Title: Hands Author: willa Email: adwilla@yahoo.com Feedback: If writing isn't about feedback, I've got the wrong instruction manual. Rating: NC-17, MSR Spoilers: Nada. Maybe a tiny one for the movie. Summary: You know, NC-17 stories with no plot aren't necessarily without purpose. Disclaimer: I don't think CC would want to claim this. But if he did, he'd have to admit Mulder and Scully want it. And then maybe he'd share some of the wealth I am quite obviously not making off this story. Author's Notes: A wise woman once told me never to use the words "bodice-ripper" in fanfic. However, if this story were a paperback, that's probably what it would be. This story satisfies my need for a non-angsty way to pass the time. And it's dedicated to any readers who have the same need. Hands June, 1999 She was used to working on Saturdays, although not quite like this. The X-Files division had been pointedly "invited" to attend a budget planning session, so here she sat in a conference room in the Hoover Building, trying to ignore the numbness settling into her lower extremities. A peak out the window revealed a cloudless sky, the bright sunshine, and the rest of the world enjoying time away from the office. It really wasn't a bad idea that they were here, given Mulder's predilection for running off to the ends of the earth to save her life. She wanted to make sure that the next time she was infected with an alien virus and hauled off to Antarctica, there was enough money in the budget for Mulder's expenses. But it was damn boring. She looked around the room, noting that she was the only woman in attendance. No surprise there. The men who ran other departments treated the women agents under them like glorified secretaries. If Mulder ever treated her that way, she'd kill him. He was smart enough, however, to know she was the one who could wrap her brain around this budget mess. Her partner sat to her right, twirling his pen between his thumb and forefinger. She hated when he did that, because she had never been able to. Mulder had tried to teach her one slow afternoon between cases, but after several failed attempts that sent her Mont Blanc flying to the floor, she gave up. And she hated to give up. Mulder was probably just doing it now to rub in the fact. As if it made him superior. Bastard. Jon Thompson sat to her left. An independent consultant brought in to balance the numbers, Jon only showed up at the bureau once a year for planning. She thought he was a fairly attractive man, in a thoroughly charming way. Broad chest. Narrow hips. Intelligent gray-blue eyes. She caught herself staring a tad too long and dropped her eyes to her notepad, which was mostly empty. Damn. She'd better start paying attention. She looked to where Jon was taking copious notes. He wrote in all caps, perfectly legible...nothing like Mulder's messy scrawl. She began copying down some of his more important points. His hand flew across the page, seemingly transcribing what was being said. He had nice hands, she noticed absently. Very nice. Strong. They looked smooth, with just a light smattering of dark hair creeping under the band of his heavy, brushed silver watch. The tendons in the back of his right hand moved beneath his skin as he wrote. She sighed inwardly as she watched him. Hands had always been her weakness. Careful study of a man's hands could foreshadow the way he would touch her in bed. The way they would feel dancing across her body. God. It had been so long since she felt male hands on her. Other than Mulder's occasional caress, which she didn't count, for her own sanity. She had assessed Mulder's hands obsessively during their first months together. So soft. Long, slender fingers. Only a slight callous on the inside of his middle right one from where he held his pen. "Graceful" was a term she often used to define his hands. When he touched her, they were gentle but firm. Much of her time those first few weeks had been spent fantasizing about what his hands could do to her. And in the six years they had been together, she had moved on to all his other parts as well. She turned her attention back to the virtual stranger on her left. He wore a wedding ring. Gold and silver swirled together in the wide band. Somehow it made Jon more masculine to her. Pausing in his flurry of writing, he began rubbing his thumb up and down the shaft of the pen. She felt a shudder run up her spine. Her nipples tightened, and a blush crept up her neck and stained her cheeks. Uninvited images snuck into her mind. That hand sliding up her leg, dark against her pale skin. Fingers tracing patterns over her back, raising goosebumps on the flesh there. Hands sliding up her sides, moving to cup her shoulders to hold her in place as warm lips trailed over her breasts. The pictures were so vivid she felt she was actually being touched. The hand on her thigh began its slow ascent, and she stifled the groan rising in her throat. It felt so real. "Cold, Scully?" Mulder asked low in her ear, his hand continuing to move up her leg. "You're shivering. And you don't seem to be paying attention, Agent." He leaned closer into her and tightened his grip on her thigh. "At least, not to the meeting. See something you like, Scully?" She turned to him, noting the mocking tone in his voice. He grinned slowly at her. "And what if I did, Agent Mulder?" Several pair of male eyes shifted to the two agents, silencing them for the rest of the meeting. *-*-*-* Three hours later they sat across from each other at Scully's dining room table, sharing carry-out Thai food and laughing about the absurdity of the afternoon. "You know, Scully, Skinner specifically asked me to make sure you were there. Said it would 'shake things up a bit' in the old boys club." "He gives me far too much credit. To shake up that group, you'd have to find a woman far less conservative than me. And one willing to show a little leg...or one with legs to actually show." Mulder grinned at her like a cheshire cat and swiped a grilled shrimp out of the cardboard box in front of her. "You have legs Scully, it's just that they're-" "Don't say it, Mulder. It wasn't funny the first 30 times, and it's not getting any better." She ignored his pitiful look and instead concentrated on munching down the rest of her noodles. Leaning back from the table she was amazed at how tired she felt, considering she had spent the entire day sitting in one place. Her eyelids were positively heavy and she stifled a yawn. "You know, Scully, I'm ashamed of you for lusting after a married man." There weren't words with which she could answer a statement like that. Maybe there were punches or kicks, but words certainly weren't what she was looking for. A gun. A bat, maybe. Perhaps the pointy end of the chopsticks laying on the table in front of her. "He's probably flattered that you want him, though." Yes, chopsticks would provide the perfect amount of pain for Mulder. And, probably, no one would question whether or not she had a motive. No one who knew them anyway. "I guess, if you like that geeky sort of look, he's attractive enough." She would be sad when he was gone. Mulder had certain charms she would miss. Though his "open mouth, insert foot" mentality wasn't one of them. Scully began gathering up the emptied boxes and headed across the kitchen to the trashcan, breathing deeply and biting her lip to keep the reproachful words from spilling out. "Scully?" "Yes, Mulder?" "Aren't you going to answer me?" "I'm sorry. Did you ask me a question?" Her tone was sugary-sweet. "I...I guess none of those remarks counted as a question. I was just playing, Scully. Why won't you play with me?" Both of her fine eyebrows raised in question. She leaned her hips against the sink and folded her arms across her chest. Waiting. Good job, Mulder, he thought to himself. That was one heck of a zinger. And you expected her to respond with what, exactly? "I guess I was just wondering what you would see in a guy like that," he finally said, affecting her pose by leaning back in the chair and crossing his arms in front of him. She sighed. What would it take to make him go away? "Hands, Mulder. I was fantasizing about his hands." She could tell he was shocked by the way his mouth was moving but nothing was coming out. "Which is it, Mulder? That I would focus on something as mundane as his hands, or that I have fantasies at all?" Scully has fantasies, he catalogued. She has fantasies about hands. Maybe she's had fantasies about my hands? His eyes were drawn to where they rested on the table. "And yes, I've had fantasies about your hands, too, Mulder." She's had fantasies about my hands. Scully, who has fantasies, has sometimes included me in them. I have been part of Scully's fantasy world. Or at least my hands have. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I feel suddenly exhausted and unable to continue this conversation with you," she lightly touched his shoulder and gestured toward the front door. He sat rooted to the spot, mind still working over the information she had just given him. Continue the conversation? They hadn't even started the conversation. There was so much he had to know. Like, what exactly did his hands do in her fantasies? And what was the rest of him doing when they were doing it? "You can't just bring up something like that and then expect me to go home without the details, Scully." He was more assured, as if her confession had somehow bolstered his confidence in confronting her. "I don't think you'll have much luck in getting me to leave until you fill me in. I can be really stubborn when I want to be, you know." "Oh, I know..." she muttered under her breath, moving to the chair across from him. "Hands tell a lot about a person," she finally offered. "Are they smooth, are the cuticles ragged, are the nails bitten? Those things can give you great insight into someone." "You fantasize about men biting their nails?" She ignored him. "When you're intimate with someone, his hands touch every part of you, Mulder. It's in your best interest to make sure he takes care of them." Mulder sometimes had a hard time admitting to himself that men touched Scully. Intimately, anyway. But to hear her talk about it, for it to just roll off of her tongue, he was floored. "Can you tell how he'll touch you? Just from looking at his hands?" Again he stared down at his own, just a split second before turning back to her. "Of course. You can tell if he'll be gentle, or if his grip will be strong. If his hands are rough it will feel a certain way, another if they're soft. I know that your touch, for instance, will be fleeting and feather-light. Your grip will be strong, but not forceful. I've known it since the beginning," her voice trailed off. Will be. She had said it in the future tense, like it was going to happen. Like she was ready for it to happen. "I really am tired, Mulder. Did you get what you needed?" Not by a long shot. In fact, her little explanation had opened up a whole ocean of need he could no longer repress. "Tell me about it," he asked quietly, staring down at his hands, palms up, in his lap. "Tell you about what?" He looked up at her then, and she knew exactly what he wanted. But the thought of sharing all those dreams, all those nights of clutching at her sheets whispering his name, was something she didn't think she was up to. Didn't think she would ever be up to. "Please, Mulder. Let's not get into this tonight," she turned from him and disappeared into the living room where he knew she was waiting for him by the door. *-*-*-*-* The way Mulder saw it, he had two courses of action. He could do what Scully wanted, forget they'd ever had this conversation, and spend the rest of his life wondering what he had passed up. Or he could walk into the next room, coax her into revealing her secrets to him, and pray they came out on the other side intact. "Mulder, I'm going to bed now. If you're not going to cooperate, you can see yourself out." He heard her footsteps receding down the hall, followed by the closing of her bedroom door. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding, grabbed his leather jacket off the back of the kitchen chair and headed for the door. Regardless of his own feelings on the matter, Scully had obviously made up her mind she wasn't going to talk about it any more. And as stubborn as he could be sometimes, Scully was doubly so when she had her mind made up. Scully leaned against the closed door and pressed her ear against the wood, listening for his departure. Her heart was pounding as if she had just escaped a life- threatening situation. Which, she had to admit, she probably had. She and Mulder were not meant to have a conversation about their feelings for each other. It would thrust them into territory she didn't think either of them was prepared for. So hiding seemed a much better option. She strained to hear the scrape of the kitchen chair and his heavy footsteps on the hardwood of the hallway. Her own sigh escaped her when she heard the front door open and shut. With relief she flung open her door and peered down the hallway. Empty. She set about getting ready for bed, hastily pulling off her clothing and placing it on the chair near her bed. She would hang it up in the morning, but tonight she just wanted to climb between the sheets and forget about what had nearly happened with Mulder. Shrugging into a thin blue cotton pajama top she padded barefoot down the hallway and engaged the dead bolt on her door, peaking out the peephole to make sure he was really gone. Moments later she was settled into her bed in the dark, cursing herself for behaving like such a child. She could hear the logical Scully angel settle in on her shoulder for a harsh talking to. "Do you think reality can ever measure up to our fantasies, Scully?" His voice came from nowhere out of the dark, and she bolted upright in her bed. "Mulder," she said, warning creeping into her tone as she glanced around the room, coming to rest on his silhouette in the doorway. "You shouldn't be here. You should be halfway home to your own bed by now. And I should be well on my way to sleep." Instead of answering, he moved softly toward her, reaching her in time to still her hand on the bedside lamp. The room remained dark. "Do you think it's possible, Scully, that all the things our minds create when our inhibitions are down, could come anywhere close to the real thing?" He hadn't released her hand, and took up tracing invisible patterns on her palm. So gently. He had moved up her wrist before it occurred to her to pull away. "There's no way, Mulder," she finally replied, pulling a pillow close into her chest, creating a barrier between them. "Fantasies are the very ideal for us. Nothing will ever live up to that. It's best not to even try." "What if I want to try?" Her heart caught in her throat and words failed her. Ever the overachiever, she should have known Mulder would take her earlier confession as a challenge. Except she didn't want it to be like that. She wanted them to come together at a time when neither of them could wait a second longer. When the earth would move and the proverbial fireworks would rocket in the sky. Another hopeless ideal, she thought to herself. "Just tell me. Tell me how it starts when I come to you. Just give me this one little thing. I can't see you, Scully." She clutched the pillow tighter and squeezed her eyes shut. Her mind called up an image of him, uninvited from the recesses of her nighttime thoughts. "It always starts the same," she began, voice wavering, eyes still closed tightly. "Your hallway. Last summer. And I can feel your hands on my face, your fingers in the hair at my temples, your eyes are so..." "I couldn't take them off of you. You were so perfect. Flawless." "They are full of so many things I have never seen before. Things I never thought I would see." "Things you never tried to see, Scully," he reached a hand out to her, encountering the baby softness of her hair. He threaded lock after lock through his fingers until she continued. "You look like you want to kiss me, but you're moving so slowly," she leaned into his caress, savoring the tenderness in it. "That was your chance to get away. I knew once I felt you, I would never be able to pull myself away," the fingers released her hair and fell over her forehead, the bridge of her nose, coming to rest on her bottom lip. His thumb traced the shape of her mouth. "When I think of us, it's just like this, Scully. Touching you, tracing you. It would take so long for me to learn all of you." "Your hands are so soft. You hold me like I'm going to break. But I want to break apart. That's what you don't know. I want you to shatter our world...because I can't. I'm frozen just waiting for you to kiss me, while your hands cradle me." He slid closer to her on the mattress, pulling the pillow away from her and tossing it on the floor. He reached for her face, holding her as he had that night. Leaning in so he was just breaths away from her ear, he whispered to her. "You just have ask, Scully." She shook her head, no, until he tightened his grip and stilled her. "Please, Mulder, don't-" His mouth met hers gently, while his fingers slipped up into her hair. Over and over he met her softly, brushing against her, noses colliding. There was nothing demanding in his touch, his hands held her lightly, but the unspoken hung between them: askmeaskmeaskme. When he finally pulled away he was surprised to find her eyes open, gazing at him in the darkness. "I want to come apart, Mulder." She braced her hands against his shoulders and rose up on her knees in front of him. Pointedly holding his gaze, she started on the buttons down the front of her shirt. He was transfixed by her movement, unable to pull his eyes away. When she slid the thin fabric off her shoulders, baring herself to him, he found he could do nothing more than stare. He had spent so many nights thinking about it that now, when he was confronted with her beauty, he couldn't find the courage to touch her. Sensing his hesitancy, Scully clasped his right hand and moved it to her naked shoulder. And she sat, waiting, until he found the nerve to stroke her. Beginning with her collarbones, he traced gossamer mazes over her skin. His touch was meant more for memorization than arousal; down each arm, where he placed a small kiss on her palms. In and out of the smooth indentation at her tiny waist, up over her sides and the swell of her breasts. Soft, figure-eights over her stomach and the tops of her thighs. "Is this the way you imagined it, Scully?" He asked, fascinated by the sight of his large hands against her pale skin. She answered him by moving the still left hand to her thigh, holding him in place and leaning forward to kiss him again. They came together gently, without urgency or aggression. Now that they were here, there was time-an infinite amount of time to explore each other. She met his questing tongue eagerly, stroking softly against it with phantom motions. He pulled away from her to drop open-mouthed kisses on her throat, her forehead, the bend of her elbow. They were silent. Only the sound of their breathing could be heard in the dim room. She pulled the tee shirt away from his body, leisurely running her hands across his chest and down through the hair on his firm stomach. She watched the way he watched her with fascination, taking in his new knowledge of her. She thought she looked beautiful in his eyes. Rising off the bed to slip out of his jeans and boxers he eased her backwards, kneeling on the floor to place kisses on the pad of each toe. He grinned at the way she curled her feet and balled her fists at his actions. He massaged his way up her calves and thighs before he crawled back into bed beside her and claimed her mouth again. Wrapping his arms around her he pulled her body flush against his, crushing her breasts between them. His hands roamed up and down her back, over her hips and the backs of her thighs. She responded by moving her leg over his muscled thigh, pressing herself intimately against his erection. His groan broke the silence. She began moving against him, reaching behind to press him harder into her. He found the taut peak of one breast and stroked it over and over until she answered him with a moan of her own. Their kiss became fervent, his hands lost their gentle hesitancy. He rolled swiftly on top of her, resting between her thighs, and took the tortured nipple into his mouth. The other one he found with his thumb and she tangled her fingers in his hair, a constant muttering of his name pouring from her lips, eyes closed. His hips pushed rhythmically against her and she pushed back, rubbing herself against his hardness. She could feel the beginnings of her climax, sprung tightly in her belly, and urged him on. His hands slid up her back and pulled her away from the mattress, cupping her shoulders in his hands as his hot mouth and tongue moved over her. Her eyes flew open and caught him staring at her. It was her dream, from earlier, only it was Mulder. Her Mulder, who cradled her tightly and loved her with his eyes. Sliding both hands and mouth down her body he worked his way between her legs. Parting her flesh he pressed a soft kiss on the sensitive skin there, nuzzling the bronze hair with his nose. Reaching out with his tongue he began stroking her with firm, strong movements until she writhed beneath him. Scully lifted her head and gazed down at him. The sight of his hands, dark against her skin, proved to be her undoing and she came against him with breathless sighs. Mulder rested his cheek against her belly as she calmed. When her fingers began running through his hair, her nails raking over his scalp, he chanced a glance up at her. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips swollen, her bright eyes beckoned him back up her body where she held him close and kissed him. She rocked her hips against him suggestively, urging him to enter her. With a firm thrust he found her and slipped inside, both of them stiffening before growing accustomed to the sensation. Scully linked her hands in the small of his back and pulled him to her. He began to move slowly, bracing himself on his forearms, in and almost completely out. She felt herself teetering on the brink of intensity, already so sensitive from his earlier attentions. Each movement caused her to gasp and clutch her hands tighter together. Mulder watched her face, the sounds escaping from her lips, the way her eyes squeezed tightly shut. He relaxed his arms until he was able to hold her head in his hands, painting broad strokes on her cheeks with his thumbs. "Open your eyes," he asked her. She shook her head no and buried her face in his neck, biting into the tender skin there. He pulled away from her and tilted her eyes toward him. "Open your eyes, Scully." They slowly found his as he picked up his pace, crashing into her body while daring her to look away. The sensations were too much for her to bear. She was coming apart, splitting in two. Shattering. He stiffened inside her and let his eyes close as he found his release, eventually collapsing against her. Scully became aware of his random strokes in her hair and along her back, and realized he had rolled onto his side, pulling her with him. Mulder's skin was hot where her head rested on his chest, and his heart was racing. One hand reached for hers and clasped it over his heart. She looked at them together. Lying there intertwined. His so large and brown. Hers so small and pale. But the fingers slid together like they had done it a thousand times. Lost pieces of a puzzle, coming together. He noticed her staring and pulled her fingers to his lips, nibbling gently at her before replacing their hands on his chest and closing his eyes. The feel of his pulse beneath her palm, its steady cadence oddly comforting, she drifted to sleep. END