High
by B. Cavis

High
by B. Cavis

As the plane lets out the low groan that lets him know they’ve reached their steady altitude, Ari closes his eyes and sits back in his chair, silently hating the cool leather against the back of his neck.

He hates to fly. God, how he hates to fly.

Not for any fear, of course, and certainly not of weakness. He isn’t afraid of terrorists (ha) blowing him out of the sky, and he doesn’t fear pilot error (he’s never flown commercial in his life). His ears don’t pop, he doesn’t get air sickness, and when the plane makes the strange noises that send some grasping white knuckled at the armrests, he just sits and watches the clouds outside pass at a snails pace.

Ari is not afraid. He’s not. It’s more of a… control issue, actually.

Control. His favorite little word. After all, that’s what his life has been; control over one thing or another. Controlling himself in college, never letting a word or action slip to betray him. Controlling himself around the men in turbans and beards, with their guns and swords at hand, swearing his allegiance and silently signing the warrants for their doom. Controlling himself when he looked on the faces of the innocents that were touched by his work and stopping himself from saying something soothing, calming. Keeping himself from touching their cheeks or foreheads, or brushing that lovely dark hair off of their necks to press a soft kiss…

He sighs. Deeply.

His problem with airplanes is simply this-- someone else is driving. Someone else has his life in their hands, someone he has no personal experience with and therefore no basis on which to trust, and that same someone is in complete and utter control over where he goes, when he goes there, and if he gets there in one piece.

If they wanted to, right now, the CIA men driving this hunk of silver could crash him into the ocean. It’s improbable, but it’s not unheard of and it’s not outside of his imagination, which means it could happen. They could hurl him towards death with a simple flick of a switch, and he would have absolutely no say in the matter.

And Ari very much likes having a say.

Whether on his bike or in the silver, slick BMW that he has come to love just as much (the car does something to Caitlin-- what he’s not quite sure-- but whenever they ride in it together, she jumps him the second they’re inside the house, so yeah, he really likes the BMW), he drives. He is in constant control of his own fate, as much as humanly possible. If it is the wish of the divine, he could still be crushed by a drunk driver. Thrown over a road block and down a cliff. And he accepts that.

One can’t prepare for God’s plans. They tend to win out in the end.

Caitlin, in one of her wonderfully understanding traits, lets him. She throws him the keys and she doesn’t put her hands on her hips and glare at him when he automatically grabs them off the rack. She lets him drive because she understands him and she trusts him, and those two things make him happier than he ever thought he had a right to be.

She knows that he will keep them both from harm. That he will cut off his right hand with a credit card before he lets anything happen to her that is within his control, and that he will cut off the right hand off anyone who dares to hurt her who is outside of his control. She slips into the passenger seat because she knows that he needs to feel like he is in charge-- like he is keeping her safe.

She understands him. He really, really likes that.

In all honesty, he admits, it’s foolish to have this doubt in his stomach. These men are CIA property-- this plane is CIA property. If he was being carried in a steel box lined with down, he couldn’t be safer. They aren’t going to send them hurtling into the ocean, and they aren’t going to suddenly find one of their engines no longer there. He is probably safer up here than he is on the road.

Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t have bigger, more pressing things to worry about. When he touches down, he is going to have much more danger wrapped around his neck than this plane could ever offer. Today he is playing the former Hamas Terrorist turned American, rich business man, who wants to support Al Qaeda the way he did in his youth, and use his money and his wife’s political connections to help the cause of Allah.

Caitlin had laughed when she’d heard that she was making an appearance in this particular charade. It had done little to hide the worry in her eyes, and when he had taken her in his arms for a brief hug, he had ended up holding her for a full five minutes, stroking her hair and telling himself that he would see her again soon, safe and sound and whole.

“I’ll be home soon,” he whispered to her that night, hands moving firm and steady over the flat plane of her stomach as he warmed them both. “I promise.”

“I know,” she said, and smiled gently at him. “I know.” And she had proceeded to take him in hand, press him back against the mattress, and bathe every inch of him with her tongue. A parting kiss that covered his entire body.

The next morning, as her only part in the charade (because he may be out of control as to where this plane is going, but he’ll damned if he is going to put his wife in any jeopardy by making her a recognizable target) she had thrown her arms around him saccharine sweetly, called him “baby” instead of her preferred ba’al, and whined that he had to come home soon.

He had slipped his hand around her cheek, pulled her towards his mouth, and kissed her with all of the passion he had for her in his body. She was still flushed when he disappeared down the tunnel and she vanished from sight. He wonders how long she stood there, hopes it wasn’t too long, and simultaneously hopes that she is missing him terribly already.

Ari sighs and closes his eyes for a moment, keeping his face carefully blank. The two CIA agents up front watch him curiously-- seeing him as “Ari Haswari,” the man that Gibbs shot all those years ago and who kept Bush and Sharon from becoming a video on Al Jazeera. They aren’t quite sure why he kissed an American woman goodbye when he left. And they are even less sure why that woman was Special Agent Caitlin Todd, twice held hostage by him and considered one of the treasured commodities of NCIS and the federal government.

They know better than to ask. But he’s not giving them any fodder.

He doesn’t have to leave her nearly as much as he used to-- he only truly goes into dangerous situations like this about once a year. Now he works for a company that is a front for CIA and Homeland Security operations. He prevents disasters from ever happening, and he keeps people safe by the hundreds of thousands.

It’s not as interesting or as fast paced as his former life as an undercover Mossad agent inside of Al Qaeda, but it’s also a lot less lonely, a lot less draining, and a lot more enjoyable.

Of course, occasionally, he does have to disappear for a few days. To go back to being called Haswari instead of Ari, and he accepts that as does she. He’s married, not retired, and they both take the punches as they come in that regard. After all, it’s not like she doesn’t have to do the same occasionally. Sometimes she disappears for days on end, playing Tony or Gibbs’s wife, and when she comes back she is tired and worn out from the danger of it all. Her wedding ring is on a chain around her neck.

Right now, his is in the same place. It presses between his Quran and his chest.

It’s become a ritual of theirs that whenever they get back from something like this, they take the wedding rings off the chains and slip them back on to each other’s fingers. He is very much looking forward to the cool touch of her skin on his as she slips the platinum band up his ring finger. Followed by the warm wetness of her mouth, a composition in tongue and teeth, and the smooth feeling of her lips against his knuckle.

Ari takes a deep breath in through his nose, and puts his headphones on, plugging them into his MP3 player. Now is not the time to get sidetracked. Now it not the time to be thinking of taking his warm, sweet wife into the bedroom and tying her up in bed sheets and touches until she melts all over him and soothes every ache he could ever have away. Now is not-

“Hello lover.”

His eyes open and he glances around instinctively, knowing despite himself that there is no way she’s actually here; there are only three people in this cabin, it’s not like she could get lost in the crowd. His nose opens wide, searching for the smell of her, that sweet mix of baby powder, her shampoo, and the perfume he brought back for her from that little family owned scent shop in Paris.

His hands come to his kneecaps, shaking subtly. Could he be that lucky? Could she really, really be here?

“You can stop looking around for me, ba’al. I’m safe and sound at home, about to go into work, where I will sit and hate my paperwork and wonder if Tony’s new hairdo is fire retardant. And feel slightly sad that you’re not around to pick me up for a surprise lunch and raise my spirits.” She sounds happy to talk to him, mildly sad at his absence, and his hands relax on his knees. If she had somehow managed to follow him onto this plane, he would have murdered the CIA director for allowing her to be put in harms way, and then given her what she calls his “I am an evil!man face” when she tries to make him laugh during their AIM conversations.

He really does have an oddly evil woman as his wife. She seems to get true, undiluted pleasure out of screwing around with him.

Not that he’s complaining. Or asking her to stop anytime soon. She looks wonderful when she laughs, even at him.

“I’m not on the plane, I’m on your MP3 player.” She sounds pleased. “Thanks be to Abby, of course.” He smiles and closes his eyes again. If he’s going to be distracted, there are worse things to be distracted by than the soothing sound of his wife’s voice and the smooth rhythm of her stories. The two CIA agents are blissfully unaware of the fact that he is more at peace than they could ever hope to be.

It’s rather nice to have a private pleasure, all things considered.

“I was just sitting here,” she continues, and he can imagine her posture at this point, half sprawled in the big easy chair she inherited from her father, legs tossed over one of the arms as she stares up at the clean ceiling. It’s her “thinking” position. “And I was wondering if there was any conceivable way to brighten up your flight. Because the same way it makes you happy when I’m pleased? I absolutely love to know that you’re feeling… pleased.” Her voice has taken on a different tone, a softer, darker one, and he swallows, eyes still closed.

He thinks he recognizes that tone. That tone never means anything good for him and his control.

But she doesn’t lead into something meant to break him. Instead, he listens in anxious, nervous fascination as she talks about her plans for the rest of the day. The joke Abby made yesterday (whenever that was) about three legged puppy dogs (he snickers quietly, and the CIA agents try not to stare). The way Gibbs threw a large file folder at her and snarled a complete non-sequitor about “those damn hippies.” He listens, posture relaxing, and face carefully blank once more.

And it almost kills him when she leads into it.

“I was just sitting here thinking about the last time we were together before I went on that op as Tony’s wife.” She shifts, and he hears the unmistakable sound of bare skin on bare skin. He keeps his eyes closed. “Do you remember that, ba’al?” She laughs low in her throat. “I’m sure you do. I can’t forget it-- we were in rare form that night, weren’t we?”

He nods. Stops himself from doing it more enthusiastically, and presses his head back against the headrest. Firmly.

Eyes closed.

“You said you wanted me to keep in mind who I belonged to while I was gone. I told you I couldn’t imagine forgetting, but you didn’t believe me did you? No. Or maybe you just wanted an excuse.” She pauses, and he hears that noise again. “Was that it, lover? You wanted an excuse to tie me to the bed and torture me?”

Ari swallows. Tries not to remember how insecure he truly was at the idea of her going undercover and pretending to be someone else’s lover. Some one else’s Caitlin. He hadn’t just been looking for an excuse. He had wanted, desperately, to entangle her in some part of him-- to mark her, physically and sexually and emotionally as belonging to him, and give her a motivation to come home.

It was a foolish fear.

She had looked so wonderful tied to their bed.

“You forced me down, remember that? I wasn’t happy with you, I was calling you names and telling you to stop being foolish. I think I might have cursed at you once or twice, and I know how much you hate it when I curse. You think it’s beneath me. But I couldn’t stop myself, lover. You just made me so angry. You do that sometimes. You can get to me like no one else can.

“You had that bite mark on your arm for weeks, didn’t you? Bright and red. I felt bad about it later, but then and there, I wanted to make you hurt. Wanted to stop you and get away from you.” She chuckles roughly. “But God, you’re so strong, lover. So strong. And you forced me down without a problem. I couldn’t get you off, and I did try. I tried so hard.”

Ari’s hands are white knuckled on his thighs.

“You tied my hands to the bed posts with belts. The bathrobe ties wouldn’t have held me-- I know you felt bad for the chafing on my wrists, but it worked. And you had me there.

“You pulled my legs apart, and I kicked you in the side, hard, and then it was you cursing at me, but you had this look on your face; you knew I was going to be trapped for as long as you wanted me to be. That I was going to be your little toy for the evening, and that as much as I wanted to kick you, that wasn’t going to change.

“I was yours.

“You tied my ankles, and I’m not sure with what because I don’t think your belts are that flexible. I never asked. But I tugged and I thrashed and I pulled so hard and nothing happened. I was trapped. And you knew it. You bastard, you knew it.”

He had had that bruise on his ribcage for close to a week. It had hurt to wear a seat belt. He hadn’t cared.

“And then you started to touch me. Not where I wanted you, of course, because that would have been too easy, and we don’t do easy, do we lover? No. So you were touching me. My arms. My stomach. My thighs. You spent so long on my legs that I was afraid I was going to have to break free-- break my wrists in the process, and force you to fuck me. Jump you and fuck that smile off your face.” Her breathing quickens softly with the memory. His jaw clenches tight.

“But I couldn’t. Because you’d tied me down, Ari. And then you did something even worse-- you stopped. God, you just stopped! I thought that the touching was bad, but no, lover. You pulled away from me entirely, and my hips followed you as far as they could before the ties kept me down. You walked over to the chair. And you sat, just sat, and watched me. Watched me.”

She’d been beautiful, eyes wide and mouth open. He’d wanted nothing more to take her head in his hands and fuck her mouth till his eyes rolled back in his head.

“I was begging for it. God, I wanted your cock in me so bad, but you weren’t letting me have my way. You were just such a bastard-- and I knew that you wanted me just as bad as I wanted you. It didn’t seem fair. Your dick was so hard, and it would have felt so good inside of me if you had just let me feel it. Just put it in me and fucked me until I came.” She sighs, and he imagines her sitting in that chair, naked-- no, not naked, wearing the black lacy thong that looks so good parting her ass cheeks and the matching bra that is no more than a strategically placed bunch of strings. Her legs are spread slightly, air tickling her through the thong.

She’s wet. He knows she’s wet.

“I begged. I wailed. I threatened. I didn’t care how I got my way as long as I got it and you fucked me. Hard. And you just sat there, watching me. And you didn’t say a word, you bastard.

“I could feel myself dripping-- honestly dripping. Do you have any idea how wet you make me, lover? Hm? I gush whenever you step into a room. I’m afraid that everyone can smell it, that they know exactly what you do to me. That whenever you get near me I just want to bend over and have you fuck me as hard as you possibly can anyway I can get it. I get sooooo wet…” And the low laugh that she lets out would kill a lesser man. “I’m wet now. It’s a good thing I have a free hand to do this, lover. Do you want to know what I’m doing right now?”

He resists the urge to nod. Barely.

“I’m sitting in my chair, legs over the arm, wearing nothing but the thong you bought me for our anniversary. You know the one, I’m sure. French cut-- you got such a kick out of untying it during our dinner at the five star restaurant and leaving me dripping and panting until we got to the car.

“I have my hand down the front of them-- I haven’t untied them. I mean, sitting in the chair naked seems just a bit too much…”

Fucking tease, he growls silently, repeating the words she titles him oh so often. Fucking, beautiful, impossibly wicked tease. He is glowering. The CIA agents are trying not to look at him and be afraid. They are failing.

“Do you think I should, ba’al? Hm? Should I sit here naked, running my fingers around my clit as I think of you tying me down? Driving me crazy?” He can feel her smile. He can feel it. “I have a feeling I know the answer to that.” The silk strips of fabric make soft, smooth sounds as they are parted. “God the air feels so good on me… Like when you blow on my clit.” His lips purse without conscious thought, and he finds himself exhaling in a cool thin stream. Exactly the way that she dies for.

“Do you remember when you came back to me? Of course you do, you remember everything, don’t you? You came back over to the bed, and you looked down at me, just looked, and I was thrashing now-- desperate to get your cock in me any way I could. I wanted it, ba’al. Wanted you to take me and fuck me until the people in the next brownstone could hear me screaming. I wanted them to know what you were doing to me. That I was yours…”

Her breathing hitches, and it takes him a moment to realize that his has done the same in response to the sound. He knows what that sound means. She just dragged her thumbnail up her clit, the way he does when he wants to provide maximum stimulation without actually resulting in an orgasm. It’s a teasing move.

“You took my vibrator out of the night side table-- you just love the fact that I keep it next to the tissues, don’t you? And I started to squirm because I thought that you were finally going to fuck me with it. The way you love to do-- to make me grunt and gasp as you push it in, thrusting into me with every ounce of strength in your arm. I was hoping and praying, and I pushed myself up at you to try and entice you to touch me with it.

“But you didn’t…”

He is going to tan her hide red when he gets back, he swears to God. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he has to keep 100% quiet about all of the things she is stirring up in his blood, but the rather large erection tenting his pants means he has to keep that horribly scratching airplane pillow in his lap. It feels like cheap cloth under his hands, and he hates it for not being softer. For not being her.

“You took it and you turned it on, just barely, and you dragged it up between my breasts. I could feel it vibrating throughout my chest, over my ribs, and when I shifted to try and get it to touch me more, you pulled it away and glared, and I glared right back. You are such a mother fucking tease lover. I know I tell it to you all of the time, and it’s absolutely true. You are a tease.” Her voice gets breathy but happy. “But you’re my tease.”

She shifts in her chair with a little grunting moan of an unsatisfied, pre-orgasm woman. “You dragged it over me, all over me. My legs, my hips, into my belly button and over my arms. I was shaking. I could feel my pussy juices dripping down the crack of my ass and getting the bed underneath me all wet and sticky. I was gushing, lover, honest to God gushing out of need. Need for you. For your cock…

“You put the vibrator aside after a moment, resting it right on top of my stomach, and I swear to God I almost-- almost-- snarled at you. I wanted it so badly, and I could feel the vibrations running through my stomach and nipping at me. I was so hot and so wet and all you did was… look…”

She had been panting wetly against her arm, and when he had ordered her to look at him and not break eye contact, she had given him such a look of helpless, hopeless, pained need that he had almost broken down.

Almost.

“Do you remember when you slipped your finger into me? Just one at first, because you said I should have to wait for the others. To build up the anticipation, and I really didn’t want to build up anything, not anymore, but God it felt so good. To have you inside of me, a part of your body, pressed up to the knuckle and curling and uncurling inside of me. I thought I was going to come from just that-- from just the feel of one finger.” Her breathing is uneven and when she swallows, she makes a little grunting sound. “I think I’d like to slip one inside myself now.”

She lets out the sound he knows all too well from those wonderfully perverse nights where she has played with herself in front of him just for kicks. It is one of her favorite pastimes to sit in the living room with her head resting on his knee, watching a movie, and draw him away from whatever is going on screen by a soft little “oh” as she slips her fingers into her pussy and presses the fingers of the other hand around her clit.

“Uhhhmmm…” she gasps, and the urge to be back in her presence-- to pick her up and fuck her against the nearest moderately flat surface while the whole world listens to her screams is enough to make his teeth draw blood from the inside of his bottom lip. “Feels so good, lover. Not as good as you, but sooo good… God I want you here. I want you here and I want you fucking me, haaaard…”

He squeezes his eyes shut tighter, imagining his own finger in that impossibly small little hole that has given him so much enjoyment over the years. She always makes the same noise when he presses his digits up inside of her; the little gravely gasp for breath, followed by a shift of her hips and her head tilting back, eyes closed. He loves to watch her hair spread thick and dark behind her when he’s finger fucking her.

Her hips rotating, trying to increase friction…

“God, lover, I gotta come…” she whimpers, and if he hadn’t been prepared to hear it from years of knowing her body the way a husband should, those words out of her mouth would make his brain boil in his skull and drip out of his nostrils to stain his shirt. As it is, they just send him up on his feet, headphones still in, and straight for the moderate privacy of the airplane bathroom.

He’ll be damned if he’s going to come in front of two CIA agents in cheap ties.

The door clicks closed and he grunts as he leans back against it, hastily undoes his belt, and shoves his hand down his pants. The MP3 player rest in the dry sink. His wife undoes him in his ears.

“I wah…wanted to keep going,” she gasps, and he grabs his cock hard and jerks. He’s leaking, and there’s a spot of precum on the front of his boxers. “But I cahhhhn’t… God what you do to me, lover. The memory of you makes me uhhh…” She is losing her train of thought. He is squeezing his eyes closed, teeth bared in a silent growl, imagining her bound to the bed and thrashing the way she did when he took the vibrator, slid it up her ass, and started fucking her like it was going out of fashion. “I’m… I’m…”

She breaks. Her wail crashes into him, desperate and needy and wanton, and he lets out a soft groan as his own orgasm grabs him in hand and destroys him. He falls forward, catching himself with the sink to avoid hurting his knees, and his come leaks down his cock and around his hand.

He hangs there, half collapsed and half kneeling on the floor, sticky and panting… and his wife lets out her soft, contented, after orgasm giggle. He growls.

“With any luck,” she purrs, “that’ll be some incentive to come home to me with some speed, yes ba’al? Because I miss you so bad when you go away.” Improper grammar, some wickedly anal part of him points out. “I want you here and I want you here fast. So watch yourself over there.” And now her voice has turned to a soft whisper of tenderness instead of seductiveness. “I miss you, ba’al. And I love you. Please be careful.”

He smiles, a move so tender that it would probably scare the CIA agents more than anything else he could do to them. She breathes a few more times, in time with him, and the next track comes on. Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald’s live version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”

He takes some paper towels and cleans himself up, before zipping his fly and refastening his belt. He clips the MP3 player to his belt, washes his hands, and walks out of the cubicle bathroom like he didn’t just orgasm with his wife’s voice wrapped around him like silk.

The men look up when he walks into the area. He glares and they go back to their business. He picks up the motorcycle magazine he bought at the airport, flipping through Ducati’s and biker conventions as the clouds go by outside of his window.

Ella giggles in his headphones, and a brief smile touches his lips.

FIN