DOLCE FAR NIENTE
by Blackwood
entreamis@yahoo.com

RATING: NC17
CATEGORY: MSR, Vignette, AU, Mulder/Scully Married (!)
SPOILERS: None
ARCHIVE: With intact header and a note to me.
SUMMARY: "How unlike me," she thinks...
DISCLAIMER: Standard yadda yadda.

~*~*~*~

The scent of burnt toast and strong coffee wafts through the air
while morning sun butters the windows.  The Tech, Leisure and Sunday
magazine, opened to the crossword half-done in pencil, are stacked on
the coffee table in ordered formation.  The rest of the Sunday paper
is strewn on the floor and the side table and on the man that
reclines on the sofa inspecting a glossy four-color advertisement
with great intent.

"Breathtaking locations, first-class dining, luxury accommodations.."
he reads, longing coloring his voice.  He sits up and hazel eyes lift
above the shiny brochure to where she sits at the dining room table. 
Her head is bent towards the laptop screen, fingers flying over the
keyboard.  She's wearing her wire-rims, his Yankees tee-shirt and not
much else, *if* he's lucky.  "Whadya think?"

"I think you're dreaming," she says without looking at him, brows
furrowed at some item she reading.

"Just listen a minute."  His eyes scan the flier.  "Tropical accents
and fixtures highlight the colonial-style d‚cor while Asian and
French influences infuse the airy dining room.  Our chefs will tempt
your palette while our spa soothes your body for maximum relaxation
and renewal."  He pauses and turns to her again, hopeful.  "Sounds
great, doesn't it?" he asks, his inner eye defining curves beneath
the loose lines of the oversized shirt.

"Sounds expensive," she retorts.

He sighs at her implacable practicality.  "We need a break."

"I'm fine."

"Well, *I* need a break," he says sitting up.  "We haven't had much
time alone lately."

Fingers pause and her gaze shifts from the screen full of check
numbers and ledger lines to the man she now calls husband.  He's
resting his chin on bare, lean muscled arms over the back of the
sofa, the look in his eyes inviting challenge.

She smiles at him over the lens' perched on her nose.  "Miss me?"

"Let me show you how much," he cajoles with a wag of his brow.

She shakes her head and tries to look annoyed.  "Wasn't last night
enough for you?"

"Never," he rejoins and rises, moving towards her at a slow pace.

A half-smile plays about her lips as she remembers.  He was generous
with his time and talent last night, seducing her with a bottle of
Veuve Clicquot and a plate of sugared raspberries for her birthday. 
Champagne always makes her lightheaded, but she loves the dry taste
on her palette.  He painted her body with the dark berries' juice
then licked her clean.  She felt playful and giddy and the sugar high
was nothing compared to the flush he induced over her fair skin.

William was with his grandmother and the apartment was locked.  They
resigned themselves to a life scrutinized by more than deep thought,
although he knew she always considered it while they made love. 
Deep, languorous kisses eased her worries and dissipated
self-consciousness.  He coaxed her to tell him what she wanted. 
"Your mouth," she breathed into his ear like angel's breath.  "On
me."

He didn't need to ask where.  Laying a path of sloppy kisses from her
chin to her stomach and beyond, she shivered with desire from his
attentions.  She forswore on silence when he plied her sex with lips
and tongue and fingers, forgetting herself in the whirlwind of his
impassioned grunts and her exhortations of 'yes' and 'more.'

The earth swayed on its axis in the moment of climax, stars spinning
in crazy orbital frenzy as she succumbed to waves of pleasure so
intense they bordered on pain.  When she climaxed, she thought she
would die from the sheer pleasure of it.

And now she appraises his form with a critical-but-loving eye, noting
with satisfaction the weight he's put on his lanky frame since he's
moved in with her and their son.  Middle age is making its
acquaintance with him in attractive fashion.  His stamina and
strength are better than ever and she doesn't worry about him the way
she did in those early weeks following his return from the dead.  She
wonders if she should.

Her eyes drop as his arms enfold her from behind.  She feels the
warm, dry brush of his lips against her temple.  Tipping back her
head, she closes her eyes and waits.  His lips are soft and warm, and
she wills Time to slow in this moment of communion.  It is a gift
from God that brought him back to her and she knows she mustn't waste
even a moment.

Gentle slow nudges of his mouth against hers demolish resistance and
she is, all at once, no longer interested in the checkbook that needs
balancing or the grocery list that needs making or the baby clothes
that need laundering.  She is utterly refocused: in the taste of his
mouth, the feel of his chest under her sliding hand and the
quickening of her pulse as his hands move on her.
 
She isn't conscious of being lifted to her feet or distracted from
her work, but her lack of control over the situation doesn't disturb
her in the least.  "How unlike me," she thinks as she nuzzles his
unshaven jaw, his skin salty-scratchy against her tongue.

"You forget we have lots of catching up to do," he teases.

Pulling back, she looks up into his mirth-filled gaze.  "Catching
up?"

"I figure one actual roll in the hay for every serious consideration
I've ever given the idea, hmmm?" he begins, a hand sliding from her
waist, across the sculpted curve of her cotton-covered ass.  He toys
with the hem of her top before grazing bare skin beneath, a grin
revealing his approval.

She audibly sighs, pulse quickening.  "And how much of your time was
spent doing that?"

"Statistically speaking, human males have a sexual thought on the
average of once every 29 seconds."  She waits.  He squints, gazing
over her shoulder, doing mental math while he kneads the soft, but
solid flesh beneath his touch.  "Let's see... three hundred
sixty-five days... times ten years..."

He bites at his lower lip and she ponders it before lifting her
amused gaze to his.  "You're telling me you've thought about IT since
we've known each other?"

He shrugs.  "It's a guy thing.  We're programmed that way."

She nods and stifles a grin.  "What happened to friendship, respect
and professionalism?"

"We can do that, too."

"We?"

"The male species."

"I meant you and I."

"I've *always* treated you like a professional."  She arches one
perfect brow.  "Haven't I?"

She chuffs at him.  "Let's just say I'm the forgiving sort, shall
we?"

"Let's.  Now," he commands, turning her about and shuffling her
before him, "How's about we cut the chitchat and get busy?"

"You think it's that easy?" she throws at him over her shoulder,
providing no resistance to his purposeful direction towards the
bedroom.

"I do."

"That I'll just go along with whatever you decide?"

"When I'm right, you do."

Their pace increases as they near the four-posted featherbed that
dominates the room -- an impetuous honeymoon purchase they've yet to
regret.  Twenty naked toes swish through the lush lambskin carpet
that underlies the bed.

She scrambles onto the tufted mattress and turns on her back to face
him.  He's already straddling her, pushing the loose tee upwards
until a succulent breast is exposed.  

"Breakfast of Champions," he murmurs, his head lowering to latch onto
an already stiff nipple.  She arches her back as she reclines,
purring with contentment. Wrapping her right leg around his torso,
she caresses his lower back.

They roll onto their sides and she melts into him like Belgian
chocolate left in the sun too long.  Small kisses are left like gifts
along the ridge of his brow, down his too-large nose.  When she nips
the tip, he laughs, lifting his face to claim her sweet mouth.  She
tastes like everything he never had and always wanted.

He feels like Christmas morning in July and she anticipates the feel
of him inside her, raising coarse goosebumps over her superheated
skin.  She loves this part of lovemaking -- the power she feels at
arousing his needs and then sating them.  She never thought she would
feel this way about simple human mechanics, but she loves the fact
that it is so.  At last.

The tenting of fabric at his groin tells her he's hard and erect.  
She reaches between them and tugs at the elastic of his pajamas. 
Shifting weight onto a knee, he pushes the offending garment over his
hips.  Sitting upright, she removes her glasses and discards the last
barrier between them.

"Get back here," he admonishes, spreading her legs with a sudden
roughness so that she topples onto her back into downy pillows.  He
kneels between her parted limbs, his gaze raking the daylit contours
of her body.  Her upper lips glisten with his saliva; lower lips
slick with her arousal.  Taking his tool in hand, he slowly runs the
tip back and forth across her clit, savoring the twitch of her body
and the pant of her breath at the action.

Anticipation heightens and they pause.  His eyes tell her what she
needs to know -- he loves her, he adores her, he can't live without
her.  Moving gently, slowly, he pushes into her welcoming heat.  Ever
the student, he tries to analyze the sensations that rush through
him: heart rate strong and steady, blood tingling the skin, breath
deep.  His instinct is to thrust, parry, inseminate and leave.  His
intellect argues to loiter, pulse, stroke and savor.

Her emotions frighten her with their intensity.  Passion is an
infrequent visitor in her carefully ordered life and what she feels
for this man defies definition.  He is flame and she is air.  Surely
the room is shimmering with the glow from their bodies.  Her hands
caress the muscled torso that rises and falls above her while their
breath conjoins in the space between.  Spirit conjures the illusion
of separation while Nature reminds that they are one and the same.   

There are no words adequate for this intimate language of flesh. 
Only skin can speak to skin and their dialogue is wondrous, poetic
and deep.  Tempos run in counterpoint, then synchronize of their own
volition.  Reality turns inward to the connection of the soul as
their passion arcs with unwanted haste; and before either is ready to
succumb, they are There in rare unexpected unison.

His breath, his touch, his every molecule of being is pressed against
her and she strains to draw air.  Already incoherent, she struggles
for balance in the wake of his deepening penetration and the singular
point of pleasure that rockets her past sense and reason into the
realm of primal instinct.  "Like that," she thinks.  "Like that. 
Don't stop.  Yes.  Yess."  She breathes aloud simply, "Ohhh--"

Her simple exhalation permits him release and he pays homage,
sacrificing his pride, his strength, his self-control; all for the
sensation of divinity: its grace, its power, its fire.  He groans at
the glorious peak, body pounding in a slow continuous loop of motion
that draws every ounce of potency from within, replacing it with
complete and utter relaxation.

Limp and quiet in the afterglow, he withdraws.  Satiation brings
lethargy and, for a time, they drowse.  At last, he murmurs against
her damp brow, "So, whadya say?"

"About?"

"Making time."

"Isn't that what we just did?"  She feels his smile. 

"I meant getting away and sharing more than the usual routine."

"There's nothing usual about our routine, Mulder."

"But it *is* equitably distributed, yes?"

"In the grand scheme, I suppose."

"That sounds equivocal."

"I just mean that we each have strengths and weaknesses that we bring
to the arena in which we might be operative."

"Love that dirty talk, Scully."

Grinning, she looks up into his tender gaze.  "You really are
impossible."

His look says, "Who, me?"

"But," she continues, "You're cute when you're sleeping, so I guess
I'll keep you for now."

"What about friendship, respect and professionalism?"

"We can do that."

"We?"

"The female species."

"I meant you and I."

"Partners in all things, right?"

"All things," he parrots with soft assurance before kissing her most
soundly.

END
April 2002