DISCLAIMER JAZZ: "The X-Files" and its characters are the 
creations and property of the fabled Chris Carter, Ten Thirteen 
Productions and Fox Broadcasting. I am, of course, using them 
without permission. No copyright infringement is intended. All 
other concepts or ideas herein are mine.
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: Through US season 7
ARCHIVE: ONLY ON THE AUTHOR'S OWN WEBSITE 
(http://rowan_d.tripod.com/elizabethr.html) UNTIL STORY IS 
COMPLETED. This way I can mess with the early parts as later 
parts develop...
TIMELINE: Though this takes place sometime after "all things", in 
this universe "Requiem" did NOT happen...


AUTHOR'S NOTE: NC-17 stuff ahead in this installment.  No kids.  
No kidding.

 

"Water's Edge"
by
Elizabeth Rowandale (bstrbabs@earthlink.net)


Chapter 25b



"Take my hand, I'll show you how I got here
You're everything..... Beautiful."
                        --Josh Zandman, "Beautiful"



Scully was timelessly beautiful in an evening gown.  Scully was 
everything a woman should be in a Liz Claiborne suit and high 
heels.  Scully was husky-voiced and lovely and sexy in jeans and 
hiking boots.  But Scully's bare skin...

Her blouse had gotten lost along the way, and she sat on his 
rental bed in her low-rise slacks and black lace bra with her 
mouth devouring his.  Her fingers were in his hair and he 
relished the sensations along his scalp.  She had touched his 
hair once in a cold parking garage when his foundation was 
slipping from beneath him, and she had left her print for all the 
years to come.

Scully was quiet by nature (until you got her on the right 
subject).  She was always more likely to listen than to speak.  
Her dead-on one liners would floor a room that thought she wasn't 
paying attention.  Scully was always paying attention.

He had learned very quickly that in the realm of physical 
contact, Scully sank into her nature as a creature of motion and 
touch and silent communication.  He had learned her body language 
so long ago...it was far easier to slip across these lines than 
he had expected.

Mulder knelt in front of Scully, tucked between her thighs.  As 
he broke from her kiss for breath--*just the conscious thought 
that Scully was kissing him was straining the denim of his 
jeans*--he smoothed his open hand down the side of Scully's 
throat, down the free skin of her chest, through the valley of 
her breasts and across her bare stomach.  He felt the gooseflesh 
spread beneath his hand.  She wanted his touch.  Scully let her 
head fall to the side, hair over her eye, lids half closed as she 
sank into his caress.

"I've wanted to take care of you for so long, Scully," he 
whispered.  "And you are so strong.  You don't need anyone.  You 
never...wanted me to help you."

She listened in silence.  Didn't agree.  Didn't contradict.

"And when I tried...I probably wasn't much help, anyway.  But, 
everything I did the last two years, Scully.  That was me--taking 
care of you, the only way I knew how."

Scully swallowed hard, twined her fingers around his forearm.

"I know you feel I betrayed you.  But if I saw a chance to 
protect you, to give you your security back, and I didn't take 
it.  I thought that...would be betraying your trust, as well.  
And I couldn't live with that, just to be selfish and stay by 
your side another day."

"It wasn't just for you."

He nodded.  "I know.  But know this."  He cupped his hand beneath 
her ear and stared hard into her pale blue eyes.  She didn't look 
away.  And he felt like he was home.  She had always been the one 
who listened.  "I didn't leave you, Scully.  I was always coming 
back.  Always.  I came back for you.  Here.  Now.  And now 
this...*this* part--" he drew the backs of his fingers ever so 
tenderly down her cheek, "--of taking care of you.  This part...I 
think I can get right.  If you'll let me."

In answer, Scully caught his hand and cupped it to her breast as 
she kissed the corner of his eye.

He was powerless against the feel of her skin.  Scully.  The soft 
touch that appeared at his bedside when he woke in the hospital, 
the gentle perfume in the car beside him after a gruesome crime 
scene.  The warmth that would surround him when his life was 
slipping apart.  Finally here, in his arms.  Opening to him.  
Easing him out of his t-shirt.

But this wasn't all about him.  It couldn't be.

He edged away from their gentle exploratory kisses, tossed his 
shirt free from his wrist.  "Scully, look at me."

She lifted her gaze, so intensely with him.

"Is this okay?  Are you sure?  I mean...this can't be easy for 
you right now.  You lost your husband."

Scully nodded, brows drawing into the lines of concern he knew 
too well.  "I did," she said clearly.  Then she reached up and 
touched her slender fingers to the light stubble on his cheek.  
"But, I lost you, too."

He closed his eyes.  The depth of emotion in her voice was like a 
warm hand in a cold night.
 
Scully leaned away.  She reached to the back of her neck.  
Carefully, hair over her eyes, sheltering her expression, Scully 
unfastened the clasp to her gold cross.  Mulder watched in 
fascination as she spread the delicate chain across her fingers.  
Then she slipped her wedding rings from her finger and dropped 
them onto the chain.  As she lifted the necklace to re-fasten it 
at her throat, he caught her hands, taking the clasp from her.  
"Don't take it off until you're ready.  I don't need you to.  
It's all right."

Scully nudged his arms, prompting him to fasten the lock.  When 
he was finished, he drew his hands down the length of her arms, 
carefully avoiding the site of the injection, and sat back to 
listen, because he could feel something she needed to say.  The 
soft bedside lamp made her skin glow like silk.

As always, Scully took her time with her words.  "Mulder...I 
loved my husband--I *love* my husband--very, very much.  But 
there's something you need to know.  Ever since I was a little 
girl..."  Scully paused for a breath, and he realized she was 
struggling not to cry.  She was giving him something intimate.  
Something deep.  A gift.  "...there has been this place inside 
me...a place that no one understood or expected.  And most of the 
time, it didn't fit with the vision of me held by the people who 
loved me, despite the fact that to me, this part was the ultimate 
essence of who I am.  My family, my friends, parents, grand-
parents, teachers...  So, I stopped letting that part show.  As 
much as I could without losing myself.  I played the parts that 
were expected of me, because despite what you may think, Fox 
Mulder...I need people to like me."  He returned her faint smile, 
but his eyes still held to the seriousness of her words.  Her 
voice was just above a whisper.  "And when I started to feel 
trapped and asserted who I really was...things like changing 
colleges, leaving medicine for the FBI...I risked the support of 
those I loved.  And they waited for it to pass and for me to 
return to 'myself'.  Or who they thought I was."

She paused again, drawing several deliberate breaths, gaze never 
rising from her hands.  He kept his hands gently stroking her 
arms, her thighs.  "Daniel...never felt it," she said, her voice 
trembling.  "But from the first day I met you, Mulder, you looked 
at me...and you saw...*me*.  And all the things that everyone 
else had feared or disliked or ignored in me, were the things you 
were drawn to.  The things that you applauded and the 
things...you came to love."  She sniffed softly, face tensing as 
her tears pressed forward.  It was so hard not to kiss her.  She 
caught a wet breath.  "You are the only one who has ever...  
You're the only one."

Mulder pushed forward and wrapped his arms around her.  He hugged 
her to him, holding her close, skin against skin, and he felt 
Scully's tension ease within his embrace.  Her breath was hot on 
his shoulder.

"Scully.  I need you," he breathed into her hair, not even 
hearing the words in his head before he spoke.

She pulled him down onto the bed and drowned him in her taste.


*****


She needed his weight on top of her, needed the solid assurance 
of his flesh.  The rock-hard bulge in his jeans was pressed 
between her legs, and the contact, even through so many layers of 
clothing, sent waves of sensation through her core.  She couldn't 
quite wrap her mind around the fact that Mulder was here on a bed 
with her and they were far along the trail to making love.  Her 
senses were wandering along the blurry line between her reality 
and her dreams.  She had been here a thousand nights in her mind.

She only knew she didn't want it to stop.

She felt more alive than she had in too long to remember.  Just 
being in Mulder's aura awakened the woman she had once grown 
into, the place she had found for herself in the life that had 
slipped from her grasp two long years ago.  She wanted to go 
home.  She needed to go home. Mulder's eyes on her as she crawled 
further onto the bed, his chest against her back as he kissed her 
shoulder blades, ran his tongue the length of her spine, washed 
away the time, and brought to life the remembered Dana Scully.  
She felt fragile in Mulder's arms.  She felt protected.  She felt 
safe.  She felt strong.  She felt home.

She rolled beneath him, pressing her back to the unfamiliar 
comforter and gazing into Mulder's hazel eyes.  The nearness of 
his mouth, the deep tone of his breath sent a rush of warmth 
between her legs.  So many years of trying not to feel the pull, 
trying to stand near Mulder and never let on that his body made 
her knees weak.  And he was looking back at her.  *At* her as he 
never had in the early days.  The days when he had loved her, but 
the pull of the quest had always been stronger.  The need for the 
truth had blinded him to all else.  She had thought she knew what 
she meant to him below the surface the day he traded her life for 
the woman he thought was Samantha.  But she had lost her faith in 
that belief when he had left her as an afterthought on the brink 
of the end of the world.  And then somewhere along the way it had 
all shifted again and now, for the first time in a decade, she 
had his undivided attention.  The sensation was so achingly sweet 
she nearly cried.

Mulder was ever so gently coaxing the cup of her bra back from 
her breast.  He was still so careful.  Almost shy.  Scully arched 
her back, letting him feel her consent, the edges of her need.  
She couldn't keep her hands off the power of his shoulders.  
Those arms had carried her through the artic snow to safety, held 
steadfast against her tears, weathered her bullet.  She tenderly 
fingered his scar and Mulder smiled.

He lowered his mouth to her breast for a first tentative kiss.  
She felt his hands probing, recognizing the added firmness of the 
milk gathering for Christopher's midnight feeding.  His tongue 
lapped gently at her hardened nipple and Scully shifted to press 
her thigh up between Mulder's legs.  She felt him catch his 
breath at the contact.  She kissed his shoulder, nipped at the 
bone with her teeth. 

Mulder unhooked the front clasp of her bra and pushed the straps 
over her shoulders and the freedom made her want every inch of 
her skin against his.  She helped free the bra, then reached out 
to claw at Mulder's belt.  "I need to see you," she breathed, and 
his deep-throated sigh was like a caress.  In a moment, his 
clothes were gone and he was pulling the blankets over both of 
them for warmth.  Scully ran her hand up the top of his thigh and 
drew her fingers ever so lightly over the baby soft skin encasing 
his erection.  She was fascinated by the contrast of hard against 
soft, and she wanted to pull him deep inside her.  But she 
quelled the urge.  She couldn't rush.  She wanted this to last.  
She wanted time to stop.

Scully's hands smoothed over Mulder's back, pulling him close and 
drinking from his skin.  The ripples of his muscles as he held 
himself above her pulsed waves of pleasure beneath her skin.  He 
had stayed in shape these past two years, he had lost nothing of 
the quietly powerful physique she adored.  Mulder's fingers were 
deftly working the hook and zipper of her slacks.  He had them 
open to expose her panty line and as his fingers brushed the base 
of her abdomen, her lower parts pulsed with sensation, as though 
she could pull his touch down those few more inches with the 
sheer rush of blood...  But she was keeping Mulder too busy with 
her tongue, tasting every inch of the softness of his mouth.  She 
closed her eyes and wanted nothing but to feel the man she loved.  
To lose herself in the pure sensation.

His fingers scratched lightly across her clit through her slacks.

"Oh, Christ--"  She broke away from his kiss and gasped for 
breath against the sudden thrill.

Mulder's lovely mouth spread into a kind smile.  "Interested, 
Scully?" he said softly.

She answered only with her rapid breath and half-closed lids.

She pushed up from the mattress and lightly shoved Mulder onto 
his back, arching above him.  "My turn first," she said, voice 
low and throaty and Mulder closed his eyes in an expression of 
pleasure that made her feel powerful.

Tucking herself between Mulder's long runner's legs, Scully sat 
back on her heels and lifted the covers over her back.  She 
stretched out and rested her cheek against Mulder's stomach and 
for a moment she fell quiet, just relishing the intimacy of the 
moment, the soft feel of his body hair against her cheek, the 
heat of his genitals against her chest, and Mulder's hands moved 
to stroke her hair and he seemed to feel the gentleness along 
with her.

She pushed up with her arms and swung her hair, caressing his 
skin, as she leaned down for a first lick.

Mulder's hoarse pull of air hit her like a drug.  She had heard 
him through the thin motel walls once or twice.  Couldn't spend 
that many years together and never hear anything forbidden.  She 
knew his videos occasionally traveled with them.  But the idea 
that she herself could pull that sound from Mulder's lips was 
utterly intoxicating.

Size was going to be a factor for her less than cooperative 
throat.  But she could work around that.  Nothing about her and 
Mulder had fit at first.  Everything fit in the end.  She worked 
her tongue over the outside of his shaft, licking at him like a 
favorite dessert, pulling and drawing out his delicate skin to 
both their ultimate pleasures.  Then she cautiously took the 
plunge, taking him into her mouth as deep as she could.  It was 
enough for both of them.  She cupped her hand to his balls and 
gently massaged as she sucked and Mulder's hip muscles contracted 
beneath her as he struggled to weather the combined sensations.

She got lost in the rhythm.  She relished his taste.  He stopped 
her before her mouth was willing to let go.  "Want to last," he 
breathed shakily.  "Want to be...inside you."

She smiled, and swallowed, relaxing her jaw as she withdrew.  She 
treasured the soft gasp as he left the warmth of her mouth.  She 
kissed his hip bone, ran her tongue along the crease of his 
thigh.  As she crawled, cat-like, up the bed, Mulder couldn't 
keep his hands off her skin.  His fingers caught at her slacks, 
and she help him push the garments away.

Moments later, she lay beneath him, nothing to separate them at 
last, blankets sheltering them from the cool night air.

"I want you inside me," she breathed, muscles aching with the 
need for his touch.

Mulder closed his eyes.  And she knew he was feeling all the 
years.  All the years they had waited to know those words.

"Do we need protection?" he asked softly.

She shook her head.  "Not if you're clean.  I'm okay.  There's no 
chance I can...I mean, in a year and a half of..." she faded out, 
her meaning clear.

Mulder just stroked her cheek.  She leaned into his palm.  "I'm 
clean," he whispered.  "But I have something if you want.  It's 
okay.  Whatever you want."

But she shook her head again.  "No," she said simply.  "I trust 
you."

And apparently that was all he needed to hear.  Maybe all he had 
ever needed to hear.

In a flash Mulder was down the bed and between her legs.  And the 
first hit of his thick tongue caught her completely off guard and 
nearly sent her arousal off the charts.

"Oh, God, Mulder..."

Sweet rushes of sensation.  Everything she had been aching for, 
pulling for, drowning her in a sea of warmth and wetness and 
dizzying pleasure.

He drew his tongue along the length of her folds, pulling the 
moisture from her open core to her clit and circling his tongue 
over her pulsing flesh.  In mere seconds this was going to be too 
much to take.  She hadn't realized how deeply she needed this.  
Every part of her was prickling with life and desire.

*Mulder...*

He was still working her flesh with his gifted tongue, and Scully 
was snatching at the headboard for support, failing to find a 
good grip and finally digging her fingers in above the mattress 
and hooking beneath the base of headboard.  She would pay him the 
cost if she loosened the joints.

She could feel the muscles inside start to gather and pull.

"Oh, God, stop.  No, Mulder...stop.  I need...I need you...*in* 
me.  Now."

She felt his shadow move above her before she opened her eyes.  
The warmth of his thighs on hers as he stretched out beside her, 
half on top of her, pulled a sigh of pleasure from her lips.  
Mulder was breathing hard, tempering his own racing arousal.

"Scully.  I want you.  All of you."

Scully was beyond speech.  She shifted beneath him as they moved 
in concert.  She lifted one knee, and angled her hips as Mulder 
placed his weight between her legs.  She reached down and caught 
his hot length in her hand, gently guiding, encouraging.

And a moment later, he was in.  Careful, stopping halfway, his 
eyes speaking so clearly that he was afraid to hurt her, but he 
was in, and there were tears in her eyes because this was Mulder.  
This was Mulder against her, around her and inside her and 
holding her.  She tensed her inner muscles to hold on tight, and 
Mulder gave a soft moan of pleasure that tickled her skin.

"Stay with me," she breathed into his ear.

And Mulder wrapped his arm around her head, buried his face in 
her hair.  "I'm here, Scully.  Always.  Always."

They moved together.  And soon all she knew was the heat of their 
bodies and the desperate need in her and the smell of Mulder's 
cologne and sweat and the incredible power in his hips.  She 
matched him thrust for thrust.  She heard the hoarse cry from his 
lips that signaled the approach of his climax, and if she hadn't 
been on the brink before, that single sound was enough to push 
her.  Mulder shoved his strong arm beneath her back and held her 
tight against him as he drove into her hips and she pushed back 
against the weakening headboard.

*Mulder.  My gentle, beautiful, Spooky Mulder.*

When his muscles contracted inside her and he cried out in her 
ear, she was lost.  Scully dug her nails into Mulder's back on a 
throaty cry she hardly heard.  The pleasure was blinding.  She 
squeezed her eyes closed and gave herself over to pure feeling 
and the grounding weight of Mulder's body above her and his arm 
below.  She gasped for breath and pressed her cheek to the damp 
skin of Mulder's shoulder as the climaxes rocked them both.

She could barely breathe.

And everything was okay.  She could smell Mulder.  He was alive.  
And in her arms.  And inside her.  And Christopher was sleeping 
safely in the next room.  And she was home.

His lips set a gentle kiss on her ear as his breath prickled 
gooseflesh down her neck.

"I'm here, Scully," he whispered.  And she locked her arms across 
his back, hooked her leg behind his knee, and wouldn't let go.


*****

End of Chapter 25b.  (Continued in Chapter 26...)
Feedback is just so cool... - bstrbabs@earthlink.net