Chapter Text
“Just listen. You’re going to make me dinner. We’re going to drink this bottle of red; then we’re going to wake up and drive to the airport…”
I’m sitting at the end of the kitchen island, swirling my glass of wine and trying to hide the heady mix of desire and nervousness that’s more potent in my veins than any house red could be. I’m trying for casual, but I’m certain that I’m not pulling it off, if Richard’s glances over to me are anything to go by.
I dart another look at the man before trying to hide my attention in the depths of the red wine. I’m trying to be calm… casual… when all I want to do is beg him to take me… here… now… right on this damn kitchen island…
God Alex, I chastise myself, shocked at the direction my thoughts have taken. Though, to be fair, I admit that it isn’t the first time that they have tended that way. But how could they not, I argue with myself, when there’s a man like Richard… with a voice like… oh, God… his voice.
That’s probably what got to me first, his voice. Before I ever saw him; ever met him… his voice. Richard has a voice for radio… and other things… I imagine… have imagined, listening back on our interviews…
I dare to take another look in his direction and realize that I can steal a moment to study his profile since he’s intent on his task.
I can see why his students would rate him so high on rate-my-professor… why Coralee would… why his wife… no… his ex-wife. I mean, she must be his ex-wife now, right? She left him… again… He must think of her as his ex-wife now, right? After-all when I suggested… well when I suggested what I had, Richard hadn’t rejected me. He hadn’t sent me away… had instead set to work on making dinner for us… so that we could eat before…
Before what, Alex? Before Richard wines, and dines, and then takes you to bed? Before he uses that talented, talking tongue for something besides lecturing or expounding upon the nature of the supernatural? Before he uses those large, beautiful hands to…
I break free from my heated thoughts to notice that that those normally talented hands are currently turning the shallots on the cutting board into paste.
“Richard…”
He turns what I can only describe as a heated glance in my direction. His eyes are dark, and a little out of focus, and when he looks at me, I swear I could catch fire from the naked desire I see in them. It’s almost shocking to see that look directed at me so openly. Normally Richard is so careful to hide what he feels, even if I’ve caught glimpses of… something… before…
But I think… I think maybe he doesn’t intend for me to see, because he’s flushing, and nervous, and startled in a way that I haven’t seen him before either. And suddenly, I notice something in his eyes shifting and I’m scared he’s going to send me away after-all; he’s going to run by making me leave first…
“I think they’re minced; much more and you’re going to turn them into paste,” I say as playfully as I can, trying to hide the sudden desperation I’m feeling.
He looks down at the mess he’s making of the shallots on the cutting board.
“Then again,” I say, trying to distract him I suppose. “I’m no chef… I can’t even follow those cards in those meal box things, so maybe it’s supposed to look like that?”
I try to add a lightness to my tone. I can’t let him send me away, not when I want him so damn much. Maybe if I give him a lifeline… offer him the banter that’s come to characterize so many of our interactions before I sprang this on him…
“Alex…” he begins to say, using his best lecturing voice, the one developed over years immersed in the academic world. “Alex, you don’t…”
“You’re going to make me dinner,” I interrupt him in a quiet, insistent tone; the one that’s kept him coming back to me… to our interviews and investigations over the years. “You’re going to make me dinner, Richard,” I repeat.
He nods and says, “I’m going to make you dinner.”
And we reset. He’s making dinner and I'm just… there’s no other word for it but, besotted… he’s just so beautiful… just everything… from his dark hair… to his blazing blue eyes… to the way he challenges me… his intelligence… his voice…
Damn, but I want this man in the worst way.
It has been building in me for years… this fire… this desire… this need for him… for Richard… Each interview; every coffee date or dinner; every time he snuck a hand to rest on the small of my back in the guise of guiding me through a door, or brushed back stray curls from cheek… A thousand and one little sparks have built this fire in me…
So, I bought two tickets… they could have been for anywhere… it doesn't matter, as long as he's with me… as long as I can finally have him… no shadows… no nightmares, or ex-wives, or crazy cults can have him, because he's mine… mine…
“Together…”
And he must want me too, right? Because… together…
And when I had suggested… well…
“We’re going to wake up…”
God, I want to just… forget dinner… forget red wine… or waking up… because I don’t want to go to sleep. I want… I want Richard to bend me over this countertop and take me… again, and again, and again… until we don’t know where either of us begins or ends… I want…
“Richard…”
I want to tell him to forget dinner, to just take me to his bedroom right now and make love to me like nothing else matters but he, and I, and this fire burning… burning…
I look into his eyes and what I see there tells me that he must feel it too. That…
“Why don’t you take your glass to the living room, and I’ll call you when it’s ready?” he suggests.
It’s a simple, honest suggestion…
“I could help,” I offer in return, setting my wine glass down with a clink on the marble top of the kitchen island.
It’s a simple, honest suggestion, but it’s not what he wants. I’ve spent years getting to know this man and hours listening to his voice; I know every shade and nuance… every tell…
“No,” he replies abruptly, obviously embarrassed by the strangled tone of his voice. He clears his throat. “No. It’s fine. That’s fine, I’ll just…”
And even if hadn’t been able to recognize all those nuances… Well…I may not be the most worldly of women, but neither am I the most naive… Doctor Strand has clearly not been thinking choir boy thoughts… is still not thinking pure, academic thoughts I realize, as I watch his darkened eyes stray to the top of my blouse where three buttons have come undone…
“I’ll call you when it’s ready,” he insists as he shifts to the end of the island.
He wants me… he wants me… Richard wants me… and it feels…
I feel desire loosen my limbs… sway my hips as I gather up my wine glass with a nod and leave the kitchen.
Richard wants me…
The thought hums through me and burns at my self-control.
He wants me…
I make it as far as setting my glass down on the living room table before I turn around. Richard is still at the end of the island, and it is easy enough to step up behind him.
“But maybe we skip dinner.”
I’ve surprised him, and if desire weren’t a flaming, needy ache racing through my veins, I might have teased him, just a little.
“Alex…”
“Richard…” I whisper his name against his skin.
“I’m going to make you dinner,” he insists, but I can feel his body straining against his words. He doesn’t want to make me dinner right now, any more than I want to eat it. I’m certain. He just needs an excuse. He just needs me to tell him it’s okay; that I want him too. That more than anything, I want him touching me… I want him inside me… I want…
“I’m going to make you dinner and we’re going to enjoy a nice glass of red wine…”
Just enough to let him know that it’s okay to let go of that iron grasp he so often keeps on his desires. I brush my lips against the skin of his neck, my breath whispering against the blue collar of his dress-shirt.
“Richard… You’re not going to make me dinner. Because either you’re going to cut your finger off, or burn down the kitchen, or I don’t know what else,” I say, teasing just a little, just enough to throw him a little off-balance. “But…”
“Not if you leave the kitchen,” Richard interrupts and I can tell that he’s trying to make his voice as stern as possible, but he’s failing miserably.
It gives me the courage to say, “You don’t want me to leave this kitchen.”
“Alex.”
He turns to face me, and I can see the heat… the hunger… the fire in his eyes… he wants…
“To take me on this kitchen island,” I declare, a little surprised at my own boldness.
And then he’s kissing me. I’m not entirely certain who initiated it, but it doesn’t matter, because I’m kissing Richard and he’s kissing me, and it’s all… fire… fire and I’m melting… being consumed by heat and flames…
“Oh, God… Richard…”
The words tumble out of me, and I might have been embarrassed by the vulnerability I hear in my voice if Richard hadn’t growled and lifted me up in his arms in a way that let me know that if I’m burning, so is he, and we’re going up in flames together. I wrap myself around him and he carries me out of the kitchen. And I don’t care where we’re going, as long as we’re going there together.
We don’t make it farther than the dining room and the large oak table there.
It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Richard has undressed me and laid me out on the table… all that matters is that he has a very talented mouth and an equally talented tongue…
“Oh…oh… oh…”
I can’t help the sounds spilling out of me even if I had wanted to do so. As cliched as it might have sounded… I had never orgasmed so hard in my life, and I was still shaking with the first one as Richard pushed me toward another.
“Oh God…”
“God has nothing to do with this…” Richard growls as I shudder and tremble in the throes of the orgasm his voice rumbling against me causes.
“Since you’re an atheist…” I reply when I can finally find my voice. “I suppose you must be right…” I tease.
“I often am,” he counters.
Oh… oh… oh no he didn’t just…
“As well as pompous, and self-righteous, and…” I start to say, happily meeting him in one of our familiar verbal sparring matches, but I can’t continue because Richard has risen, and his large hands have grasped my hips to pull me across the table to him.
He’s poised to thrust himself into me and I can feel the tip of his considerable erection just parting me.
Oh God I want this man… I lick my lips and nod, but he waits. I know he wants to be inside of me every bit as much as I want him there, but still, he’s just waiting. It takes me a moment to realize that he’s waiting for my verbal consent. It makes me feel…
“Yes…” I sigh.
He thrusts into me again… and again… and…
Richard climaxes and I know he’s worried because I didn’t orgasm again. He doesn’t quite realize that it had felt amazing just having him inside of me. Besides… I have plans for this man… his night isn’t over yet…
I push myself up from the table to kiss him.
“It’s only round one,” I whisper against his lips. “We have all night.”
“All night, but then…Alex…”
My heart sinks in my chest at the sadness and finality I hear in his voice. It sparks something in me…
He’s mine… Richard is mine… and there’s no way in hell anyone is taking him away from me… not even him and his fatal despair…
“No, Richard… We have tonight. You can decide tomorrow… tomorrow at the airport after you’ve made me breakfast in the morning. Tonight, you’re going to go grab that bottle of red out of the kitchen, take me upstairs, and make love to me like it’s our last night on Earth.”
I can see him wanting to protest… wanting to keep me safe by sending me away… he doesn’t realize that it doesn’t matter if I’m safe if I’m not with him…
I know that he’s probably going to get on that plane to Geneva tomorrow, but he’s not going without me… and if the world’s going to burn… I want this night… I want it for just us as we are in this moment…
“You don’t have to decide, Richard; not tonight. All you have to do tonight is love me,” I declare as confidently as I can.
“I do,” he whispers softly, and the vulnerability and tenderness in his voice moves me. I smile.
“I do too. I love you too, Richard.”
The words come easily, buoyed by Richard’s own declaration
I push him back gently so that I can get up from the table and take a few steps in the direction of the doorway that leads into the living room.
I might lose him tomorrow… or I might have him forever… the possibilities loom before me like the story I read as a kid in high school… but for tonight… it doesn’t matter… tonight he’s mine, and I’m his, and we are going to make love until neither of us knows where one begans and the other ends…
“Forget the wine,” I say, holding my hand out to Richard. “Let’s see if we can make it to your bedroom.”
He grabs my hand and pulls me into his arms.
“No guarantees,” he whispers against my lips. “But we have all night; I’m sure we’ll make it there eventually.”
And eventually we do…