Many thanks to Kayjay206 for beta reading
Jim threw his keys in the direction of something flat and dragged Blair
with him to the couch, making sure, even in the vague muzziness of one
too many beers at the neighborhood bar, that Blair landed on top of
him, not the other way around.
"Hey," Blair murmured, his mouth already finding the perfect place on
Jim's neck to nuzzle into. "Move your goddamn knee."
"Moving it…" Jim did his best to get them both settled and wondered why
he hadn't just done the sensible thing and dragged Blair up not down.
Upstairs. To a bed. To room to sprawl and do… things. Stuff. To Blair.
He still wasn't used to that idea being a certainty, not a remote
lottery jackpot of a possibility.
Wasn't sure he ever wanted to be. He liked the thrill, the way his
heart beat hard and fast every time he bent down to kiss Blair, the
delicious shock of surprise when Blair kissed him back, wrapping
himself around Jim in a way that said yes to just about everything Jim
had ever not asked.
In an echo of his thoughts - which <i>was</i> something he
was used to -- Blair said, "I can do this, right?" Blair was
unbuttoning Jim's shirt one-handed, his other hand a moving patch of
warmth; the back of Jim's neck, his cheek, his shoulder, his mouth,
restlessly caressing and touching. "I can strip you down and…"
"And?" He sounded hoarse, he knew, but God, Blair was breathing on him,
malty, salty, used air and they were that close and it was driving him
crazy and why the hell was he under Blair with his arms all pinned down
and his field of operations reduced to nothing like what he wanted them
to be?
"Oh, Jim…" Blair's tongue was a slow sweep of sweet across Jim's bared
chest and his breathless chuckle was pure sin. "You don't know what I
want to do to you…"
"Give me an idea, Chief." He freed one hand from its prison between his
thigh and Blair's and set it to exploring Blair's ass.
His hand. On Blair's ass. His breath caught and he tipped his head back
to stare sightlessly up at the ceiling. "I like your ass," he said.
Blair rewarded that piece of smooth talking with a nip, taking a fold
of skin over Jim's ribs prisoner between his teeth and lapping at it
busily until Jim came close to losing himself in the concentrated
mixture of sensations. Blair released him, kissed the wet spot wetter
and rubbed the ball of his thumb over it. "Going to mark…"
"Mmm." Jim didn't care. He'd care tomorrow, staring at the bruise in
the mirror, frowning slightly, touching it lightly, troubled by it all
day, feeling it throb, but now he just accepted it as something Blair
had wanted to do and he'd allowed, indulgent, spoiling him.
He had the feeling that the honeymoon would be over soon and he'd get
back to telling Blair no and backing it up with every ounce of
conviction he had, but now, right now, he was a pushover and they both
knew it.
"You're not the only one who does," Blair told him, pillowing his head
on Jim's shoulder and beginning a deceptively desultory series of
kisses that went from Jim's earlobe to his collarbone and back. Jim
relaxed, making an appreciative rumble of encouragement. Blair's mouth,
God, his mouth… he turned his head and intercepted one of the dry,
dotted kisses, turning it liquid, getting his hand through the tangle
of hair to the nape of Blair's neck and holding Blair still.
"Not the only one what?" he asked a while later, belatedly catching up
with the conversation. His lips, away from Blair's felt cool, parched,
drying too quickly.
"Who likes my ass," Blair said, wriggling it against the press of Jim's
hand, the solid spring of muscle inviting, challenging. Blair was
half-hard, matching Jim's own state of slightly drowsy arousal; not
fully committed to sex, more of a reflex response to the possibility.
One more kiss, though, and Jim thought that would change for both of
them.
"Who?" Jim allowed himself to enjoy the possessiveness he felt. Been a
while since he'd had anyone to feel that way about… not that he was
really troubled by the idea of someone else appreciating the way Blair
filled his jeans. Not when he was the only one who got to peel -- and
once rip -- them off Blair.
"That transfer from Vice. Claire something."
Jim sorted through the people at the bar who'd joined them to toast
Blair's upcoming birthday and nodded. "Mmm," he said again, making it
neutral. "I'd say she had good taste, but that dress she was wearing...
no, I can't do it."
"She remembers you," Blair said slyly. His finger ran over the skin
above Jim's top lip, tracing a moustache, and then Jim hissed
reprovingly as his pierced earlobe was pinched. Blair waited, and when
Jim refused to comment, he added, "Said she knew some stories…"
"I don't know her." He frowned, cop training kicking in as he sorted
through memories, a flashing series of faces. "Wait… yeah. Claire
Johnson. She transferred in the week I left; we overlapped by a day or
two, no more." He shook his head, dislodging Blair's hand because Blair
had found a ticklish spot and it was bugging him. "Any stories she
knows are just that, Chief. Gossip."
"Hmm." Blair didn't sound convinced, but Jim held his gaze
unblinkingly.
"And she can keep her goddamn eyes off your ass," Jim said, adding in a
swat for emphasis.
Blair mimed an ow and grinned. "Funny you should do that…"
"Do what?"
Blair reached behind him, grabbed Jim's unresisting hand and brought it
back, palm down, against his ass again. "That. She was asking who was
dishing out my birthday spanking tomorrow."
"And just what did you tell her, Blair?" Jim asked, drawling it out to
cover the emotion he was holding back. Blair liked possessive -- up to
a point -- but jealousy could put an impatient flicker in his eyes that
had Jim panicking.
That got him a soft snort. "Well, what do you think? I laughed it off
and went to stand by Simon."
Jim smiled reluctantly, picturing it. "He makes a good refuge."
"Yeah." Blair gave him a clumsy, bobbed-head, off-center kiss,
surprisingly sweet. "So do you, but if I'd gone to you I'd have climbed
you like a kitten up a tree and I don't think it would've gone over
well, you know?"
"Scared you, did she, Chief?" Jim patted Blair's ass gently. "Don't
worry. I'll keep this safe."
"Safe from a birthday spanking?"
There was something about the way Blair said that, the way he'd made it
so… specific, which made Jim hesitate before replying doubtfully, "Yes?"
Blair shifted position, working his elbow between Jim and the back of
the couch and propping himself on it so he could stare down at a mildly
bemused Jim. "I've never had one; how about you?"
Jim gave an uneasy chuckle. "Yeah. A couple. Given and got. You've
never?"
"You're blushing," Blair commented. "I'm guessing we're talking adult
birthdays here?"
"Yeah…" Jim mumbled. "And I'm not blushing."
"Clear down to here," Blair told him, resting his hand on Jim's bared
chest and giving him a smirk. "Going to share?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because every time it was followed by sex, and I don't kiss and tell;
not even when it's you I'm telling, Chief."
"Well, fine," Blair said. "Good for you."
Blair lapsed into the silence that was his scariest weapon, a waiting
patience, and Jim debated his options. Throw him a bone to satisfy him?
Or would that be like drops of blood in the water to a shark?
"Once it was me getting it," he said. "In a bar, held down over a pool
table --"
Blair gave an astonished huff of laughter. "You're kidding me!"
"Army days," Jim said briefly. "Four of my buddies grabbed me and
they'd got this -- they'd paid this woman…"
"How old were you?"
Jim's mouth twisted in a grimly reminiscent smile, understanding what
Blair was asking. "They didn't get that far, Chief. They were drunk and
I wasn't, not much. I was fighting the whole time and she'd only got in
about four when I broke free." He thought back to the raucous,
smoke-filled bar. "She was shrieking about still getting her money…"
"Did she?" Blair's expression was glazed with a mildly salacious
curiosity but from what Jim could tell, not all that turned on by the
story. Good. It wasn't something he'd enjoyed -- though kicking out
wildly and getting Brinkley in the balls had been satisfying -- and he
could still remember the feeling of betrayal and hurt when he'd been
held down by friendly hands, rendered helpless.
"I took her upstairs, and she got to earn it a different way." And he
hadn't enjoyed that much, either, but it'd smoothed things over, and it
wasn't like he'd paid her with his own money. Some birthday present. A
spanking and a blow job from a sixteen-year-old whore.
"And the other times?"
Blood in the water. He should have known.
"Chief…" He sighed. Okay, this was it. This was the last time he gave
in this easily… "Same deal with them. It never got past five, maybe six
smacks. And we were both laughing. And if you think I left a mark on
them --"
"Whoa! Slow down, Jim!" Blair moved to straddle him, his weight solidly
heavy. "I know that. Just -- look, I needed to know --"
"Why did you?" Jim demanded, refusing to be placated. "Do I ask you
what you got up to with everyone you've fucked? Names, positions,
kinks? I don't think so. Just return the favor, okay, Sandburg?"
"I want you to give me one."
Jim gaped at him. "A spanking?" He shook his head. "Forget it. I won't
do it."
"It's technically my birthday now," Blair went on, ignoring Jim's flat
refusal the way he always did when he wanted something. Selective
deafness. Sandburg had made it an art form. Four years had made it less
annoying because Jim had learned how to deal with it, but this crossed
a line. Which was something else Blair was good at. "Past midnight. And
I'm thirty. Special birthday."
"Not really."
"It wouldn't be a sexual thing…"
"Right." Jim rolled his eyes. Not sexual. His hand on Blair's ass, not
sexual. On what planet?
"It's an accepted rite of passage," Blair argued. "It goes back
centuries."
"So?"
"It was considered a way of --"
"I don't care." Jim sat up, grabbing Blair's arm to keep him from
sliding sideways, and got his legs out from under Blair with a
bad-tempered roughness. When they were sitting side by side, facing
each other, he took a steadying breath. "Blair, what is this?"
Blair pushed his hair back. His hands were shaking slightly, which
blunted the edges of Jim's irritation, partly because it was something
only he would have noticed. And that was something he couldn't ever see
himself confessing to Blair, because even he thought it verged on too
much of a good thing, but he couldn't help it. It wasn't prying or
spying; there were Blair's hands, out in the open; there was the faint
tremor caused by an overload of emotion.
It was just that -- only he watched Blair with enough attention to
detail to notice. He wasn't using his Sentinel abilities -- at least,
he didn't think was -- he was just… looking.
"What is it?"
Blair shook his head, his tucked-back hair spilling forward again,
veiling the curve of a flushed cheek. "I don't know, Jim. I just don't
know, okay?"
"Yeah, you do." He pulled Blair closer, his arm around Blair's
shoulders, their knees bumping. "Hey." He reached across awkwardly,
left-handed, and tilted Blair's face into view. "Don't."
Blair sighed and became a weight on Jim's shoulder, his hands working
their way inside Jim's open shirt to find skin. It hadn't taken Jim
long to notice that given a choice, now that he had an all-access pass
to Jim's body, Blair would always take bare skin over covered, even if
it meant passing up the chance to touch places on Jim's body that would
have been really, really grateful. When Jim's erection was imitating
rock, Blair lavishing attention on his arms, for God's sake, just
didn't seem right.
"You must think I'm crazy."
"Have done since we met." Jim breathed in a noseful of Blair, warm and
ripe, and settled them back against the couch. The beer had made him
sleepy and amorous and if Blair wanted this to count as his birthday,
he was prepared to overlook the fact that it was cheating and hand over
the wrapped and hidden present. Except that meant moving and he didn't
want to. He kissed the tip of Blair's ear through a lot of hair and
sighed contentedly. "Still do."
"Ha-ha."
"I'm not joking." Jim smiled, even though Blair couldn't see it. "The
way you acted, the things you were saying? Thought you were nuts. Still
wanted to kiss you."
And he might have, even then, that first day, if he hadn't seen how
Blair had reacted to the two girls at the market, and had it hammered
home over the years that followed that Blair wasn't the kind who called
you back.
He'd always wanted to kiss Blair; he'd just never wanted to have only a
single night to do it in.
"Yeah, right."
"Still do, Blair."
"So kiss me." Blair sounded defeated, resigned.
"Your enthusiasm is overwhelming me here."
"Fuck." Blair was suddenly a moving target, heading for the wrong
bedroom.
Jim got across the room in time to have a door closed in his face which
brought him to a standstill. There was no lock on the entrance to
Blair's room; there had never needed to be. Once Blair had moved in,
Jim had given him what he expected to get in return; privacy, space.
He didn't bother tapping at the door; Blair knew he was outside it.
"Blair? Get your… open up, will you?"
"Go to bed, Jim."
"Love to. So get out here."
"Think I'll sleep in here tonight."
"Why does that not surprise me?" Jim asked, talking more to himself
than Blair. He slammed his hand hard against the doorframe, needing the
physical release as much as he needed the next breath he took. He heard
Blair move, a startled jerk, and sighed, rubbing at the heel of his
hand, already regretting his impulse.
"Look, I'm sorry, okay? But I can't -- You're being an asshole, you
know that?"
He couldn't imagine sleeping alone in his bed after a month of having
Blair in it, warm and in his space and in his face, the snuffling
noises he made when he was falling asleep matched now to actions. One
night with Blair and Jim had filled in a dozen blanks in the cryptic
crossword he'd been working on for four years. That skritch-scrape?
Blair's fingernails on the stubble along his jaw. And the
sniff-sniff-sigh was accompanied by a nose twitch that was endearing
enough to make Jim roll his eyes at himself for being a total fucking
sap and make him shower cold three mornings in a row to prove…
something.
"Blair, I need -- please. I said 'please', okay? Open the door, talk to
me, come upstairs to sleep. Any of them. All of them." He leaned his
head against the wall, willing his helplessness to get through the
brick and the much denser material of Sandburg's skull. "Please," he
murmured, low enough that he wasn't sure it was audible inside Blair's
room.
The door opened a moment later. Blair had stripped down to what he'd
used to sleep in; a T-shirt and shorts. He'd worn a lot less to bed the
last month.
"I hate you," Blair said gloomily.
"Sure you do, sweetheart." Cold showers all month
but it was worth it to see the pinched lines around Blair's mouth ease
deeper as he smiled.
"Come here." Blair's hand grabbed at his shirt and Jim let himself get
turned, pushed up against a wall and kissed, Blair's mouth hot where
he'd been biting down on it, the skin ragged.
Stopping Blair from going to his knees took willpower.
"No." And because he thought they took away your 'I am male' badge if
you turned down a blow job, he added, "Not yet."
Blair licked his lips and left them parted and open, which nearly undid
his resolve, but he held it together enough to get them both upstairs
and lying on the bed, getting undressed down to his shorts to match
Blair, but not confusing the issue by getting naked.
"What I don't get," he said in a conversational tone, pushing the
pillow up so that his head wasn't bumping metal, "is why you didn't
just ask me. You want something; you ask. You're not usually subtle
about it."
Blair really wasn't. Jim hadn't expected Blair to be shy in bed, but
he'd expected him to be a lot more romantic than he was. Maybe Blair
saved that for women and maybe it had all been used up, because what
Jim had got instead was a raw urgency and a few bruises.
Which was why he'd been enjoying that cuddle on the fucking couch and
okay, he had to calm down…
"I'm not usually asking for something like that." Blair wasn't looking
at him. Wasn't even looking straight ahead. Blair's head was turned
away.
Which didn't stop Jim knowing how he looked because he could pick out
Blair's reflection in at least three places around the room, but it was
the principle of the thing.
"You didn't have any trouble asking me to bend over the bathroom sink
because you wanted to --"
"That was different." Blair's voice was tight with embarrassment.
"No kidding," Jim said with precision. "And I liked it, but even if I
hadn't, I didn't mind you asking." Even if it'd been more of an order.
Even if thinking about it the next day had him squirming in his seat,
heat rising, the echo of the slow, languid laps of Blair's tongue
getting him hard.
At work. Talking to Simon. Watching Blair lick cream and foam off the
top of a fancy, pricy cup of coffee and knowing Blair was doing it
deliberately… If Blair had asked for a spanking that day, Jim would
have given him one without hesitation.
Maybe.
"Jim…" Blair's voice trailed off.
"I get it," Jim said gently. "I'm not an anthropologist, but a cop gets
to know something about how people behave, too."
"Yeah?" Blair turned to look at him. "So explain it to me."
"You want something," Jim began, holding up his hand, fingers curled
loosely into a fist, counting off his points. He extended his thumb.
One. "It's important enough that you want to try it with someone you
trust." Index finger. "I'm the first who qualifies; hell, a month? For
you? We're breaking records -- but there's a problem." Middle finger.
"You're not sure how I'll take it. If it'll fuck up what we're doing."
Ring finger. "So you use your birthday as a cover. This birthday.
Because you can't wait a year." The final finger was straightened and
he stared at his hand, peripherally aware that Blair was staring, too.
"A birthday spanking. Anyone can ask for one of those without being
thought kinky. Or when they get told they're getting one, struggle,
sure, but give in just to be a good sport about it." He spread his
fingers wide, flexing them, and then brought them together, curving his
hand so his palm cupped air. "And you hoped I'd do a good enough job
that you'd know --" He heard Blair swallow dryly
and sighed. "You could've just asked, Blair."
"Too late now, huh?" Blair ended with the chuckle he gave when he was
discomfited and started to fidget. Jim figured thirty seconds and he'd
be heading back down the stairs again.
"No. But you still haven't asked."
"Oh." Blair nodded, his fingers pleating the sheet, crushing the
cotton. "Yeah. Can I… maybe…another time?"
"Sure," Jim said agreeably. "No rush, is there?"
Blair exhaled, a relieved woosh of air. "No. No rush. Sorry. About
being an asshole." He edged closer. "I'd have hated sleeping down
there," he said earnestly. "Honest."
Jim nodded and let Blair kiss him. Let Blair work them out of their
clothes and between the sheets. Let Blair suck him off with a fervent
adoration Jim didn't think he'd earned but didn't protest. Let Blair
have time to wipe his mouth and swallow, clearing the clinging taste of
spunk from his tongue and throat.
Blair was still hard, expectant, his brain busy sorting through his
options. Jim could see the moment Blair decided, and he knew from the
flicker of Blair's eyes toward the night table that Blair was about to
reach for slick and a condom, but he didn't wait to be told to roll
over.
"Blair?"
"Yes, Jim?"
"I'm asking."
He watched Blair's expression change swiftly; confusion, comprehension
and then indecision. Blair shook his head. "No, Jim. No, you don't have
to --"
"I want to. I'm asking." He just wasn't asking for what Blair thought
he was. He wondered if that would be a problem for Blair; how Blair
really saw him. The hero worship of the early days hadn't lasted, but
Jim liked to think it'd been replaced by respect.
Hell with it. He wasn't doing this to Blair until he'd found out what
it was like -- really like -- on the receiving end, and besides…
besides… "I'm asking."
"Not yet, you're not." Blair bit down on the inside of his cheek, his
face contorting briefly before smoothing out. "You have to say it. I
have to know what you're asking. You mean you want to spank me? Is that
it? Is it, Jim?" As Jim shook his head, Blair's eyes widened. "Oh, man."
The silence that followed was strung tight, thrumming. Jim didn't break
it.
"Then you've got to ask," Blair said finally, firmly. "I will, you know
I will and I'm not even going to make you tell me why, but you've got
to ask."
It was harder to say than he'd expected, but if he stumbled, it was in
his head as he rehearsed the words, not when he spoke them.
It hurt more than he'd expected.
And he wondered if Blair would ever ask for it himself now, after his
hands, steady hands, one burning hot, had cupped Jim's tear-streaked
face and wiped it dry.