by jordan
Silence slowly cooled the room, chilling the flesh, though both Scully and Skinner still had most of their clothes on. Lightning strobed the windows periodically, illuminating them like deer caught in headlights. As the sweat dried, it condensed into clouds of regret.
Skinner's regret: he'd finally had his chance, and taken her like a rutting animal, even though she had given him little choice in the matter. Why she did it was still a mystery. The first time, she'd been drugged and out of her mind with grief. But this time--what? What would Scully's regret be?
He raised up on an elbow to look down at her. She glanced at his throat, not willing to meet his eyes even in the semi-dark room. Moments ago he had been driving into her, mouths joined, hands frantic. Now she was as shy as a virgin lying in his bed.
But she was lying in his bed.
Well, technically, he was lying in hers, something he never expected to do again. He brushed the hair from her face, and although she didn't wince at his touch, she did stiffen a little.
"You'd better go," she said.
Skinner said, "I don't think so, Agent Scully."
He had not let go of her and, and when she started to move away, he drew her back. He said, "I can't believe you were so afraid of talking to me about what happened between us that you actually had sex with me to avoid the subject."
The corners of her lips quirked; God forbid she should smile. "That's not exactly what happened."
"Then what did happen?"
She sighed deeply. "I don't know. I wanted you. I won't deny it. I let this happen."
"Scully, you MADE this happen."
She made a little movement with her shoulders that might have been a shrug. She said, "That night when you and I...slept together...It wasn't rape. I admit I wasn't quite all there, but you didn't take advantage of me." She paused and took a deep breath, steadying herself. "I was so lonely. I mean, I felt so alone. Then when I was with you, I...you..."
"What?"
"You're so strong," she said. "You made me feel safe."
Skinner resisted the impulse to flex a biceps, even though he understood that by strength she meant support and concern. Scully was the most independent person he knew, man or woman, but that night she had needed his protection from the raw world.
"But now?" he prompted. "This?"
"I don't know. It's been five years since I've been with anyone. And then it wasn't so great. Then when you and I were together, I didn't have to think. It was such a relief. Then afterwards...I just...I haven't been able to forget it."
Skinner sighed. "Neither have I, Scully. Neither have I."
***************
The house sat alone, several miles out of the town proper, backed by woods, though in the dark it was impossible to tell if it was just a stand of trees or deep forest. It had stopped raining, but when Mulder stepped
out of the car he felt his shoes squelch in the mud. A porch light came on as they drove up the path to the gate.
June Star got out on the other side and waited until he had come around to join her. Mulder smelled her, a high sharp tang of fear-sweat under a heavy dose of Charlie. He wanted to put his hand on her arm; touching people brought them more clearly into focus for him. But the screen door to the house screeched open and two young men came out.
"My brothers," June Star said.
And that was how they got close enough to jump him.
********************
"But you know this is wrong, don't you?" Scully said.
"I still think the first time was some sort of statutory rape, whether you liked it or not. You weren't in full possession of your faculties. But if you mean we can't be together now because I'm your boss..." He paused thoughtfully. "Well, yes, that's wrong, too."
She looked at him at last. "I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"For everything. For hurting you."
He traced the curve of her face with his fingertip, ran his thumb over her full lower lip. She made no attempt to stop him. He said, "You can't help that. Whenever you're around, a lot of men are going to hurt just because they want you and can't have you. It's not your fault."
"Still," she said. "We can't do this again."
"Well, probably not," he admitted, "But technically we haven't finished this time."
He felt more than saw the uneasiness that ran through her. He began to unbutton her blouse carefully, not touching her in any other way. She put her hand up to stop him.
"No," she said.
No means no, he thought dreamily. He stopped what he was doing and put his hand on her breast, over the soft cotton of her blouse, over the nylon cup of her bra. His thumb stroked her in a firm, gentle caress. He watched her face, and although she closed her eyes, her nostrils flared in a short sharp intake of breath.
For the first time, Skinner began to realize what was going on. Before, she had been grieving, and needed someone strong to help her through. Then, less than an hour ago, he had been bullying her because he needed to give her information and she was resisting him. Scully could not have sex with him on a fifty fifty basis. She couldn't handle whatever guilt and shame her full participation would entail. If he wanted her, he was going to have to push for it.
Still, he would have stopped immediately if not for that one breath. She wanted him. It was a sign of inexperience that she wasn't even aware of the signals she was giving. It was possible that she wasn't even aware of how passionate her nature was. But it made sense: she'd had to fight her feelings, especially around Mulder, for so long that her surface had turned to ice.
But it had not touched the fire inside her. Skinner's advantage was experience; between his first marriage and his last, he had been with a few women, and those women had given him a PhD in the art of sexual pleasure. Scully didn't have the slightest idea of what she was capable of, had never explored this side of herself. And that was another advantage.
He stared down at her in the dark, his eyes deep sockets with only pinpoints of light in their centers: the wolf regarding the lamb. Finally his desire had a cool head, a calculated direction. It was a good thing Scully was not looking at him at that moment.
As he stroked her breast, feeling her skin warm to his touch beneath the material of her clothes, she gripped his wrist. But her fingers were feeble, and the intent half hearted. He took his hand from her and seized the fingers that had tried vaguely to push him away, and pinned her wrist to the mattress, leaning over her.
"Scully," he said softly, in the clenched-teeth growl that was quintessentially Skinner, "I am going to fuck you again right now, and tomorrow every time you sit down you're going to remember every minute of it. Every inch of it."
Her eyes widened in alarm as he brought his face down to hers. If there was a struggle in her, it was internal, not with him. When he kissed her, she let him. Then she helped him. Then turned her face away in panic, not because he was going to do to her exactly what he'd said, but because of what he was making her feel, something their twelve minute encounter had barely touched.
Skinner made his decision. It would not have been his first choice, because his tendency towards all women was gentleness. But he was going to have to force her, to a point, or at least bully her into this. It was the only way he could get to her.
In the long run it was going to cost both of them maybe more than they could afford. But for now, nothing on earth could stop him from making love to her in the only way she was able to accept.
*******************
Mulder stood in the dark taking deep ragged breaths. He knew he had lost some blood, but he wasn't dizzy or shocky, both symptoms of blood loss he knew only too well. One of the boys had pulled a knife, a huge glittering deer-gutting monster of a knife, and slashed as far down as Mulder's ribs; he had felt the jar of impact when metal hit bone.
In the struggle he had lost his coat, pulling free while they were wrestling with the loose material, trying to get a hold on him. His cell phone was in that coat, and he had to get back to it somehow. He had to get in touch with Scully and warn her that it had been a trap, and that they'd be after her next.
Rain began to fall again, and as Mulder looked down, he saw the steam rising from his torn shirt where his blood was slowly escaping.
He looked into the dark mass of trees ahead of him, and then back at the house. He knew he wouldn't last long trying to find his way back through the woods.
He had to get to that phone. He had to get to Scully.
*******************
Skinner undressed her, and himself, in slow stages. His skin had no memory of hers, as if this was the first time he had ever touched her. Everything seemed new and magic, almost otherworldly. And yet he had rarely felt so much in the moment. When she was naked he only wanted to feel her responses to him, the pressure of his hands changing the position of her body, controlling the expression on her face. She seemed in a daze, wanting to stop him, but unable to find a point at which it was possible.
He kissed her gently, his mouth moving lightly over hers, tongue teasing her lips apart for entry, while his fingers did the same thing under the sheet he had drawn over them for warmth. Still, Scully resisted, or only surrendered grudgingly, though her body was fully aroused. It was like trying to rub the knot out of a cramped muscle. He could feel the fever on her skin, hear her sharp gasps as he explored her, learning the secret places of pleasure, but she kept herself distanced.
"If I had a lifetime, the things I could do with you," he murmured against her breasts.
"Skinner--"
At her tone of protest he pushed her legs apart, shoving his knees between hers. It was his power that excited her, his strength that she could give in to without guilt, and he used it ruthlessly. However aggressive he became, they both knew it was only a delicious game, an exploration of boundaries, and that she was safe within the charmed circle of his protection: she was the one with the true power.
When he fucked her he held her wrists in one hand above her head in the classic position of dominance, and he was rougher with her than he would have been normally, holding her down so she couldn't move in any way but to give him pleasure, couldn't struggle in any way that didn't increase her own excitement. He knew she needed an excuse to feel the full extent of her passion, and he was giving her one. He made her feel his strength, the long slow in and out slide of his thrusts, his penis opening her again and again, stroking down in a long curving motion and making her shudder each time as he moved with increasing force, in and out. He could feel her quivering under him, a cornered thing, her hips rolling in time to his driving rhythm. He fucked her harder, faster, then deliberately slowed each time she approached a climax; delaying her orgasm as long as he could. There was a point at which pain became pleasure--he hoped no one would ever teach her that. But there was also a point at which pleasure became pain, and that was what he wanted her to feel, waiting until the moment she could not control herself, just at the threshold when teasing would become torture, when she looked up at him imploringly and groaned, "Skinner. Please."
Then he released her, letting go of her hands and bracing himself on his forearms to bang her into the mattress as hard as he could, and when she came it was with a frantic arching and bucking and twisting that seemed to go on forever, and the name she cried out was Skinner, Skinner, oh Skinner. And in taking her this way he knew he was losing every last ounce of himself to her, that she would have power over him now until the day he died.
Too intense. Afterwards she cried, not for long, just a few minutes, against the hollow of his neck. He had his chin on the top of her head, murmuring nonsense sounds to comfort her, grateful that in that position she couldn't see the tears in his own eyes.
********************
Ten miles away, Mulder jerked his head up, his mouth open, eyes wide. He felt as if a ghost had just walked through his body, and he saw a vision of Scully's face, tear streaked, for one flashing moment of clarity. He moved his lips to form her name, Scully.
Somewhere uncomfortably nearby a car door slammed, voices called to each other. Bodies rustled against leaves. Mulder pushed himself to his feet and began to run.
*******************
In sleep, Skinner kept his hand on her arm, unwilling to let her go as far away as a dream. He knew that when he eventually did turn loose, it would not be an easy thing to catch her again.
********************
They caught him just before he got to the rental car.
One of them knocked him down from behind, a flying tackle, and Mulder felt the tendons in his wrist give as he broke his fall.
A boy of no more than eighteen squatted near him, grinning. "Lookin for this, pal?" He waggled the phone tauntingly in Mulder's face. "We're just like the cops, see," the other boy said. "We let you have that one phone call. Go on. Call your friend. Maybe she'll come with bail."
Mulder winced as he took the proffered phone. It was a trick; he was waiting for one of them to snatch it back. But they both backed off a little. They wanted him to call Scully. Get her down here. A trap.
Instead, he dialed Skinner's cell phone. The call went through, rang four times in Skinner's coat pocket in his motel room, where he should have been at four in the morning. A recording came on instead: "Leave a message."
One of the boys snatched the phone back and shouted into it, "We got your boyfriend right here, honey. Elm and Hollow, north of town. You want to see him again, come alone, and if we see anyone else, like a cop, we'll fuckin kill him in a New York minute."
They both laughed excitedly, and the phone was hurled onto the roof of the house. Mulder let himself slide slowly down into the mud. He heard the girl saying anxiously, "What if the old guy comes with her? You know you're not supposed to kill the old guy. Just them."
"Yeah, well if you'd got the old guy down here like you were supposed to, we could have got them both at the same time in town."
"I told you--"
Mulder faded out again for a few minutes. When he came to, their voices had receded a little, and he saw their legs from a strange angle as they backed up from him.
"Yeah, but what if we need him to get her?"
"She'll come. Don't be a wussy. Go on."
"Screw it," one of the boys said, and Mulder twisted his head to look up in time to see the muzzle flash of his own pistol.
He twitched, and was still.
*********************
Four in the morning. Skinner woke with both arms wrapped around Scully. It was cold in the room and he pulled the blanket up around them, tucking her in. She stirred, and her whole body moved against his, breasts against his chest, warm breath on his throat, and he thought, Good God, with mild amazement at his stiffening response.
Looking down at her, a deep sadness began to seep into the empty places where she had so recently been.
I am all out of tricks, he thought. From now on it's up to you.
Scully's eyes flew open as if he had spoken aloud.
"Mulder," she said. She clutched the sheet to her breasts and sat up. "Mulder!"
*********************
