devious

Reccing Notes: I really like when we can see that devious, snarky Chloe that the show has tried to tone down, and paraxdisepink killed several of us very dead when she posted this.

So, Davis is still panicking over what he was/is, and Chloe just wants this little dance of theirs to come to a conclusion. In more than one way.
It's unashamed and very real, get out your squees!

by paraxdisepink at her livejournal
1627 words, m/r to nc-17, post-bride

Redemption was good. Redemption was noble – the motive of heroes – but some days it was a pain in the ass.



He wouldn’t touch her. He was afraid of what he was, what he’d done and froze up every time she came within two feet of him. He wanted her, but the thought of that thing’s genetically engineered shell allowing himself to forget the horrors he was responsible for indulging in something so normal and beautiful sickened him.

Redemption was good. Redemption was noble – the motive of heroes – but some days it was a pain in the ass. Especially with a guy who looked like that and who insisted on parading his shirtless muscular body and perfect abs around her apartment without any consideration for their effect on a girl. Chloe had attempted, in some ways more subtle than others, to get him thinking with something other than his brain, but all to no avail. Unless you counted tortured looks and husky and apologetic “I can’t, Chloe”s whenever she tried to wrap her arms around him, kiss his neck, or go for the buttons on his shirt. And by “can’t” he didn’t mean can’t either. She’d walked down the hall and heard his ragged breathing through the bathroom door more than once, heard the pained and broken sounds he made and knew it was her he fantasized about, and she knew she wasn’t making this easy for him.

She began thinking of it as a contest of wills and came – pun intended – to the conclusion that this had to stop. She devised a plan, acquired what she needed – who knew the meteor rock craze had spread to that little corner of society – dressed for the occasion, and very sweetly led a nice post-shower Davis into her bedroom one evening with the promise that she had something to show him.

He was, as predicted, eager and trusting. So trusting she wanted to kiss his nicely chiseled cheek and assure him everything would be all right if he just let go and followed her lead. But coaxing hadn’t worked with him and he’d driven her to tough love, so she pushed him down on the bed – all six feet whatever of him – and brandished what she’d been hiding in the pocket of her silky white robe, silver metal studded with those telltale glowing green stones.

His eyes went big and his full mouth fell open when she clamped one hand and then the other to the headboard

“You’re handcuffing me?” His voice cracked, shocked, and at that moment Davis struck her as endearingly naïve. Maybe she wasn’t as streetwise, but he had a lot to learn when it came to the tricks Chloe Sullivan had up her sleeve when she wanted to get to the bottom of things. “You said you had something to show me.” He sounded a little betrayed, flat on his back wearing nothing but a pair of sweats. Not a bad picture. Not at all.

Chloe tilted her head sideways and smiled at him. “I do,” she promised, climbing onto the bed. “But someone has to be a good boy first.”

He stared up at her, incredulous and maybe a little miffed he’d been out-maneuvered this way, and he deadpanned, “I don’t know, Chloe. Obviously I’ve been a very bad boy.”

It hurt. The self-hatred, the determination to punish and deprive himself for the rest of his life. She had to get through to him.

“Then I’ll just have to make this hard for you.” She unbelted her robe, letting it fall from her shoulders. The matching nightie she wore beneath didn’t hide much, and maybe she should have chosen her words more carefully given the way his eyes moved over her. Or maybe not.

She crawled up to him, on all fours over his body. He clenched his jaw and pressed himself into the mattress to avoid contact with her, and when she leaned down close enough to kiss him he turned his head away, deliberately pulling his gaze from her mouth. His breath, she noticed, was coming a little faster.

“You know,” she told him in as mischievous a voice as she could manage. “The green stuff would keep you from hurting me – If you’re even dangerous – if that’s what you’re really afraid of.”

She didn’t tell him she doubted those were real meteor rocks. He’d be sick if they were. Sometimes you had to lie to the people you care about for their own good. She leaned closer and brushed her lips to his. He angled his head up on instinct, his mouth opening under hers, and when she pulled away he made an anguished sound and looked up at her hungry and helpless. Her own personal Tantalus and she the river receding from his reach. He definitely was tantalizing, half naked under her.

“Chloe . . .” his voice was rough. “A guy can only take so much here.”

There. Her first victory. For the first time he had conceded, indirectly, that he was not a “thing.” She settled back onto her heels, sitting on top of him, his skin warm against her bare thighs. She ran her hands along his arms, watched muscles bulge as he strained, watched his face, the way he swallowed as though his throat were dry.

“You’re not telling me to stop,” she pointed out. “It’s not like I’m here to force you.”

That little fact hung in the air between them as her hands came to his chest. Davis rolled his head back and closed his eyes, and all he had to say was stop and he didn’t. Chloe smiled, took her hands away and waited for his eyes to open again. She gathered the hem of her little slip and pulled it over her head. His eyes went as wide as they could go at the sight of all that exposed skin beyond his reach, and all he could do was stare at her and utter hoarsely,

“Chloe . . .”

She ignored him – or obliged him – leaning down over him again and rubbing her cheek against his jaw. This time, instead of straining away from her, he arched up in a vain effort to brush his skin against hers. She didn’t allow it and pushed herself up, watching his fingers twist in their bonds, itching to touch her. She bit down on his neck – just a little, laughing when he shook all over.

“You know, this doesn’t have to be this way,” she murmured. Her mouth drifted over his chest, running her tongue along his ribs, those impressive abs . . . Muscles tensed, and he twisted under her with a low choked sound. Her fingers went to the drawstring on his pants.

His back arched, and he was breathing hard. She untied the knot and after a tense moment of anticipation he growled, “Okay, Chloe. You asked for it. Uncuff me.”

She didn’t have to be told twice. She’d hidden the key under the pillow and had the stupid things unlocked in no time. His wrists were red, but that didn’t matter. She’d successfully baited the beast and he leapt on her.

He threw her flat on her back in a heartbeat, pinning her wrists to the mattress with his hands and staring down at her hungry and wild-eyed like an animal crouched over its prey. Chloe wriggled her hands to show she could free herself if she wanted to. It didn’t scare her, being held down like this. Irony of ironies she felt safe with him. Besides, she had him right where she wanted. Well, just about.

She grinned her triumph and twisted under him. “Come on, Davis. You’ve finally got me, now come here and have your wicked way with me.”

He wet his lips, then his mouth smothered hers, velvety and hard and drinking her in. She worked one leg out from under him and slid her heel against his bare back, just in case he needed more of an invitation. Davis made a sound against her mouth and let go of one of her wrists, his palm large and hot gliding along the back of her thigh, drawing her leg around him.

Chloe braced herself, threw her head back with the knife-sharp pleasure when he slid inside. He was . . . not Jimmy, and her body pulsed like a white-hot thing around him. He tore his mouth from her neck and pulled back, staring down at her bright-eyed in amazement. She knew it’d be like this, if she gave in, if he gave in. She grabbed his shoulders and he sank down onto her, into her, his hands sliding under her back where he balanced himself on his elbows, gathering her up against his chest and satisfying the magnetism that drew them together.

She thought of the Greek myth, as she groaned under him, clung to him, and called his name – two people split in half putting themselves back together. She thought she was going to die.

Afterward, when they had both caught their breath and came to their senses enough to worry about just how many people in her apartment complex had heard them, Davis turned to look at her. “Are you sure that interactive construct thing hasn’t gotten a hold of you again?”

Chloe smiled, settling against his chest and sighing when his arms came around her. “Why? Did he handcuff you in the Fortress and take liberties I don’t know about?”

Davis stared at her, incredulous all over again. “He? Okay, Chloe, that’s a whole identity crisis I don’t need right now. I think you’ve shocked me enough for one day.”

She giggled and slid one of her feet between his where she had started to grow cold now that the sweat was drying on her skin. The cold didn’t last long though; his hand was moving over her shoulder, her side, her hip, for the first time really touching her.