Sturgis or Bust

Jack swallowed hard as his kick-ass, take charge Carter transformed into Samantha. It was almost weird the way he thought of them as two separate people, too many years of suppressing his feelings probably. He’d rarely caught glimpses of the softer side of Sam throughout the years, because she usually managed to keep the girly-side of herself locked away. The necessity of that was just one in a long list of his many regrets about their relationship.

Starting to feel a little vulnerable because he was the only one in a state of undress, and the fact that she was starting to stare a misty-eyed hole through him, he shifted his weight to one side before beckoning her with an outreached arm.

"C’mere."

Barely having the time to brace himself before she dropped like a rock onto the dirt, he grunted as she nearly knocked the wind out of him.

“I think I prefer the hysterical giggling,” he teased gently a few minutes later after she’d collected herself and finished sniffling against his chest.

The smile he felt stretch across his skin eased his mind. She’d be ok. She always was.

“All better?”

“Yeah, it’s just...you know...hits me sometimes,” she replied, waving a free hand back and forth across their adjacent stomachs. “This freedom between us...it’s all so...new. It’s like...”

“Opening up a floodgate?” He supplied.

“Yeah”

“I know, sometimes it feels like it’s almost too much to handle.”

Hugging her tightly, he kissed the top of her head before sighing exaggeratedly.

“What?”

“I believe I was promised sex? I mean, you did get me naked and said you’d make it up to me for laughing....”

“You just said you liked the laughing.”

“I didn’t say I liked it, I said that I preferred it to...hey, quit trying to change the subject and lose the clothes already.” He pouted.

Feeling that it was her turn for the dramatics, Sam mimicked his earlier sigh and rose gracefully from the ground. Smirking at his pretense of sulking, she retreated a few steps and faced away from him. Lose the clothes indeed! Oh, she’d lose them alright.

Starting to hum the song from the night he’d proposed, the one about feeling good, she slowly removed her clothing one piece at a time, dragging them across her skin, teasing and torturing her former CO, her future husband.

Enjoying the startled look on Jack’s face, she even threw in a few hip swivels and pursed her lips into a pout that rivaled his. The immediate reaction from him to her moves aided in the flush that spread over her body. God, he was too easy. Apparently, so was she.

Sauntering sexily, she closed the gap between them until she stood straddling his hips dressed only in her birthday suit. She’d left her dog tags at home this trip. She’d have to remember to put them back on when they got home and do this again. Hot images flashed across her mind, until she looked down onto the man below her. Wow. This was hot enough. Hellfire flames should have been shooting out from around him; he was so sinfully good to look at.

Lowering herself to a kneeling position her thighs literally quivered in anticipation at the feel of his body inside of hers. Staring into the now-black depths of his eyes she gasped at the raging desire and love that blazed out at her.

Damn, she could be a tease. Even in his wildest fantasies, he’d never really imagined that Carter would do the stripper routine for him. Oh, he’d dreamt of her stripping out of her clothes plenty of times, but for her to actually do it...humming the song he’d picked out...Christ! He was instantly hard, from zero to a hundred in one second flat.

Jack reached up to frame her face as she knelt over him. It was all he could do not to impale her on his straining dick. Reigning in his lust, he brought her face to his, gazing intently into her ocean-blue orbs as they got closer to his own.

“I love you,” he said fiercely, refusing to relinquish eye contact with her. “I always have, and I always will. Always.”

Her face softened at his declaration but as her mouth opened to respond, he pulled her the last few inches and kissed her hard, sliding his tongue between her parted lips.

After several seconds of possessive taking, he eased his assault to a soft giving. Before he registered her movement, she sank slowly onto him. Sliding his hands down her body to her hips, He helped her descend the last few inches until there was no more space between them. Once she’d settled, he bucked his hips up, her short scream muffled by their bonded lips.

Flipping them over smoothly, he pushed one of her legs out to the side before breaking away from her mouth.

What was it about her that made him lose control so easily? God, he felt like he wanted to rip her apart with his need and burst into tears from the overwhelming tenderness she triggered in him.

Methodically thrusting into her, he relished the feel of her slickness and the small sounds he elicited from her. After using his thumb to bring her over the edge, he relinquished his tight control and exploded into her.

Spent and panting hard, he eased his weight off of her, spooning her back into his chest. Thankful of the warm sun, they dozed off, feeling safe and satiated in each other’s arms.

Sam swatted at the fly buzzing around her ear but it didn’t seem to do any good, it just kept getting louder and louder. Becoming more vigorous in her swatting, she accidentally smacked skin.

“Ow!” Dammit Carter, stop hitting me.

“What? Oh, sorry. I was trying to get that fly to leave me alone.”

“Fly? That’s not a...”

Before he could get the rest of the sentence out, a motorcycle burst through the trees and roared up, the engine cutting off as it stopped next to them.

Startled by the intrusion, Sam didn’t resist as Jack yanked her up off the ground and shoved her behind him.

Glaring over his shoulder, she saw the leer that accompanied their unwelcome visitor. Great, that’s all they needed, another confrontation with Sex. Jack was so gonna kill him and this time she just might not interfere.

“I knew it!”” Michael crowed, “I knew you fixed your engine to stall.”

“Well if you knew that Mikey-boy, then you had a pretty good idea of what we’d be doing. And you still decided to crash our party?” Jack growled menacingly.

“Uh, well, I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure, and I uh, didn’t want to leave you stranded out here or anything. Besides maybe Sweetness is into threesomes?”

Sam clutched Jack’s shoulders, holding him back as he instinctively stepped towards Sex. “Jack!”

“Doesn’t matter if she is, I’m not” he finally answered through gritted teeth.

Her anger at Sex’s effrontery outweighed her embarrassment as she whispered into Jack’s ear, “Killing him is too kind, if you want to see evil, just watch,” before stepping out from behind her human shield quickly enough so that he couldn’t hold her back.

She ignored the strangled sounding ‘Samantha, no’ from behind her as she slunk over to where Sex still sat on his bike. A feral grin spread across her face as she saw his eyes lock onto her nude body. She knew she must present a sight to behold, hair mussed with blades of grass stuck in it. Dirt smudges on her knees, back and butt. Their come still somewhat sticky on her thighs, and the colorful tattoos vibrant against her pale skin.

“Like what you see?” She asked, staying just out of reach.

“Hell, yeah!” he replied, impressing her that he actually managed to drag his eyes up to hers as he responded. Supposedly the same brown eyes as Jack’s, but they’d never again look the same to her.

“I can tell.” She purred, stepping in closely and stroking his obvious erection through his jeans.

“It’s just too bad...” she continued over his gurgles of pleasure.

“Huh? Too bad?” he muttered, trying to reopen his eyes to see what she was talking about.

“Yeah, too bad you’ll never get to have me.”

“What?” he asked bereft that she’d removed her hand from his pants.

“I said you will NEVER have me. I belong to Jack, and he belongs to me. Period. No look-alikes included. And if you ever pull any sort of stunt like this again, I’ll let him hurt you like he so desperately wants to do right now. Do you understand me?”

Jolted back to reality, Michael glanced at Jack’s thunderous face. Uh-oh, time to leave.

Sam strode away abruptly and started pulling on her clothing.

“Go.” Jack spat at Sex, who without wasting his remarkable good fortune to still have all his extremities intact, kicked the engine of his motorcycle to life and tore off.

Feeling Jack’s furious gaze shift towards her, Sam stared down at the hand that had touched Sex and muttered absently, “Now I really need to wash my hands.”

Her anger dissipating as quickly as it arose, Sam walked towards the far edge of the meadow where a small stream flowed quietly by. Squatting on the lightly sloping bank she scrubbed her hands along the shallow rock-strewn bottom washing away the memory of touching Sex that way.

Several minutes passed by, her hands were raw from the repeated abuse before Jack’s shadow looming over her made her pause. Sensing his ire even from several feet away, she stared straight ahead into the trees along the other side of the water.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.”


Jack took his time getting dressed, knowing that it was time well spent to get control of his rage. Eyes glued on Carter, he watched intently as she knelt next to the water. Unsure of whom he was more furious with, Michael for his incredibly crude and stupid behavior or with Sam for...well he wasn’t exactly sure why he was mad at her. He just was and right now she was the most convenient target.

She shouldn’t have stepped from behind him. She should’ve let him handle the situation. He’d been doing fine. He hadn’t thrown a punch; hadn’t spewed any hateful comments he’d regret later. He’d been in control, barely. Unclenching his fists to tie his boots, he didn’t even notice the few drops of blood his short nails had gouged out of his palms.

He stood and remained still for a moment forcing his breathing to slow, willing his muscles to relax, and driving away the redness that was covering everything to the fringes of his mind. He would be calm and clear-headed when he spoke. He would.

Moving like a predator stalking its next meal, he purposefully positioned himself out of arms reach but still close enough to block the warmth of the sun from her still form.

He could see that Sam’s hands were bright pink, when she noticed his presence and pulled them out of the water. Appearing to be in a daze, she just stared off into the distance. Without warning, she spoke those gut-wrenching words.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.”

His heart stopped beating.

The silence stretched on forever it seemed. She was still looking at nothing, kneeling with her back to him. He stood as if frozen; as if his entire world had not just come crashing down around him. His anger gushed out of him instantly from that one tiny sentence.

She couldn’t possibly...?

Why?

How could she...?

Why?

Did she realize...?

Not a single coherent thought formed in his brain. Of course with his heart not beating, blood wasn’t circulating through his body, and didn’t lungs actually have to inhale in order for oxygen to enter so one could breathe?

His mouth gaped open but he couldn’t force a sound out. Snapping it shut, he tried again and managed to croak out a sound.

“Why?”

When she didn’t immediately respond, he stumbled closer to her, one hand reaching out to hover over her tousled blonde locks. He was desperate to touch her, yet afraid to make what seemed to be a horrific nightmare real.

How could he go from being happy and content to this feeling of total and soul-twisting loss in just the span of a few minutes?


Contemplating his question, Sam nodded to herself before answering him. Rising and turning in one motion, she frowned as Jack took a quick step away from her. Puzzled at the carefully blank look on his face, she spoke.

“Because I think we should go home. Sturgis was supposed to be a fun escape and I don’t think I want to even look at Sex right now. I think we should just scrap the rest of this vacation and go home. I don’t want to waste another single minute of our time together by being up here.”

She yelped with surprise as Jack collapsed in a heap on the ground in front of her.

“Jack!”

His heart restarted and the rush of blood made him light-headed. Oh yeah, and the sudden influx of air; he was hyperventilating. Not to mention that his blood pressure had just dropped about 40 points. That was his story and he was sticking to it. Relief flooded through him. He’d misunderstood her. He’d jumped to conclusions. He’d...God, he was such an old idiot. She still loved him.

He gazed up at her concerned face, the inquiries finally registering over the sound of his blood pounding through his ears.

“I’m ok. Low blood sugar,” he quipped, allowing her to help him sit up.

“Don’t move,” she ordered, “I’ll be right back.”

He tried to straighten himself up a bit as she tore off towards the bike, bringing back in mere
seconds their forgotten picnic lunch.

Fending off her attempts to help him eat, he finally growled at her.

“Carter, enough! I can still feed myself.”

Knowing she was eyeing him suspiciously, he was grateful that she didn’t press the issue. He knew that she knew he hadn’t collapsed because of low blood sugar. And he knew that she knew that he knew that she knew. Ahhh! Maybe he really did have low blood sugar, because he still wasn’t forming coherent thoughts.

Drawing her close, he kissed her. Deeply. Fully. Painstakingly. Methodically. Meticulously.
Thoroughly.

Now at least neither one of them was able to form a complete thought.

“Home it is then. Just make sure there aren’t any self-made mechanical difficulties,” he said quirking a brow at her after catching his breath.

Sam said good-bye to the few friends that were hanging around the campsite as they struck the tent and loaded up the bike, thankful that ‘he’ wasn’t around. Jack had said maybe they would come back next year, but perhaps they should camp somewhere else. She’d agreed with him out loud but knew she wouldn’t be back anytime soon. Sturgis had lost its appeal. She had what she wanted. She didn’t need to hide away in order to be herself anymore. She was going home with the man she loved. She’d never felt more like herself.