Start
by B. Cavis

This is a sequel to The Art of Being a Kept Woman and Schmuck.


Start
by B. Cavis

It takes Alex exactly two minutes to pick the lock on Bobby's door.

Grunting and cursing under her breath as she kneels down in the (God I don't even want to know what that is) hallway and shifts to try and avoid bruising her knees up too badly, she rakes the lock, then works on picking the rest of the pins with slow, experienced hands.

But not too experienced. Which is why is takes Alex exactly three minutes to realize that the door is already open. She stands up and looks around to make sure no one saw that display of stupid female bravado, and straightens her shoulders.

The door was open. This is just a little bit too slapstick to believe. She glances out from underneath thick, ash colored lashes and wonders if Curly, Moe, and Larry are going to jump out at her and offer to tune her piano for "a minor fee, madam." Or worse, call her Shemp and tell her to stop being a bone head.

Am I Shemp?

God she really hopes she's not Shemp. What on Earth could be more embarrassing than being Shemp?

...Maybe standing in a hallway at one in the morning, staring at her partner's doorknob, and hoping she's not Shemp?

Just a thought.

Dumb ass, she silently accuses herself, and chuckles at the title.

This is me. This is me without caffeine, without my partner, and without my mind. And questions?

No? Good. This will all be on tomorrow's quiz.

She's becoming a sarcastic bitch in her old age. Good. Beats becoming a cat person.

And she's also stalling for time and energy. She looks around again to see if anyone has been witness to her weakness and sighs. This is not the sanest of situations she seems to have found herself in. Not even close to rational, and five steps away from slobbering stupid, this is probably the worst thing she could do right now.

Bobby needs space. She knows it. That's what he always needs when he goes and sequesters himself away from the world.

But then... why leave the door open?

Alex sighs and shakes her head, suddenly very determined. Bobby may think he needs space. But she needs Bobby.

It's about time I got to be selfish. This time my needs come first.

She smirks and shakes herself forcefully.

The door opens quietly under her hand, and she sticks her head in with practiced caution. It's a caution that she's praying she doesn't need (he's her partner, he's her... friend), but the fact remains that she might.

She might need to be careful poking her head around corners in this apartment tonight. In her partner's den, she might need to be on her toes during situations that normally she would clomp through and crack a joke over his head until he was forced to give a concussed smile.

Tonight she has to be on her guard. And that idea hurts more than she ever could have predicted it would.

She stops to drop her coat and kick off her shoes at the door. Her gun goes on top of the hallway table. It's odd-- she feels it's absence when it's not there, but she completely forgets it when she's carrying. If it hadn't been for the ingrained habit of taking it off her person whenever she enters some place she considers (at least partly) hers and (at least partly) safe, she never would have remembered she had it.

Huh. She's become Rambo in heels without realizing it. And I didn't even have to arm wrestle with anyone, she thinks wryly.

Shedding every aspect of her armor, she takes a deep breath of the air that smells like the crook of his neck and dark, sweet whiskey, and pauses. Listens and stops breathing for a moment.

There's no noise in the apartment. No television, no cooking, no quiet whisper of an opera seeping out of his stereo. She can't hear anything but the noise of the street and the pulse of the city, and that frightens her more than howls of agonized pain or sobs of emotional agony ever could.

A quiet Bobby is a deeply disturbed Bobby. A deeply disturbed Bobby is one who might not recognize her as a friend-- who might take one look at her and see someone else. Someone who doesn't belong in his apartment.

Yeah, snorts her inner logic, like you really belong here.

Still...

On Alex's list of things she'd rather be doing right now, root canal is number three.

Her spine straightens and she forces some steel into her back with a jaw clench or two. He's my partner, she whispers to the inner doubts, and they are all silenced in a wave of surety. He's my partner, and he needs me, and he would do exactly the same thing for me.

So she presses into the dark and, frankly, unwelcoming territory with firm steps.

She hopes he's here, because this will be really hard to explain if he's not. She hopes he's out, because if he ends up grabbing her and demanding to know why she's here, she won't have an answer.

Not a good one, any way.

The living room is clear. She sweeps it with her eyes and her instinct and comes up with nothing odd besides a glass of Ezra Brooks sitting on a Smithsonian magazine. She makes her cautious way over to it, and the glass is warm in her hands.

He's here. He's been drinking. And he's not making a sound.

...Maybe she should have rated root canal number two. Hmm..

Out of habit, she takes the glass up to her lips and swallows down the remaining liquid in the glass. The fire drips down her throat, and she closes her eyes in appreciation of the liquor. Good booze is not to be wasted, intones her college years, and she snorts even as she takes the glass in hand and brings it into the kitchen.

She's concerned about leaving a mess in the apartment of a man who might very well be watching her with dark interest from the shadows.

This is so not how she pictured her life when she was five.

The water she runs is hot and she takes it in her cupped palms to bring it up to her face and scrub her eyes in warmth. She can feel exhaustion creeping up on her, and the fact that she can't allow herself to give into it only exacerbates the urge to curl up into a ball on the nearest flat surface and fall asleep.

Can't do it, reminds one of the voices in her head. Can't do it. You have to keep looking for him-- you have to find him and make sure he's alright.

For the first time in over six months, Bobby Goren didn't show up at her apartment in the middle of the night and cling to her after the case. He didn't pick the lock on her door, he didn't take his shoes off in the hall way, and he didn't climb under her quilt with her and whisper his pain into her hair.

For the first time in over six months, she was permitted to get a full night sleep after putting a child killer in jail.

And for the first time in over six months, Alex couldn't close her eyes at all because of the empty space next to her in bed.

She takes one more handful of water to her eyes and sighs a deep sigh of inner confusion. She drops her hands down to the sink and she can see her knuckles going white as she clutches the metal work desperately. It's an anchor, and even though it's wet and soapy, it's holding her firmly.

The inner doubts that she's never quite been able to silence (because that's what inner doubts are best at-- hiding until they can cause the most damage and then exploiting all of your pain) come for her in the quiet of the apartment, beating along with the sound of the running water in the sink, washing over her quickly.

Did I do something wrong?

It's a question that has to be asked, but she hates having to form the words behind her tightly clenched eyes. Did she somehow upset him? Offset him? Scare or offend him? What could she possibly have done that would make him take his need for solace somewhere else? That would make him think he couldn't come to her and ask for help?

What made him think that she had been lying that night when she had carefully faked sleep and stirred in his arms? When she had told him that she didn't mind him there-- that she liked feeling like she was helping him. Does he think she was just saying that to appease her own guilt?

Or had she unconsciously sent him a message telling him he wasn't welcome next to her any more? She quickly scans the last few days for any thing out of the ordinary, and can't find anything.

There's no reason for him not to be in her bed tonight.

God that sounded so wrong.

God that sounded so right.

Alex reaches out a numb hand to turn the water off, and then quickly grabs for the side of the sink again. She needs to be anchored to follow this train of thought to wherever it's leading her.

... Bobby in her bed...

When did that idea stop being platonic? When exactly did she stop viewing him as just her crazy, gentlemanly partner who came to her bed at night just to hold her in his arms and be held in her warmth?

When did she stop seeing him as Goren and start seeing him as Bobby?

It's a pretty problem, actually, and she has a feeling that it's one she won't be able to answer while standing in her partner's kitchen clutching his sink for a life line, but it's all she's got for the moment.

There is no time to pop a squat and suck on some coffee house intellectualizing. There is only her, and the ever present feeling of him around her.

When did I fall in love with my partner? she asks herself. And will the landing break me?

She can picture herself jumping head first off the precipice that she can feel coming up on their horizon, and it frightens her just a little bit more that she thought it would.

She is in love with Bobby Goren.

This has such a large possibility of ending poorly that it's not even funny. They work together; she considers him a confidant and one of her best friends.

If they start this, there's no turning back. The door can't be re-closed, and after a few weeks, she doubts if she'll even be able to find the door again. If they jump headfirst against this brick wall... there's only a small chance they'll come through on the other side.

If they fuck this up-- if she fucks this up, everything she's worked so hard for over the past three years will disintegrate into a pile of worthless ash and pain.

Oh God she was not made to be filled with this much stress.

Alex's spine bends, folds, and she finds herself standing in front of his sink, her head resting on top of her hands, her entire world focused on the all important thought of "keep breathing." She can feel her knees shaking and her head throbbing under the weight of everything she's been thinking about, and her stomach is queasy and thick with the stink of nervousness. Her back is hot and full of pin pricks, as the worry leaks out of her flesh and puddles on the clean tile floor.

She's bleeding emotional hurt.

And blood always attracts the wolf.

She senses him for a bare moment, a split second off to her right, before he's suddenly behind her, one arm around her waist, the other wrapped around her neck in a pseudo loving gesture. She can feel the threat in that arm-- the promise of violence and pain, and she swallows thickly.

His mouth comes next to her ear, and her pores are assaulted with the smell of Ezra and dark, black anger. Their size differences are particularly evident in this position, as is the fact that he is so obviously not wearing a shirt, and she shivers as she realizes his bare shoulder is looming over her head.

"What are you doing here?"

Good question.

She's silent for a moment too long, and the arm around her neck tightens in a quiet threat. She clears the haze from her head and swallows.

"I was worried about you." She tries to straighten her spine and force herself to be strong again, but the idea that this man could snap said spine doesn't encourage confidence. "I... I wanted to make sure you were okay."

She can feel him laughing. It's not a pleasant laugh.

"You wanted to make sure I was okay?"

"Yeah. You didn't..." She trails off. 'You didn't show up tonight' sounds particularly pathetic all things considered. The idea that she came here because he didn't come to her bed and hug her is fine in her head, but it sounds a little bit too... needy to tell it to him in his current mindset.

He might just take it as an invitation to ravish her up against the wall, and, after all, with her knees as black and blue as they are, a bed would be much more comfortable.

Inner Alex glares at her sense of humor for a moment before taking a pair of brass knuckles and starting to work it over. You're not helping bitch!

Bobby is not deterred. She knew he wouldn't be. "I didn't what, Alex?" The arm around her waist relaxes just enough so he can spin her around to face him, then reseals itself to her. She never thought being held in the cradle of Bobby's naked arms would remind her of being in a holding cell the size of a coffin, but it's happening now, and if he didn't have his big hand around the back of her neck, she would pull away and try and smile her way out of this.

It always worked on his anger and frustration before. Why not now?

The alcohol that slowly fucks her nose is dark and fresh on his breath, and she feels the electric shock of fear run through her at a much higher current. Drunk Bobby. She's never dealt with drunk Bobby before.

A man who could break her over his knee plus alcohol and anger equals...

Shit.

"Well?" He prompts, and she swallows once more before acknowledging that she's going to have to give him the answer to any question he asks her in order to get out of this with any hope of being whole.

Despite the fear pouring over her in bourbon flavored air, or perhaps because of it, she starts to feel her cunt drip down onto the cotton of her panties, and curses herself as the smell seeps up to mix with the bourbon.

God damn body.

"I came because you didn't show up tonight," she says, and tries to infuse her words with a bit of steel, but it just comes out sounding like she wants something from him.

Ooh, bad Alex...

His stubble is longer than usual, and his eyes are colorless in the relative darkness of the kitchen. She searches those eyes for some hint of her partner, and finds him in the corners which makes her feel a bit better.

But not much. And surely not enough.

"You came here because I didn't show up at your apartment and crawl to you like a dog?" He laughs low and angry, gravel on sandpaper, and she winces. "How sweet Alexandra. Good to know you care."

"I came here because I was worried about you," she hisses, and this time the need is less apparent in her voice, she is happy to report. Maybe if she can just get through to him, she'll have a chance of getting out of here without him hurting them both.

The arm around her waist pulls her closer, until her entire body is pasted up against his, while the top of him looms over her like a vulture in a bare chest and a pair of sweat pants, and she bites the inside of her cheek as something kicks her in the lungs.

Well, there goes that pipe dream.

He grins, and she can see the humor that's not really all that funny painting his face. "Now why on Earth would you be worried about me? Hmm? Is he not keeping you busy enough?"

God only knows who "he" is, but the last thing Alex wants to do is ask this dark thing that's imitating her partner a question. She has a feeling she'll actually get an answer.

"Because you're my partner," she answers back firmly. "You're my friend, and I care about what happen-"

"Shut up."

She closes her mouth in shock. Never in all of their time together, in all of the fights between that happen much less often than one would think but still happen, he has ever told her to shut up. It goes against his respect for her as a person and an officer, and he's always avoided using the phrase.

There's a chance this man is no longer her partner, and that scares her to the point that she wants to whimper, but knows he'd take it as a sign of weakness and rip her throat out with his teeth.

Don't be weak with the wolf. He'll eat you and never think twice about it.

He backs her up until they're both pressed against the sink that was such a friend to her only a minute ago. "Just shut up, Alex baby. I'm sick of hearing it." His thumb traces her throat delicately, and she can feel the barely restrained force under the touch. "I'm sick of hearing you and all of your little excuses for everything you do."

The thumb stops becoming a trace and turns the corner into a caress, and she feels her breathing speed up in spite of herself. He lowers his head and presses his forehead against hers in a move that is so much like a lover's that she almost feels the urge to kiss him, but refrains. Because he's not doing this as a lover.

He's smelling her. Inhaling the heat and the fear between her legs that even now is covering her cunt in a thick veneer of juice and lubrication, preparing her for whatever he could do to her body.

He grins. There is no sign of the man who so carefully restricts his actions around her and is oh so cautious with every touch and every word. This is the man who interrogates killers, rapists-- men who he views as targets and shells to crack.

This is bad with a capital "Bobby."

If she could remember anything that hasn't been swallowed up by the smell of him and the smell of her mixed, she would start praying to the Gods of her childhood.

Somehow, she doubts they could save her from this man.

"Bobby-"

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" He shifts his head down, down, and suddenly his teeth and his mouth and everything that could cause her serious harm is lingering right above her throat. She's swallowing constantly, shaking, and half hoping he'll suddenly come to his senses, half hoping he'll never find them again.

This is too complicated. This is just right.

"You smell like sex and frustration, Alex," he informs her, and she can hear the dark smile in his voice. "What's wrong-- lover boy not putting out the fires he starts?"

She'd speak again, she'd tell him that he's the only person who fits that description in her life, but that would require control of her own throat, and that doesn't seem to be happening right now. How is it possible that this man now owns her voice box as well as the heat of her cunt?

And suddenly his mouth is there, right there over her throat and over her jugular, and she's trying to get breath and it is just not happening.

His mouth is open and hot, and his teeth and biting and nipping and only half of it is pleasure instead of pain, but it all goes straight to her core. He's groaning something against her, and she can feel the words echoing up against her teeth, but she can't hear anything over her own desperate, wordless begging.

"Uhhhhhhaagg..."

There's something in her tone that his hips just seem to respond to, because one minute there's mere inches between them, and then there's nothing. She's pressed between the sink and his hands, and his cock is rubbing against her cunt like he's trying to start a fire and make her evaporate all at the same time.

Jeeeeeeesusssss, she thinks.

He pauses in his molestation of her neck and his hand has tangled in her hair again.

"I'm going to fuck you until even he can hear you scream," he grunts. "You'll feel me in you for weeks and years, and even he'll be able to tell that you've had something better." He takes a parting bite as he seizes her bottom lip and pulls. "And it's going to be better, Alex, hon."

And suddenly she knows how Bobby Goren kisses, because his mouth is on hers and his teeth and his tongue are owning her completely and utterly.

...God, she thinks, have I become one of those women?

He's groaning. She can hear it over the rushing of her blood in her ears, and when she starts to kiss him back, he pulls away.

"Well I guess he really is leaving you all hot and bothered, isn't he? Who would have thunk that you'd have such horrible taste in men as to pick someone like that."

"The only one leaving me hot and bothered is you, Bobby," she grates out, and his eyes darken to two bottomless black holes in his face.

"Liar!" He snarls, and pulls off the stretchy white tank top she threw on when she realized she couldn't sleep without him. There's no bra underneath, and he eats her with his eyes. "These I like." He keeps her in place with his hips as his fingers take her nipples and pinch, hard.

She wishes she could manage to draw a full breath, but settles for thrusting her chest forward and keening at the feeling. He watches her face with focused eyes, and nods. "Thought so." And then he stops being hateful with his mouth and angry with his words, because he leans forward and takes her right nipple into his mouth, and he was always taught it's not polite to talk with one's mouth full.

What a well mannered boy, Alex thinks to herself, and if she wasn't absolutely sure he'd kill her for doing so, she'd giggle at the ridiculous idea of it all.

He bites and pulls and sucks, and the amount of liquid pouring down her thighs and making her worn jeans uncomfortably damp in the crotch area increases exponentially.

And just when she thinks that this is going to liquefy her onto the floor, thinks it can't get any more perfectly overwhelming, he switches sides and does the same thing to the other nipple.

God she loves him angry and territorial. If this is what he can do to her, she's going to have to figure out a way to make this happen without the undercurrent of fear part.

"Uhhhm..." She wraps her fingers in his hair and pulls him up, and he allows himself to be steered for the time being. She's got this much power over him because he lets her have such power, she realizes, and the thought makes her shiver wildly.

"Bobby," she whispers against his mouth, as his tongue takes ownership of the areas that still have his name on them. His fingers tangle in her waistband, and suddenly both her panties and her pants are around her ankles. He grabs her around the waist and hoists her up onto the counter top. She can feel the cool metal underneath her soaked bottom and the contrast of the hot man pressed against her soaked front.

If this is a wet dream, don't let me wake up.

He pulls away from her, rakes his eyes down her body, and grins. "He doesn't like to leave marks, huh? Well, I can compensate for that." And he takes his stubble coated face and drags it down her chest and her stomach, leaving a stream of red sensation. She feels his breath over her cunt for the barest of seconds, and thinks that maybe he's about to make all of those dreams about an oral fixation and a man who lives his life on taste and sensation come true, but instead he comes right back up, takes her bottom lip in between his teeth again, and bites down hard.

His hands have freed his cock from the sweat pants. She can see them lying forgotten on top of her camisole, shivers, and focuses on his face. He's staring into her eyes like he's never seen them before, and she's looking back like she's never wanted to see anything but.

Two hands grab his cock. Small and big, feminine and male. Two pairs of hips move forward in preparation.

Two people cry out as he starts to slip into her, and two heads are thrown back as he pushes forward.

"Alex," he groans, and grabs her waist in two thick hands. "God, Alex..."

"I know," she whimpers, "I know, I know, I know."

Their heads fall forward, forehead against forehead, and both sets of eyes close. She can feel his breath beating against her lips, and it occurs to her that she can't smell the bourbon any more.

"I hate him so much for being able to enjoy this with you," he whispers, and her eyes open. One small hand comes up to touch his cheek, and his own open cautiously and meekly.

Her big, strong, ferocious wolf.

God, his heart bleeds out of his eyes, and it pours out so red all over her hands.

"There is no one else, Bobby. There's no one but you, and there's no one but me." His head starts to shake from side to side slowly and painfully, and she grips it harder to force him to accept what she's saying. "Bobby, do you trust me?"

He blinks, slow and deep, and a light of hope comes into his face.

"Do you trust me, Bobby?"

"With my life," comes the soft, desperately weak reply, and she nods her head once, twice.

"Than trust me with this," she whispers back. "There is no one but you. There is no one but me. And if I have my way, there never will be."

Beat.

"I'm in love with you, Bobby."

And his eyes go wide.

Desperate, fearful of an answer or the lack of an answer, she wraps her legs around his waist and pulls him forward to thrust into her. His head drops to her shoulder at the sensation, and he starts to move on his own.

In. Out. In. Out. Pulse.

He's got her angle just right-- he's rubbing her clit with every move and all nine and a half inches of him are hitting her cervix with what could be pain but is just pure pleasure. The air is being knocked out of her with each thrust, and she is crying out almost constantly.

"Bobby."

Thrust. Swirl.

Her head falls back against the cabinet, and she feels his cock moving harder than before, impaling her on part of his body and making her shake and want and beg with each shift.

"Bobby, fuck me, harder, hard-"

And he does. He grabs her hips in a tighter grip, spreads his legs farther apart, and moves in and out of her cunt with a force that makes her bounce with every thrust. She feels dwarfed, surrounded, owned.

And she's loving it.

"Alex," he grunts as her nails dig into his shoulders and her head lolls from side to side. The heat is coiling, her cunt is dripping juice out onto the counter, and each thrust makes a wet, sloppy, fucked sound. His fingers shift down to grab her ass in large hands and squeeze. "Come," he orders in a breathless whisper.

Who am I to disobey? she thinks to herself, as the light behind her eyelids gets bright enough to blind, and her entire body catches fire.

And through it all, his eyes are on her, his hips are moving. He memorizes her movements, learns her responses, and commits it all to the part of his brain that will be dedicated to her from this moment on.

She's pulsing tighter. Hot and wet and vice-like with the orgasm he's managed to instill in her, and she can feel his strokes lose their long drawn out rhythm. Suddenly he's shaking and pounding her, and branding her, and all she can hear is his howl and the sound of their bodies meeting.

He freezes, groans, and spills into her in one final pulse.

Her world starts spinning again a few minutes later, and she opens her eyes to find him looking down at the red marks he inflicted upon her body in a moment of jealous imagination.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. The dark head that she's always wanted to run her hands through is now open for the opportunity, and she tangles her fingers in soft hair. "I..." Words fail him for the moment, and she soothe him with a hand on his cheek. His eyes close for a moment, before he takes the palm in his own hand and brings it to his lips.

This is why she loves this man, Alex thinks to herself, and is satisfied with the warmth inside her.

"I love you," he whispers against his skin. "I couldn't think of anything but you and who ever the hell is might be."

"Who might be?"

He looks up at her, dark self-doubt in his eyes. "Whomever it was that you were in love with."

"And what made you think I was in love with someone?"

He shrugs. "I saw the signs. I've seen them before-- the way you acted and what you wear. How you spoke." He shrugs again and drops his head. She smiles. Good.

"Well you were right about the being in love part." His head jerks up once more, and she meets his eyes with certainty and affection. "I love you Bobby."

He smiles, uncertainly at first, as if testing the waters. When the sky doesn't fall down upon his head, he throws his whole face into it, and she laughs as he scoops her up against him, slaps her ass, and begins the sure walk to his bedroom.

Minutes later, lying back on his bed with his arms on either side of her and his face gazing down at her with satisfaction and joy, she makes eye contact and smiles. He cocks an eyebrow to one side and grins in response.

"Stay the night, Alex?"

And she laughs-- hard and long and without fear or worry-- before taking his head in between her hands and bringing him down for the promise of a kiss.

"Like there's a chance in hell you could going to get me to leave."

FIN


Well? Um... Did you like it?
Tell me and I'll stop bugging you.

Promise.

::crosses fingers::