paid for." With that, she stretched upward, than turned over again, turning her gaze onto him for a moment, pretending consideration. Then, she said, "Now, it would be wrong of me to assume that just because of your occupation, that you're into violence and aggression," she said with a smile. "Of course, it's not just because of your occupation. You really like violence. You've got a bit of a temper, don't you? I mean, that was what made you wipe out back there, isn't it?" she asked. The arch to his brow grew dangerously high. Leaning forward on the arm of the chair, she said, "You like the fight. It's not even about the power, I don't think - if it were, you wouldn't be enjoying this conversation as much as you are. It's the chase, it's the struggle. You're rough, but you like a girl - and yeah, it's probably just girls - to be just as rough with you. You get off on a hard fuck, teeth at your neck or your hand around a slim little throat, right?"
She smiled, something just a little smug in the expression.
"Or maybe I've got you all wrong."
For a moment he was stunned to silence, an occurrence both monumental and rare in the life of Samuel Wolfe. It had in the past occurred to him, of course, that he was perhaps too easy to read. It had come up, even, in professional assessments of his character and conduct while in his various work-related roles. But such things had never seemed to feature in his personal life, at least until the deal had been sealed and he had already been dismissed - or, more often, gotten what he wanted. This, then, was a new and novel turn of events. "Well damn." He nodded, laughing. "You know, for an armchair psychologist you're not half bad. I'm occasionally a man of my word, so I guess this means I'll quit trying to get a date out of you today. But if I see you wandering around one of my beaches again..." His hands spread, palms up, in a mild sort of shrug. "Fair game."
"Your beaches?" She arched a brow with a laugh, reaching into her bag and retrieving a bottle of spray sunscreen oil. "So if I show up on the coast Southern California, you get to prey on me?"
"Yep." He beamed brightly in answer, giving her a clipped nod. She laughed again.
"You are a character, Sam. Really." Lightly, she spritzed his chest before turning it on herself. He wiped fussily at the damp little circle, his nose wrinkled at the thought of suffering one small, strangely coloured patch of skin. "And for the record, I'm excellent." With a little grin, she covered her arms, legs, and stomach with the slick spray before handing him the bottle and sliding her hands briefly over her skin just to even it out a bit. "Would you do my back?" she asked, turning onto her stomach. She looked at him over her shoulder. "You don't have to touch me," she said, arching a brow and smirking. "You can just spray it."
"Sure, I can," he said. "But where's the fun in that?" He turned the bottle in his hands, giving it an appraising look. "I'm pretty sure it's on the instructions somewhere. 'Apply liberally to bare skin with wandering hands.' I know I've read that before."
In spite of his needling and pseudo protestations, the offer really was too good to pass up. He sat up on his knees, heedless of the sand now thoroughly stuck to his board shorts and the backs of his legs. His hands, at least, he took care to brush off before applying a few markedly stingy spritzes of the oil to her back. With such a minimal and woefully uneven distribution of oil, it seemed absolutely necessary to take a more hands on approach. Samuel, being one to prefer asking forgiveness than permission, gladly took the initiative, his palms flattening at the small of her back and working their way steadily up. Perilously close to the edge of her bikini top, he found a small, tense knot he briefly wondered might be attributed to his good natured pestering. Shamelessly, he grinned at the thought. The sunscreen thus immediately forgotten, he rubbed faintly at that tight spot, his fingers dipping shallowly beneath the line of her bathing suit.
It wouldn't have been accurate to say it was a surprise to Lia that Sam had decided to spread the oil onto her back with his hands - and the massage... well, it was familiar, but it could probably have been forgiven from someone else. But that hand sliding unsubtly under her suit had her sliding away from his touch, sitting up, her eyes ablaze with something rarely seen and a little dangerous. Later, she wouldn't be able to say why, or even, really, to justify it, but in that moment, Samuel Wolfe had set off something in her that she did not know how to respond to other than the way she did.
Without another word, and with a speed that might not have been expected from someone whose movements were usually so languid, she hauled back and slapped him. That done, she snatched up the sunscreen, thrust it into her bag, and picked it up. "Texas," she said the word as though it were a curse, rising from her little chair and setting about folding it. He arched a brow above his widened eyes, his fingertips lifting to his throbbing cheek. "You know, here I was thinking that you might actually be an interesting guy; that despite what every instinct was screaming at me, you might be fun to talk to." She shook her head as the chair succumbed to her will, narrowing to an easily portable collection of metal poles and folded canvas. "But guys like you don't understand nuance. Any offense is an excuse to fight, any smile is an invitation to fuck," she snapped.
He laughed, then, an entirely unfeigned, maddeningly unexaggerated sound. "And that makes me uninteresting?" Lifting himself from the sand, he reached out for her chair, grabbing roughly at one hard line of sun-warmed metal. His heart still raced from that angry little strike, and there was no denying the sensation wasn't entirely unpleasant. "You've spent too much time with Nicholas Sparks movies and your bleeding heart listeners. I get it. You're used to being fawned over and praised and petted, so you go batshit insane when someone dares to make a pass without getting your permission in triplicate first. But you're curious, at least, or you'd never have figured me out and then baited me so well, so I'm not totally buying this little tantrum of yours." He grinned, a malicious, sharp little thing. "How's that for amateur profiling?"
His free hand pressed seeking fingertips to his stinging jawline, wondering idly if it might bruise. "You hit almost as well as my ex. I think she was a little stronger on the backhand, though."
With both of them standing upright now, Lia found herself untenably annoyed by how much taller he was than she - though for all intents and purposes, she ignored the disparity as she attempted to yank her chair out of his grip. Unfortunately, her efforts were fruitless, and she glared up at him.
"It's hard to imagine any woman who would willingly endure your company long enough to be considered an 'ex'," she nearly spat, giving the chair another tug. "Unsurprising, though, that she ended up turning violent." Re-shouldering her bag, she said, "As for your 'amateur profiling,' just because I don't throw my panties at you when you grope me, doesn't mean I need to be 'fawned over'; it just means that I don't appreciate being pawed at without my permission, especially by obnoxious strangers with obvious boundary issues." Keeping her grip on the chair, she tried another tack, pushing at his hand. "Trust me, you don't want to see batshit insane on me. Now will you please let go of my chair, or are you going to rob me on top of sexually harassing me?"
"I'm not robbing you, I'm requisitioning it," he said, smirking at the press of her hand against his. He took a single step closer, looking down at her, a decidedly wicked glint in his eyes. "And only temporarily, cos I know if I let go you'll quit listening to me. First, Lia, my ex was violent when I found her. Part of the appeal, as you so astutely guessed. Second, judging from this fit, I imagine you wear crazy pretty well. So yeah, I kind of do want to see that." The smirk deepened; his head canted, his laughing eyes narrowing. "Am I close? I mean, you did already slap me. That's like the foreplay of fighting, you know. Pretty surprising from someone whose whole career is communication."
She could almost feel her blood pressure rising as he continued to speak. Her fingers gripped more tightly around the chair, and she had to silently count to ten backward not to dig her nails into his hand. "90% of communication is non-verbal," she said, "and when dealing with a knuckle-dragger, it's usually best to keep it simple." She yanked at the chair again, only stopping short of wrenching her arm. She continued, "It's so charming that you find my anger attractive, really." Finally, she released the chair. Samuel grinned broadly, as if some great victory had been won. "You know what? This is an enormous waste of my time. Keep the damn thing." With that, she scooped up her flip flops from the sand and started marching away from the water, toward where her car was parked.
It took Samuel only a moment to retrieve his surfboard, a windblown trail of sand following him as he caught up with her on long, lazy strides. With his surfboard beneath one arm, her chair beneath the other, he looked like nothing so much as a helpful beast of burden, boyfriend or companion or labelless hanger-on. He smiled at the thought, chuckling at his own unvoiced joke as he sidled up next to her. "Convenient," he said, casting an eye over the parking lot they seemed to be wending their way toward. "We're in the same lot. I'd much rather take this to your car and see it safely home than be accused of theft again. Otherwise I'd just have to track you down later and bring it straight to your apartment."
Not looking at him, heading directly for her car - a sprint blue Audi TTS Roadster, a couple of years old but obviously well-maintained - she said, "Well, aren't you a treasure." As they approached, she fished her keys out of her bag and used the remote to pop the trunk. Once she'd dropped her bag in, she reached into it, pulling out a bright red and gold Hawaiian sarong with a fish pattern printed on it. As she wrapped it around herself, she took a deep breath, drawing calm down from the heavens before finally looking at him. "There, here we go. This is my car. There's my license plate. I'm sure you can go back to the station and run it so you can find out where I live and come harass me there, too. Now are you going to give me my chair back, or should I just back out over you?"
"I bet you wouldn't even visit me in the hospital." He extended his hand, one arm tightening his grip on his surfboard even as he loosed his grip on her chair. It was a shame to see her go, especially with the memory of her indignant fury still fresh in his mind. He was certain he could goad her into another blowup, if only he had the time. But that, it seemed, had run out. "Such a pleasure meeting you, Lia Valencia." His smile was bright, and by all appearances, entirely sincere. "Hopefully I'll see you around."
"Only if God hates me!" She replied with faux brightness as she slammed the trunk shut. Pressing the button to unlock the car doors now, she quickly got in the car, pulled out of her spot, and sped out of the lot. It was going to take a lot of yoga and frozen yogurt to clean Samuel Wolfe off her palate.