Say My Name

Chapter Thirteen: Hank Doesn’t Know

Her giggles couldn’t be stifled as she watched the man across from her who was wearing nothing but a pair of faded blue jeans, wolf-down the lasagna that was on the plate before him. While Sara was still on her first helping and nowhere near close to being finished, Nick was on his second and probably going for his third in a matter of seconds.

The fork in his hand dropped to the table, making a clanking sound, and Nick stretched back in his chair as he let out a satisfied noise that rose from his throat. It took him a minute to realize that he had been putting on a bit of a show for Sara who was smiling as she swallowed her mouthful of food.

“What?” he wondered, eyeing her suspiciously.

“Nothing,” she grinned down at her plate, shaking her head and trying to control the fit of giggles she was going to succumb to at any moment.

“I get hungry, after, um…” his trailed off and he was making hand gestures as he spoke, turning his hand over again in the air for the second time.

“Sex?” she finished for him, even more amused that he was too sky to say the word.

“Yeah, uh, sex,” he coughed.

“I thought when someone became an adult they stopped laughing every time they heard ‘penis’ and ‘sex.’”

“I’m not laughing.”

“No, you’re blushing.”

“I am not!” He folded his arms over his chest and appeared to be almost pouting. “Men don’t blush.”

“What ever you say, Nicky,” Sara muttered with a smirk on her lips before swallowing the last bit of her lasagna.

Nick remained comfortably silent in his seat as Sara stood up to take away her plate as well as Nick. She stopped in mid action, reaching across the table, her eyes meeting Nick’s instantly, catching him looking down her shirt for a moment.

“Unless you’re wanting more,” she said with a smirk.

“No, thank you,” he murmured, his eyes flickering from Sara’s cleavage to her eyes in a very quick instant.

Snatching up his plate, she took it to the sink that was behind Nick. Looking once over her shoulder, she noticed long, red lines that her fingernails had marked not long ago. She bit down on her lip, hoping that she hadn’t hurt him too badly.

“Um, Nick?”

He turned his head to look at her and saw a look in her eyes that made him frown. “Sar, what’s wrong?”

“I wouldn’t take off your shirt any time soon.”

“Excuse me?”

She reached out and ran her fingertips along the lines, tracing them lightly so she hopefully wouldn’t cause any harm to him. He got the message loud and clear.

“Oh that?” he asked casually, smiling at her.

“Sorry,” she offered meekly, biting her bottom lip.

“Trust me, Sar. I don’t mind.”

He took her hand that had been resting on his shoulder, by the wrist and pulled her to him, down onto his lap where she settled in comfortably. His hand cupped the side of her cheek, caressing her skin with his thumb.

“In fact, you can do it again whenever you want.”

Sara smiled down and licked her bottom lip out of habit.

It drove Nick nuts to think that he wasn’t able to have Sara with him every night, let alone every minute of the day. He found himself missing her laughter, the casual bantering that the two of them shared, and when he woke up in her bed to see that she was facing him in his arms, Nick knew that going home to someone else wouldn’t suffice any longer.

“What’s up?” asked Sara after a minute of just watching Nick stare distantly past her.

“Huh?”

“You’ve got this serious look in your eye, almost like you’re pondering life.”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah,” he snapped out of his reverie and wondered how he was going to bring it up, whether now was the right time or not.

“Come on. Lets do something,” she said, hopping off of his lap and facing him with an unusually genuine smile on her lips.

“What’ve you got in mind?”

“I don’t know. Board games?”

“How old are you?” he grinned, getting off of the chair and following Sara out of the kitchen ad into the den.

“I’m thirty-four, thank you very much.”

Leaning casually against the edge of the couch, he was watched Sara walk to the hall closet that was at the end of the hall. She opened it up and started to call out a bunch of board games questioningly.

“Twister?” she called out.

Nick mulled over the idea. It occupied time, it was fun, and it was a way that he could be very close with Sara without being uncalled for. Yes, it would definitely do, he thought to himself.

“All right.”

“Finally,” she breathed out, standing on her tiptoes to reach the box that was conveniently on the very top of the pile of board-game boxes.

It took them a short time to clear some space and set up the large sheet. By the time they were finished preparing, Nick was standing on the other side of the white board, hands on his hips, looking at Sara with a rather cocky expression.

“Prepared to get your butt whipped, Sidle?”

“I was just about to ask you the same thing, Stokes.”

He chuckled and then bent down to flick the arrow.

“All right, right hand blue, Sar.”

They were ten minutes into the game and already in a very compromising position. Sara was on all fours, facing away from the dots beneath her. Her hands were level with each other but her legs were another matter. One had her squatting not far from the plastic paper and the other was stretched out, wide to the left. Nick was a different matter all together but he was not complaining in the least bit since Sara was practically cradling him in between her legs. His hands were on either side of hers while his right leg was bent beneath her, supporting her lower body. His left was one row above the last, where Sara’s right foot was. Nick looked down at their bodies, Sara straddling his thigh almost, and him hovering inches above her face.

“Now I know why you picked Twister. Monopoly wasn’t as physical as this.”

“We could have always wrestled over who got Park Avenue.”

“I’d give it to you. I like the Orange.”

“Good, because the red are my favorite,” he grinned. “Right foot blue.”

Smirking, Nick brought his knee out from underneath Sara until his foot found a blue spot, his knee finding the middle of Sara’s thighs. She let out a breath and awkwardly moved her foot back two spaces and over one. She never remembered Twister being a game where one needed upper body strength.

“So how do you win this game again?” she asked, eyeing Nick’s lips.

He was hovering above her and Sara found that it was getting rather hot in the room all of a sudden. It didn’t help that Nick had his shirt off, sending her mind into overdrive just thinking about his well-muscled torso.

“One of has to fall,” he answered, stretching forward to reach the spinner.

Snatching the spinner by the tip of the cardboard it was attached to, Nick brought it closer so that it was more accessible. When he looked down, he realized that his mouth was barely an inch from Sara’s. Somehow, he didn’t remember her being that close.

“And no cheating,” he added huskily, his eyes flickering down to her parted lips.

“Cheating?”

“Don’t push me over.”

“What if I did it by accident?” she smiled sweetly.

“However, I suppose we can play on advantage.”

She looked at him dumbly.

“Say, for hypothetically purposes only, I start kissing you and you fall over. Your fault. Not mine.”

“That hard sounds fair.”

“How isn’t it fair? You’re fault you can’t keep yourself up, Sidle.”

“Don’t grin at me like that,” she chided, shifting her weight to her left so that she could punch him in the arm with her right.

In the fraction of a second that her body weight was only on one side, Nick decided that he would use it as an opportunity to win. He dove for the patch of skin of her neck that he had been eyeing up all morning and nipped at it. Unfortunately for Sara, she instantly braced herself as she sucked in a large breath of air.

“Cheater,” she rasped, as he continued to taste her throat with his tongue.

“Fair game,” he murmured against her skin.

“Fine then,” she replied simply. “I guess this is fair game too – ” Sara brought her right leg up, making sure that her foot was still on the appropriate color, and pressed her bent knee against his groin, not hard enough to cause pain but just enough so that Nick moaned out in pleasure.

“That definitely qualifies,” he stumbled out as she pressed harder.

“What’s wrong, Nicky? Can’t handle a little challenge?”

“I think it’s a rather,” he looked down at his lap and then up into her eyes, “big challenge.”

Sara shook her head, trying to stifle her laughter. “You’re positively horrible.”

“I can’t be that bad if I’m around.”

“Well, I’ll admit that you do a few things right.”

“Oh yeah?” his eyes twinkled down at her. “What’s that?”

“I’m not too sure, come to think of it.”

Sara smiled up at the chuckling man above her.

“Do you need some reminding, mam’?” he drawled, nuzzling his nose against her ear before his tongue traced the outer shell.

“I think I do.”

“Can we say that it was a tie and move this to the couch?” he asked, murmuring the words against her lips.

She wanted him to kiss her so badly that she would have agreed to anything at that point if it meant that Nick’s lips were on hers. They hadn’t kissed in weeks, not even last night. There was always that possibility of what they were doing would become more serious and Sara knew that kissing was one of those ways. It was almost more intimate than sex and even then, sex isn’t always as intense as a kiss.

After Sara nodded since words seemed to elude her, they both help to the mat at the same time and were fused at the lips, hungry for one another. Sara’s hand skimmed up from his arm to the base of his neck where she gripped the small hairs there, her other hand finding purchase in feeling the muscles of his back. Nick was too busy trying to get them to the couch, not really noticing that he was dragging the board with them.

While Nick knelt in between her legs, Sara sat on the edge of the couch, cupping his unshaven face with her hands as she kissed him. His tongue parted her lips and slid in to delve with hers. It was long before Nick standing up, urging her back so that she would lie down on the cushions of the couch, trying desperately not to break the connection of their mouths.

The weight of his body pressed hers into the sofa, his hands running inquisitively over her clothed form. He was trying to get her arms out of her shirt and it took them a frustrate moment for them to remove the garment over Sara’s head. Nick’s arm was wrapped around her waist, pulling her so that was straddling his lap before he settled her back against the cushions. She was moaning into his mouth as his hand caressed lightly up her side and over her breast. Her reaction was to grind against him, her back rubbing against the fabric of the sofa. Something poked into her back hard.

Frowning, Sara murmured against his mouth, “Hold on a second, Nicky.”

Nick withdrew slightly and watched as Sara reached for something behind her back. Awkwardly, she lifted her back off of the couch and pulled at a strap of something lacey. Hanging on the tip of her finger was a lacey red bra.

“Umm…” she said, obviously thinking something over.

“What’s wrong?”

Both of them were far more occupied to realize sounds coming from the other side of the front door. Noises that sounded awfully like keys and one slipped into the keyhole.

“Nick,” Sara started, meeting his hazel eyes seriously. “This isn’t my bra.”

“Sara?” said a familiar voice from he doorway.