TITLE:  Water on Glass
AUTHOR:  Susanne Barringer
EMAIL:  sbarringer@usa.net
ARCHIVE:  Anywhere you want, but it would be nice if you'd drop me a line.
KEYWORDS:  MSR
RATING:  *NC-17*
SPOILERS:  none
SUMMARY:  An old-fashioned MSR that has nothing to do with anything recently 
happening on the show.
DISCLAIMER:  These characters could be anybody, but they aren't.  They belong 
to Fox, 1013, Chris Carter, etc. 

THANKS to Sue, for letting me be done with this story.  :) 


_________


Water on Glass
by Susanne Barringer


She came in from the rain, dropping her soaked coat in the hallway before 
entering the front door.  Her apartment was chilly and damp.  She had left 
the bedroom windows open, looking forward to the first of the cool fall air 
after a blistering summer.  Now, however, the humidity from a full day's 
worth of rain had soaked into the rooms, leaving the air heavy and thick.

She shut the windows, ignoring the small puddles that had gathered on the 
windowsills.  Stripping off her wet clothes, she shivered as the cool air hit 
her heated skin.  She was still pissed.

He had been difficult today and they had argued until finally she'd had it.  
They had their days like this--maybe only two or three times a year, but when 
they happened all hell broke loose.  He was just so condescending to her this 
afternoon and insisted on arguing over every little thing.  It was times like 
today that she generally wanted to slug him.  She supposed she should be 
thankful that it didn't happen more often.

Wrapping herself in a towel, she hung the wet clothes over the shower rod.  
She ran a comb through her damp hair which was already springing up into the 
almost-curly way it fell naturally instead of the tamed bob she usually wore.  
The rain always did that to her hair, destroying her daily attempts to 
restrain the buoyancy she had never felt matched her personality.

She thought about turning on the heat for a few minutes to take the chill out 
of the air but finally decided against it.  She dug through her drawers until 
she found her favorite sweats--the heavy ones that were stretched out around 
the knees and elbows.  Sometimes she liked to cuddle up into her comfort 
clothes and leave the apartment a bit chilly.  Tonight it might help take the 
edge off her frustration with him.

She dried her skin thoroughly before donning the sweats, but still the 
dampness lingered inside of her.  She put on the water for a cup of tea, 
hoping that would help ease the chill.  As the water bubbled in the kettle, 
she felt some of the tension from the day draining away.

Maybe she had been too hard on him, but when he pushed her as relentlessly as 
he had today, something had to give.  This time, it was her temper.  She 
didn't think he was doing it on purpose, but sometimes his frustrations with 
work leaked out into his relationship with her, and when he was on edge like 
that, it only drove her to be the same.

They had bickered over silly things, really--a missing expense report, her 
agreeing to a meeting without checking to make sure the time was convenient 
for him, his failure to follow up on a phone call she had asked him to make.  
It was just one of those days, and when he turned condescending, she had 
finally called him a jackass and walked out.

She wasn't proud of her behavior, although it had felt good at the moment.  
Now she regretted it, if only because of the way it made her feel.  She hated 
to lose control, and she especially hated the rare occasion when she ran away 
from him instead of staying to fight it out.

The truth was on days like this she felt all her emotions for him bubble up 
and overwhelm her.  It was easy to keep her feelings for him in check, but 
when the two of them argued, the release of some of those feelings resulted 
in a release of all of them, and she found herself drowning in the deluge of 
all she felt until she wanted to slam something against the wall just to 
release the pressure.

In the cold light of home, however, she wished they had ended differently.  
There was no reason to go home angry, not over trivial things.

She was just about to pour the hot water into her cup when there was a knock 
at the door.  She looked down to examine her ragged clothes, contemplated 
putting on a robe to look somewhat presentable, but the knocking intensified 
so she headed straight for the door.

It was him.

"Hi," he said simply.

She couldn't help but be surprised.  After one of their "difficult" days, 
they usually just did the apologizing in the morning.  He had never come by 
her apartment before.

"Peace offering?"  He held out a six-pack of Shiner Bock.  She wasn't a beer 
person, but she had made the mistake of saying one night while they were 
hanging out as his place that the Shiner Bock he had offered her was "pretty 
good."  Since then, he often arrived carrying a six-pack of the Texas beer, 
as if an offering from the gods.  He usually drank two, she drank one, and 
the other three joined the growing Shiner Bock regiment on the bottom shelf 
of her refrigerator.

She took the gift and walked away from the door, leaving him to shut it.  She 
carried the beer to the refrigerator, grabbing two before putting the rest 
away.  Re-entering the living room, she found him still standing by the door.

"I'm sorry about today," he said, giving a small shrug.  He seemed as if he 
was waiting for an invitation to enter her territory rather than making 
himself at home as he usually did.

"Come in and sit."

He wasn't wearing a coat, so when he turned to drop his keys on the coffee 
table she noticed the rain spilled across the back of his blue Oxford shirt.  
The drops were small and sparse, like a pattern of random dark blue polka-
dots that she, for some reason, wanted to connect.  His hair was damp, too, 
pressed against the back of his neck.

He surprised her by coming to stand in front of her instead of taking a seat 
on the sofa as she expected.  She held out one of the beers toward him.  He 
reached for it without taking his eyes off her.  

"Thanks."  He twisted off the cap, then looked at it as if not sure what to 
do with it.  She held out her hand and he placed the cap in her palm, next to 
the cap from her own beer.  She was about to go to the kitchen to throw them 
in the trash when he suddenly reached out to touch her hair briefly, as if 
surprised at its lack of restraint.

"I really am sorry," he murmured as his hand moved from her hair to her 
shoulder, then back to gripping his beer.  She felt nailed into place, unable 
to leave the way he was looking at her--full of apology and regret, and 
something else.

She closed her fist over the bottle caps and decided to stay.

"It's okay.  It was just one of those days."  Her voice sounded soft even 
though some of the earlier irritation was cropping up again.  There was no 
reason for it.  He obviously hadn't come here to argue.  She figured she 
hadn't had the appropriate cooling-off time.  He had changed the status quo 
by coming over instead of waiting until the morning to fix the problem, which 
usually didn't seem so much like a problem by the time morning rolled around.

He nodded at her statement, but then his brow furrowed and he changed to 
shaking his head in the negative.  "No, that's not good enough.  There's no 
reason for us to argue like that."

For some reason, she had trouble looking at him.  Maybe it was his damp hair, 
which tugged at her heart in some inexplicable way.  Maybe it was the 
tenderness with which he had just touched her.  Whatever it was, she found 
herself staring at his beer while his fingers picked restlessly at the label.

The edges of the bottle caps dug into her palm.  What was he doing to her?  
He was just standing there.  Just standing there looking a hundred times 
apologetic and totally lost.

She ventured a peek up to his eyes which reflected the lights from the 
kitchen behind her.  "I don't think it's that unusual that sometimes we 
aren't going to get along.  It's inevitable with as much time as we spend 
together."

He blinked slowly, then looked at his feet.  "Not like that.  If we're going 
to argue, let's argue about things that matter."  He moved to meet her gaze 
again, but she looked down at her beer before he could.  "I shouldn't have 
insisted we stay on this case when you told me you weren't comfortable with 
it.  That's worth arguing about, not an expense report.  What really matters?  
Argue with me about that."

She wasn't sure what he was getting at.  She had no problems bringing up the 
things that bothered her.  They had many discussions about things on which 
they didn't agree, usually managing to remain civil.  Today had been just one 
of those times when they both let the pressure and frustration get to them.  
Or was it?  Was there more?

"What really matters that we haven't already discussed to death?  A thousand 
times?"  She heard that her voice had taken on that tone again, the tone from 
today that she had started to regret after the cooling rain and dry clothes.

He shrugged and took a swig of his beer, letting his arms swing down to his 
sides when he was done, the bottle slung casually between his fingers.  
Because the apartment was so humid, already the condensation had formed on 
the outside of the bottle.  She watched as a droplet slid down the glass, 
hovered on the bottom edge of the bottle, then dropped onto the carpet.

They stood silently, his gaze bouncing around the room while she stared at 
the way the water beaded on his beer bottle.  This was worse than arguing.  
At least when they were bickering, there was something to say.  She clenched 
her fist tightly around the bottle caps in her hand, using the twinge of pain 
from the points pushing into her skin to keep from losing it.

"I'm sorry about today, too," she finally said, feeling like there was 
nowhere else for this conversation to go.  There seemed to be something in 
particular he had in mind, but she couldn't figure out what it was.  She 
shifted her gaze up to the top button on his shirt, noticing that it hung too 
loosely on its threads.  He took a drink of his beer and she watched the way 
the collar of his shirt bounced over his Adam's apple as he swallowed.

"We don't have all the time in the world."  He reached out and pressed the 
lip of his beer bottle against the top of her wrist, as if trying to get her 
attention.  He had it.  Although she knew the bottle was cold because of the 
way hers felt in her hand, the edge of the lip was warm from having been in 
his mouth.  She shivered with the thought of it.  

He was looking at her as if waiting for an answer, but she didn't know what 
to say besides that he was right.  All the time in the world.  They had been 
living like that for years, always assuming there was more time to avoid what 
really mattered.

He lifted his beer to his mouth again, and she watched the way the glass that 
had just touched her arm now rested against his top lip.  She still felt the 
moisture that it had left behind, a small drop now cooling off her skin.  The 
bottle tugged at his lower lip.  She gripped the bottle caps more tightly.

"Are you cold?" he asked, obviously having noticed the shiver she hadn't been 
able to stop.  "It's kind of chilly in here."  He looked around the room as 
if trying to determine what had made it so cold.

"I like it that way," she replied, thankful that the conversation had shifted 
gears.  He looked at her oddly, and she knew it was because he knew she was 
lying.  She was the one always turning on the heat when they were in the car 
together, not to mention making him crank up the heat when she hung out at 
his place--to a level he called "Caribbean."

"Come here."  He opened his arms to her and she stepped into them.  She 
wrapped her arms around his waist, balancing her beer bottle on the top of 
his belt, the bottle nestled snugly into the small of his back.  He squeezed 
her tightly, and she felt the soft whisper of the kiss he dropped on top of 
her head.

"I'm sorry about today."  She spoke the words to his chest, not wanting to 
move from his embrace, which was far more soothing than her old sweats.

"You said that already."

"I mean, I'm sorry for calling you a jackass and storming out."  She really 
was.  Now, anyway.

He pulled back enough so that she had to drop her arms from around him.  He 
studied her closely.  "Say what you feel.  Don't ever hold that back from me.  
Even if it's something I probably don't want to hear, say what you feel."

"I feel I prefer this to arguing," she said without thinking.  Before she 
could decide that she wanted to take it back, he laughed, relieving what 
could have been another awkward moment.

"I could arrange more of this, you know," he said with a smile.

He reached down for the beer bottle in her hand, pulling it gently from her 
grasp.  Stepping to the side, he put both their beers down on the coffee 
table, the bottles standing closely together as if to imitate their owners.  
At a loss to understand what was going on, she blindly held out her hand with 
the bottle caps.

He looked down at them a moment, then took them from her, tossing them onto 
the coffee table as well.  She could not tear herself away from his eyes to 
watch their progress, but she heard the plink as one hit the table, and the 
light thud as the other hit the rug.  He stared at her extended palm with a 
crinkled brow, so she followed his gaze.  Her palm was marked with red 
scratches from her desperate gripping of the caps.  The sharp edges had cut 
into her skin, leaving welts.

He shook his head, as if wondering what she could have been thinking to have 
not noticed what she was doing to herself.  His thumbs caressed over her 
palms, working out the marks.  She watched the way his fingers pressed into 
her flesh, massaging and circling over the rises of her hand.  She felt the 
shivering rising again.

When he was finished, he brushed a kiss against one palm, then took her into 
his arms again.  This time her hands were empty so she could press them flat 
against the expanse of his back.  His hands touched her, too--one cupping the 
back of her head, the other stroking lazily up and down her spine.

They stood for a long time just like that, loving instead of fighting.  He 
rocked them slowly back and forth, as if they were slow dancing to a silent 
tune coming from somewhere between them.  

"Much more preferable to arguing," he mumbled.

She felt light-headed, though she'd had little more than a couple of sips of 
beer.  The buzz only increased when he gradually bent over to bury his face 
against her neck.  His nose drifted over the tendon at the side of her neck, 
exploring gently, nuzzling her.  Then his lips, still cool from the beer, 
suddenly pressed against the skin and hovered there.  She gasped from the 
unexpected contact, something foreign to her concept of the two of them.  

Surprised at the sensations shooting through her, she pulled away to look at 
him.  When his hands reached up to stroke her face, she saw that they were 
trembling.  Her heart bounced inside her chest as his fingers lightly brushed 
over her cheek, then down her jaw and neck.  His hands shook against her 
skin, which she found simultaneously reassuring and terrifying.

She wished she had drunk more beer, if just to take the edge off the nerves 
which had suddenly coiled inside the pit of her stomach like a ball of lead.  
It didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out where this was going.

When he leaned down to kiss her, she closed her eyes, then kept them closed 
when he retreated after the lightest of touches.  She wanted the anticipation 
of what he would do next.  Would the next kiss be light again, or thick and 
needy?  Would he wait for her, or understand what she was waiting for?

She felt him close to her, felt his breath dance across the bridge of her 
nose as he looked at her.  She licked her bottom lip, tasting him there, all 
him and rain and smooth glass.  Then she realized that he would have seen 
that, would have seen the way that she, denied of him, had reached for the 
taste of him.

She kept her eyes closed, waiting for the next kiss.  He touched her instead, 
cupping her face, his thumb stroking across her bottom lip as if following 
where her tongue had just been.  Her whole body was focused on that contact, 
on the way she imagined she could feel the ridges of his fingerprints 
brushing across her.  Her tongue darted out, sweeping over the pad of his 
thumb, and she recalled with a tingling in her palms the way he had caressed 
the welts out of her.

He stopped the movement of his finger, letting her draw it into her mouth.  
She ran her tongue around the tip, feeling the sharp point of a loose cuticle 
and the ridges across the top of the nail--those beautiful fingers of his 
that she had watched for so long, gripping the steering wheel in the car, 
drumming on the desk at work.  She heard him release a long wavering breath 
and felt him as he stepped closer, pressing his hips against hers.

She released his thumb and opened her eyes, met with a look from him that 
sent a crack of heat through her abdomen.  He was kissing her before she 
realized it was going to happen, this time full on, pressing his lips 
desperately against hers.  Her tongue darted out to get that taste of him she 
craved.  He pulled away slightly, allowing only their lips to touch, slowing 
her down.

Instead of frustrating her, it only hastened the unraveling of the nerves 
that had pooled in her stomach.  When he finally parted her lips and met her 
probing tongue with his own, the heat rushed between her legs and she 
shivered in the cool air.
  
"Still cold?" he stopped to ask, but planted kisses along her neck and jaw 
while waiting for her answer.

"Not exactly," she mumbled, searching for his lips again and pressing herself 
against him.  He responded to her lack of hesitation, wrapping her up tightly 
in his arms as his tongue explored her mouth.

She felt drunk and out of control and was glad it wasn't the beer after all.  
She tugged at his shirt to pull it out of his jeans, then fumbled for the 
buttons.  He grunted beneath her kisses, pressing into her harder until she 
was backed up against the wall to the kitchen.  She was distracted from the 
unbuttoning, pressing her hands flat against the wall behind her as he ran 
his hands down the sides of her rib cage, across her belly, then up to her 
breasts.  She concentrated on his touch, the way his hands were hot against 
her, even through the fabric, as her palms lay against the cool wall.

His hands brushed gently over her breasts but then retreated to her 
shoulders, leaving her arching forward to meet him.  She wasn't wearing a 
bra, so when he returned to her breasts and cupped them, she could feel her 
nipples tighten underneath his fingers.  He watched his hand circling around 
the curves, but made no move to touch her underneath her sweatshirt.

The desperation rose again and she groped for his belt buckle, trying to undo 
it but distracted by the sudden pressure of his erection against her stomach.  
She slid her hand down between the two of them, feeling his cock hard against 
her palm and focusing on the growl she heard coming from his throat before he 
kissed her deeply again.

A sudden pinch of her nipple made her hips buck against his and she reached 
around behind him to pull him toward her, pressing as hard as she could 
against him and digging her fingers into his ass to keep him there.  His 
breath puffed against her ear, and she stroked him more quickly, loving the 
way he felt through the denim of his jeans and feeling the arousal building 
in her center as he began rhythmically grinding against her.

Suddenly he pulled his hips away, taking a small step back and dropping his 
hands from her breasts.  He pressed his forehead against hers, breathing 
heavily.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as he took her hands in his to stop her from 
touching him.  The nerves fluttered back into her stomach.  Given a moment to 
think, she suddenly felt sheepish about the way she was groping him.

"No."  His hand caressed her cheek again as he looked at her.  "This is one 
thing we don't apologize for.  Any of this.  I don't apologize for wanting 
you.  Do you?"

"Do I want you?"  She knew what he meant but couldn't resist teasing him.  
Besides, saying those words was an amazing thing in itself.  She unscrambled 
them in her head to the right order, not a question, and submerged herself in 
the thought that the words explaining what she had felt for so long had 
spilled forth so easily.

His hand slipped between her legs, catching her off guard.  She lurched 
against the wall behind her and grabbed his shoulders to keep her balance.

"Apparently, you do," he said with a wicked grin.  He stroked up along the 
seam of her sweatpants, studying her eyes intently and driving flashes of 
feverish tumults through her.

"God, you're so wet.  I can feel it."  His whisper fell across her lips, but 
she felt it swell between her legs.  She wondered why he sounded so amazed, 
given the way he was touching her and kissing her.  She had felt the 
beginnings of that heat from the moment he had stood in front of her, damp 
and remorseful.

"Well?  What did you expect?" she managed to get out when his tongue left 
hers and trailed down her neck.

He stopped to look at her again, his hand pulling away to wander along the 
elastic waistband of her pants.  "Not this.  I never expected to feel like 
this."  For the first time that day, they were in total agreement.

"I do want you."  The unscrambled words sounded exactly right, even to her 
muddled brain.

His smile was dazzling.  "Yeah?"

"Yeah."  She closed her eyes again, trembling with the anticipation of what 
he would do next.  She thought she could probably be entirely content 
spending the rest of her life waiting blindly for his next surprise.  He 
hesitated, as if to tease her, then hooked his thumbs in the waistband of her 
sweatpants and stripped them down in one fast motion.

The cool air rushed up her legs, causing a soft "Oh God" to escape.  He knelt 
in front of her, pulling the pants off each foot one by one.  His hands ran 
up her legs, from her knees to her thighs, and a jolt ran through her body 
when he came close to where he had touched before.  He leaned forward and 
kissed the inside of one thigh, nipping at the flesh quickly, then running 
his tongue up to where the elastic of her panties fell over her hip.  She 
waited for more, but he stood up again.

"Look at me."  When she opened her eyes, she was met with the most intense, 
longing, loving look she had ever seen.  It actually made her knees weak, 
something she couldn't quite believe happened outside of the books she had 
read on the sly as a teenager.

He took her hand, laced his fingers through hers, and led her into the 
bedroom.  Inside the door, he stopped to kick off his shoes.  She let go of 
his hand and walked toward the window next to the bed.  She was glad she had 
closed it earlier; the rain had picked up and was drumming steadily against 
the pane.

She felt the chill rise in her again even though she was here, safe behind 
the glass like a priceless artifact.  He came up behind her and she saw that 
his arms were bare as he wrapped them around her; he must have removed his 
shirt along with his shoes.

She leaned back against him as he stroked over her folded arms and watched 
the rain with her for a few moments.  

"What are you thinking?" he whispered against her ear.  One hand wound its 
way underneath her sweatshirt, moving across her belly in sweeping circles, 
then running in lines up and down her ribs.  His touch immediately brought 
back the heated pounding between her legs, the tingle where he had kissed her 
thigh.

"What you said before.  We don't have all the time in the world."  His hand 
stopped its movement, and she felt his chest rise with a sigh underneath her 
head.

"We only need now."  His voice was nervous and full of arousal.

The world outside the window was a blur, the water running in sheets down the 
pane.  She could see the reflection of the two of them in the glass--his bare 
chest, her bare legs.  She uncrossed her arms and lifted her sweatshirt, 
pulling it off and dropping it to the floor.  His eyes wandered down, looking 
at the reflection of her breasts as it shimmied against the flowing water.

She turned around in his arms, meeting him skin to skin.  "We've spent too 
long behind glass."  He did not ask what she meant.  When he nodded, she 
realized he didn't have to.

He ducked his head, dropping a light kiss on each breast.  Then he focused 
his attention on one, darting his tongue around the nipple, teasing her with 
the edges of his teeth.  She ran one hand through his hair and leaned against 
the window.  It was cold against her back, and wet, but welcome as a balance 
to the heat he was stirring up in her once more.

He groaned when she pulled his head up to kiss him, this kiss deeper and 
longer than any before.  A clap of thunder rumbled in the distance, and he 
chuckled against her lips, then tugged on her arms and pulled her to the bed.

The sheet was damp underneath her back, soaked with the humidity of the day 
of rain.  It felt soothing against her shoulders and the backs of her legs.  
He stood in front of her, unhooking the belt she had started to attempt to 
unbuckle what seemed like hours ago.  She watched as he pushed his jeans over 
his hips, revealing the bulge she had felt in her hand.  The rain ran over 
the window behind his head, creating ribbons of light from the streetlamps 
outside.  The light bounced around his head like fireflies against a mirror.

She sat up and stripped off his boxers herself, pushing them down over his 
cock.  His body responded quickly, growing harder even before she touched 
him.  When she did reach out to take him in her hands, he released a long 
sigh and reached down to stroke her hair.  She ran her hand over his cock, 
memorizing its shape, the ridges, and the way it felt.  He watched the way 
she touched him, his eyes wide with arousal.

After a few moments, he stepped away and knelt beside her on the bed.  His 
hand trailed in circles across the top of her thigh, then dipped down to 
caress the inside of each leg.  His fingers traced along the elastic of her 
panties, as if it served as a border which should not be crossed.  

They had crossed them all tonight, all the borders that had stood between 
them.  Was it really as simple as one argument and a couple of beers to push 
them over the line?

They had definitely spent too much time behind glass, too much time watching 
the rain instead of splashing in the puddles.  They didn't have all the time 
in the world.  She leaned back on the bed, lifted her hips, and stripped off 
the borders.

She lay flat on the bed and pulled him on top of her, wanting to feel his 
weight and the way he fit against her.  His hands ran gently over her neck 
first, as if they were starting all over again.  She explored the span of his 
back--the angle of his shoulder blades and the hollow between them that 
stretched over the small hill of his spine.

His cock pushed into her leg where he had kissed her earlier, but still he 
did nothing but touch her.  His hands ran down, across and around her 
breasts, raising a moan of pleasure out of her that vibrated down through her 
groin.  Then his hands danced across her hip bones, past where the elastic 
had been, finally coming to rest in the place where she most needed him.  He 
pressed his fingers into her clitoris until her hips drove up against him.  
He found the right spot and circled it.  The heat wound its way through her, 
ending in the wetness between her legs and the throbbing under his hands.

She reached up to kiss him, remembering the different ways he had tasted and 
how she had watched his mouth that night while he talked to her--how she had 
watched him always.

He settled flat on top of her as the kiss deepened, his hands running over 
her thighs, then up to her breasts.  She wrapped her legs around him.  He was 
close to her now, close enough, and she lifted her hips up toward him.  There 
was no more time.

When he entered her, it was slowly and carefully, and more exquisite than she 
could have imagined.  She had been ready for hours it seemed, years, and her 
body opened up to him.  He sucked in a breath of astonishment and looked at 
her the way he had earlier, when he had first reached out to touch her.  The 
sensations rolled through her, yet still she noticed the way his hair was 
damp, the way it was pressed down in front of his ear.  Had this all been 
because of the rain?

"I do want you," she said, mostly because it had sounded right earlier and 
she needed to say something now.  He laughed and shook his head in amazement.  
No, they could not have known it would feel like this.

He stroked slowly inside of her at first, kissing her with each thrust in a 
way that set her blood pounding in its own rhythm.  She had a brief flashback 
to the office earlier that day, the way he had made her angry and the way 
that anger had felt.  It was amazingly similar to now--hot and damp and 
filling her up.  In some way, this was just an extension of that same 
feeling, of emotion balanced precariously on the edge of a great divide.

She pulled him into her, using her legs and her hands to push him faster and 
harder, amazed at the way he felt, how deep he could reach inside of her.  He 
continued to touch her all over, watching her reaction as he moved across 
each part of her body, until finally his hand came down between them, 
pressing again into her clitoris each time his cock plunged into her.  His 
body shielded her from the coolness of the room although she felt it around 
the edges, the parts of her he didn't touch, reminding her of how cold she 
had been.

She felt the sheen of dampness across her limbs, him hot inside of her, his 
tongue blazing lines into her mouth, neck, breasts.  She felt the muscles in 
his arms, his strength, the way he used his whole body to thrust into her.  
She felt the way his hips crashed into hers, the way they met halfway, each 
of them reaching for the most connection. 

The swirling in her body came again, driving thoughts of everything out of 
her head but the way he felt against her, the way his body fit over hers.  
She heard the rain against the window loudly inside her head, like cannons 
pounding in time with her blood.  His body, warm, shifting against hers and 
inside hers, reminded her of rain.

The heat ran through her like water, smooth and easy, pooling in the corners 
of her body.  It ran from the tips of her deep inside to the center, circling 
and circling around the place his body met hers until it became an ocean, a 
waterfall, a storm inside her.  He steadied the rhythm of his penetration and 
watched her, his eyes dark and wandering over her, his hand quickening its 
tempo against her clitoris.  She felt his gaze boring into her, igniting her, 
all meshed together in that one spot between her legs where he moved inside 
of her, faster and harder, and where his fingers stroked until the roaring 
inside her consumed her thoughts and she felt the spiral tightening through 
the middle of her.  She arched back across the bed, her hands gripping 
frantically at the sheets.  He rested his head against her chest as she rode 
through the spasms, then kissed her tenderly as the tremors subsided.

She relaxed then, her legs slipping from around him.  Her body felt weighted, 
glued to the sheets beneath her.  He waited until she caught her breath, then 
picked up the pace of his movement once more, thrusting into her with force.  
She welcomed his power, the way his body moved inside of her, deeper than 
seemed possible.  His breath fell hot against her neck as his thrusts lost 
their steady rhythm, pushing harder and more frantically.  He growled, ground 
against her with desperation, then shouted something she couldn't hear 
through the fuzz in her ears.  She met his thrusts as best she could until he 
sank down against her with a guttural groan she felt skitter across her 
heart.

He stayed there a few moments, and she touched the light beads of sweat 
coating his back.  It reminded her of the rain on the back of his shirt from 
earlier, wet-blue on dry, and the way the pattern had seemed so needing of 
connections.

When he rolled off of her and snuggled up next to her, she turned away from 
him so that he could wrap his arms around her from behind and pull her body 
into his.  She noticed that the rain had nearly stopped, and the room seemed 
to have lost the chill she hadn't been able to shake earlier.  They had 
managed to steam up the windows, although she knew that was more from the 
humidity in the apartment than anything else.  Still, it made her smile, 
which somehow he sensed.

"What?" he asked, drowsiness in his voice.  He brushed a lazy kiss against 
her shoulder blade.

She didn't answer him and he let it rest, his arm falling lax against her 
belly as his breathing deepened.  She watched as a large drop of condensation 
gathered at the top of the inside window pane, then cut a line through the 
fog as it worked its way downward.  

The drop slid slowly down the window, the same way his soul had slid against 
hers as they made love.  Smooth and polished and effortless, just like water 
on glass.


~~~~~~~~

END

Except for the WIP, which was pretty much finished anyway, I haven't written 
any fanfic in 8 months.  I'm way out of practice.  Remind me that it's like 
riding a bike?

sbarringer@usa.net

All my fic can be found at http://www.geocities.com/s_barringer