Communication
by Jill Kirby

Everything has a beginning.

Spoilers through Island of the Haunted. This story is rated NC-17 for adult language, and explicit, consensual m/f sex. Do not read this story if you are under 17.

I didn't create and don't own these characters or the premise of the show. This story is for entertainment purposes only, no infringement is intended, and absolutely no money is being made from this. Please do not reproduce in print. Please do not archive. This and all my fiction is archived at my web page, http://www.cageyklio.net/kirby, and archive links are welcome.
 

Feedback: Yes, please. With sprinkles.
 

Thanks to Kelly and Karen for beta. Thanks to Sharon for the DVD.

***

Everything has a beginning.

***

The motel room smelled damp, and Miss Parker wrinkled her nose as she shut the door behind her. Not elegant, but it looked clean. That was something.

Her cell phone hardly finished its first ring before she answered it. "What?"

"Where are you?"

"You know exactly where I am, Jarod." Parker set her small overnight bag down on the dresser.

"I do?"

"Of course you do." She slipped off her shoes, leaving them precisely next to each other in the tiny space the motel called a closet. "You set it up perfectly. We didn't miss you by much."

"You never do."

"Nice of you to save that nurse. She seemed very... appreciative."

He laughed. "She didn't deserve to be fired for someone else's mistake."

Oh, he slept the sleep of the righteous every night, didn't he? "Of course she didn't. But you can't save them all, Jarod."

"You've been talking to Sydney."

"Of course I have. He's in the next room." At least this place had nice hangers. She slipped her jacket off, then clipped her skirt neatly onto the skirt hangers.

"Did he like where I put the note?"

"Nice touch to put it into a specimen bottle. Formaldehyde. Subtle." She could hear trucks, somewhere in the background.

"Subtle doesn't really work with the Centre, does it? It's one of the reasons you've done so well."

"Fuck you." She didn't sound convincing, even to herself; she sounded tired.

"So you're alone?"

"You think I'd share a room?" She couldn't walk around it in her camisole and nothing else if she did. There were a lot of things she couldn't do if she shared a room.

"You never do."

He sounded tired, too. Some nights, she enjoyed this game. Tonight, she wanted to get to the payoff without having to go through the motions. "So. What now?"

"You sound cranky, Miss Parker. Would you rather be somewhere else?"

"If you know me so well, you tell me."

"You'd rather be at home."

"Hell, yes." She flipped back the bedspread and sat on the edge of the bed, digging her toes into the disgusting carpeting.

"It's cleaner there, and it smells good." His voice sounded like music. "You'd curl up on the sofa and have a drink..."

"Or two," she interjected.

"Or two," Jarod acknowledged, and there was an echo in his voice that caught at her before she pushed it away. "I'd call you, and you'd sound different, because you'd be safe. You'd be in your element, not in a little motel room in rural Oklahoma, stuck there because someone else pulled the jet and you can't get a commercial flight until tomorrow."

The bedsheets were rough on her thighs, and she shifted, trying to get comfortable. "You don't need to be a Pretender to figure all that out," she muttered.

"You'd order in Chinese..."

"Actually, tonight I'm in the mood for pizza."

"Pizza?" He sounded shocked. "You must be hungry."

"I'm starving." She grinned as she heard the truck on the cell phone echo outside the motel room. "Absolutely ravenous."

"God, so am I."

Jarod was standing in the doorway, clicking his cell phone shut. He barely had time to kick the door closed behind him and throw the cell phone to the floor before she had her arms around his neck and her body was molded against his. It didn't matter that he was dressed, because he was hot and tall and hard against her, and his hands knew where to go. He tasted salty, like sweat and tortilla chips, and if she could have inhaled him she would have, because then he'd have been even closer.

No time for pleasantries, no patience for technique; Jarod was pushing her backwards, and when she ran into the bed, Parker pulled him down with her as she fell onto it, welcoming the weight of his body.

She was yanking at his sweater as he rolled to one side, and Jarod wasn't wasting any time either. "Oh, Christ," she moaned into his mouth as he slid two fingers into her without warning, without preparation. But she was ready for him; foreplay had been his voice, the words he spoke. The waiting. For this.

The tension, his mouth on her neck... God, she loved his hands. Arching against him, craving more pressure, he brought her close to release then backed away, then close again until she was hardly able to beg him to stop, to keep going, to end the misery.

Parker moaned, and Jarod covered her mouth with his hand. "Thin walls," he murmured, watching her face intently. She grabbed at the sheets, bit at his hand, wondered in some tiny coherent part of her brain why he could do this to her with so little, wondered why it was him, always him. And then for a moment she didn't wonder anything at all, until she came back down to Jarod's eyes on hers, his hand roaming over her skin, wet with her.

Not moving would have been nice, but it wasn't an option; it wasn't how this worked, and she tugged at his sweater again. Obligingly, he pulled it over his head and tossed it aside.

"I think... God." Whatever he'd been going to say was lost, because she'd pushed him down, straddled him, and was grinding against his crotch, her hands tucked into the waistband of his jeans for purchase. Jarod gasped for breath, and when he spoke he had trouble forming words. "Can I please take off... pants?"

"Shut up." He controlled the beginning of this-- choosing when he came into these rooms, when he decided if it was safe, when he made the phone call, or didn't. But he never held on to that control for long; he didn't want to, she didn't want him to, and as she tugged his jeans down-- his boxers along with them-- neither of them was in control of anything and oh, God, that worked so well for them.

Jarod moved, and Parker pushed him back down, hand in the middle of his chest. "Where are you going?"

"I was..." Again, he lost his train of thought as Parker settled onto him, catching her breath as she readjusted to how he felt, how they felt together. It was new, yet familiar, every time.

This time, it was she who quieted him, covering his mouth with hers.

***

Everything has a beginning. There were six long months after Scotland, punctuated with increasingly intense telephone calls, each one stripping away layers they hadn't known were left. She caught up with him, late one night; neither knew if it was due to her skill, his carelessness, or some messy combination thereof. Screaming at one another, the dark alley behind an apartment building somewhere in Texas smelling like old Chinese food and wheezing air vents. It didn't seem possible that two people could be so angry at each other, until the next moment when it didn't seem possible that two people could be clawing at each other with that much need, that much desperation.

It had started that way, longer ago than either of them cared to remember.

***

Now, it is this: two people alone in a cheap motel room, lost in each other for a few short hours. Parker moves slowly on Jarod, her face inches from his, breathing him in, the scents of sweat and cinnamon and musk so familiar, so arousing. She is watching and listening, judging where he is, tightening around him, touching him, exulting in the sounds he makes, holding her so tightly she can't breathe-- and that is when she joins him in orgasm, again, burying her face in his shoulder as she shudders against him.

***

Sometimes he says her name. Sometimes she says his. They never use words like tomorrow, or someday, or forever, because they know everything has an end.

THE END