8/8/2013

Disclaimer, spoilers, rating, etc are all in Chapter 1.

Hi all – Okay, I'm cleaning out some fic that was languishing, so here's the last chapter for this story. The level of smut here is a lot less but I wanted to share this before closing the story as complete. Now, to the story…

Helping Hand – Chapter 5

By J. Trevizo

-x-

Audrey woke first, noting the strange bed and then registered Nathan curled up behind her. She had to admit that she was surprised. In less than two days he'd settled into a spooning habit with her when she was so used to guys either splayed out on their side of the bed or wanting to get out before sunrise.

And with the hardness hitting her back and the way Nathan was unconsciously pulling her closer as he registered her wakefulness she had no doubts that neither of these things were happening with him.

However, as pleasurable as waking up with him like this was, they couldn't sleep in. At least not today. They were still on duty this morning and they needed to get moving or they would be seriously late.

Turning in his arms Audrey purposefully ran a hand along Nathan's jaw, feeling the stubble there from not having shaved for a while and grinned. She had been responsible for keeping his attention… elsewhere for that five o'clock shadow to appear.

"Mmmm morning," he finally quietly got out on a partial growl at the feel of her hand against his cheek.

"Same to you. So, it is now seven AM… since we are at your place I have no clothes so I need to get up now and get back to my place so I can shower and change…"

"You could always shower here…"

"And wear what back to my place?" asked Audrey with a incredulous look.

"What you wore yesterday?" he suggested as his eyes finally opened to regard her with equal measures of humor and lust filling them.

She gave him a glare that told him how stupid and unappealing that plan was.

"How about this… I loan you a t-shirt and sweats to drive you back to your apartment in, and you take a shower here."

"Wouldn't it just be faster for you to drop me off and then both of us shower and change in our own places?"

"Not if we're conserving water and showering together," he stated simply, the implications of his words along with the roaming hand along her side informing her that his mind was not simply on cleanliness and conservation.

But she couldn't admit that she wasn't very tempted by the idea…

"Does your place have a shower big enough for both of us?"

"I think we'll manage."

Audrey fought the smile that his words. She had no question that Nathan would make whatever sacrifices necessary to make sure they could shower together, including staying pressed against every available inch of her skin, which of course she really had no objections to.

"I'm gonna go… use the facilities. After I'm done, we'll get that shower, okay?"

He nodded and watched her slip out from under the sheets and walk towards the bathroom door, her pale skin tempting him once more.

Nathan slid out of the bed and moved to find the shirt and sweats he'd offered her. Anything he owned would more than likely be too big, except for maybe some of his laundry mistakes that he'd tossed in the back of the dresser after the cotton had shrunk with overly hot water.

Pulling out the dark grey sweatpants and a white t-shirt he set them on the bed and then went to his own closet to find clothes for work. After setting out his own clothes for the day he anxiously waited for Audrey to finish.

"Ready?" Audrey called out from the cracked open bathroom door after she was done and wasn't disappointed by the swiftly moving form of her partner heading for the bathroom. He entered the bathroom with two towels and the sweats and t-shirt he'd offered her.

He closed the door behind him, knowing that he'd be able to feel the warmth of the steam when and where she touched him and was looking forward to the sensation. And he also wanted to make sure she was comfortable in the space as they continued to test their new boundaries.

Standing outside the shower Audrey stuck her hand into the spray, testing it to be sure it wasn't too hot. Glancing to one side she noted the temperature gauge that Nathan had, which was how she assumed he kept from scalding himself.

"I usually take cold showers," he acknowledged ruefully.

"Well I am not prepared to freeze. Besides, if I have my hands and… other body parts against your skin, you should be able to feel the hot water, right…"

He nodded in the affirmative. It had been a long time since he'd felt anything, but now…

"Alright, let's get in… we're wasting water," she announced, continuing Nathan's instance that showering together was conserving water.

Audrey pushed the curtain aside and climbed in, the warm but not hot spray hitting her and she sighed a bit. A moment later Nathan stepped over the lip of the tub behind her and pressed a hand against her wet stomach, feeling the warm, wet skin there.

"I'd forgotten how that feels," he commented with a slight bit of awe.

"I've been hearing you say that a lot recently."

He turned her around so the water pelted her back and pushed them both into the spray. He couldn't feel it hit him but his eyes blinked as the water caught in his lashes and he stared at Audrey as her honey colored hair became darker as the water soaked it.

"I expect that you'll keep hearing things like that for a long time…"

The implications of his words weren't lost on her. He planned to make this, them last as long as possible. If that was six months, six years or sixty years then that's as long as they would have. And she was perfectly fine with that if she had to be honest with herself.

However the reality was that if and when the Troubles finally left again, Nathan would be able to feel everything, not just her and things through the filter of her… and she really wanted that for him.

But for now she was all he could feel and they were together. More than that would come when it came...

"Let's get clean," she remarked in a voice that sounded like honey on sandpaper.

With that she moved to find the bar of soap that he had on the rack under the showerhead. She raised it to her nose and smelled the deep pine scent, recalling once again his need to compensate with his other senses.

"We are going to need to buy something that won't make me smell like a Christmas tree," she noted with a grin as she rubbed the bar between her hands to get a lather going and Nathan's eyes widened briefly before he was smirking broadly.

Little steps, he reminded himself. First some soap and shampoo, then a drawer with her clothes, and then maybe Duke would need to find a new tenant…

Hands wet and soapy Audrey placed them on Nathan's chest and then began to cover him in the fresh smelling soap. His hands took up spots on her shoulder and waist as he let her palms and fingers caress him, spreading the lather over him as the water cascaded over them both. Every place where her skin met his made his skin tingle, and the fresh scent of her and the soap threatened to overwhelm his nose.

She proceeded down his stomach, taking care to cover every inch with her hands, knowing that he could feel it all ad her touch negated his Trouble. Nathan let his head fall forward, watching her blond head fall lower as she knelt before him, moving to wash his feet before moving up his legs and briefly running her hands across his groin, barely touching his cock or balls, which already were stirring from just her washing him.

"Change positions," she said as she stood, and they moved in the tight confines of the shower, Nathan standing under the water, the liquid hitting his face and front, washing away the suds as Audrey moved behind him.

She started soaping his shoulders and back with the lather from the soap. Her hands ran across the varying scars on his back that she hadn't really had a chance to notice until now and she found herself running her fingers reverently across them.

Bullet wounds, knife cuts, nail holes, the fishing hook incident… cuts, burns, more scars than any man who wasn't a professional wrestler or soldier for hire should have.

And he hadn't felt most of them.

"Has it ever bothered you that you can't feel these?" she asked, running a finger across the nail holes across his shoulder blade, her mind brooding over how he'd put himself between her and the nail gun as they'd run from Louis's shop.

"Considering they would have hurt, no," he replied simply.

"But that just makes it worse, doesn't it? That you know you should feel the pain but can't? That you're disconnected to even that deep kind of pain let alone the simple touch of someone's hand?"

He turned in the shower, his back now facing the water that he couldn't feel even as his hands moved to cup her cheeks. The second his skin touched hers the feeling her touch brought him came to life once more.

"Doesn't matter anymore… I can touch you, feel you, and me when I'm touching you… I'm grateful to have even that."

Her soft blue eyes caught his and before she could say anything further he was leaning down and pressing his lips against hers in a soft but insistent. She only hesitated for a moment before she was returning his kisses, her hand flailing in the unfamiliar shower to locate a place to put the soap in her hand before she dropped it on the floor and they slipped on it. Nathan reached up and grabbed her hand with the soap, taking the bar from her fingers and chucked it up and over the shower curtain where it landed with a thud on the tile floor.

Trailing his mouth down Audrey's warm, wet skin was a new sensation and Nathan found he couldn't get enough of the taste and feel of her along with the throaty sound of her voice as she groaned and moaned with his ministrations.

Sliding his hands farther down, he slid them past her lower back, his hands moving to her hips and pressing them flush to his stomach, letting her feel how hard and hot he was for her.

"Okay, this seems like it would be fun but if we end up injured in the shower and can't get out…" Audrey warned as Nathan ran his hands along her soapy, wet sides moving towards her breasts even as he pressed her against the shower wall.

"I won't be able to feel it so I'll call 911… that okay with you?" he offered as he kissed along her throat, making her groan aloud.

"Then the EMT's will know what we were up to."

"Well, that would eliminate the problem of figuring out a way to tell people that we're together."

His smirk gave her fits but then he was leaning forward and kissing her passionately, even as he pulled one of her legs to hook over his hip, making her gasp at the new sensations it created. She debated internally for a second as she pulled back from his mouth, staring into his sincere, loving eyes and let out a sigh.

"We're limber… we can make this work," she said finally, her resolve broken and he grinned as he lifted her up and pinned her to the wall.

Her other leg immediately swung around to wrap around his waist, her hands finding purchase on his shoulders as she trusted him to keep her from falling. Then as he slid home and her head reflexively fell backwards, hitting the tile wall she wondered if a concussion was in her future.

Of course after the first stroke out and then back in, she didn't care and she'd realized that leaning her head forward so she could kiss and nip at his neck worked much better and made the man holding her up shiver under her ministrations.

The precariousness of their position didn't lend itself for roaming hands as much as other places had, but the warm steam surrounding them and Nathan's body pressed tightly against hers, their skin touching from pelvis to shoulders more than made up for it.

Clutching her tightly against him, Nathan let himself just feel everything, his hips pistoning within her hot, wet depths, his eyes screwed shut as he just felt. Audrey let her hands roam across his back, her nails scratching lightly against the plane of his back, causing him to buck and speed up significantly.

His new, faster pace slammed their hips together and Audrey knew it was going to leave her walking funny later. Yet it was doing everything right, driving her all the closer, faster to her climax that she could tell was just within reach as her internal muscles began to spasm around him, her head falling back as her mouth fell open. With a soft pitched wail she came, only to have him fall right behind her, his hips jerking sporadically even as he gave a wordless shout.

Spent, Nathan collapsed against her, pinning Audrey to the wall even more than before. Slowly his head raised, his eyes opening and he smiled widely at her before leaning forward to slant his lips across hers in a tender, loving kiss.

Only then did he slowly move to guide her off of him, and to the floor where she made a startling discovery as she felt the water that had been running the whole time and realized it had gone ice cold, and she nearly yelped as she moved away from it, Nathan stepping back into it without a care, unaware of the temperature change without her touch.

"You do realize that not only is all the warm water gone but this did not really conserve anything."

His head swiveled around as he understood her meaning, shutting off the cold water before turning back to her, his heart swelling at the sight of her flushed skin and knowing that he was responsible for it.

"Well, except my sanity when we have to spend the next 12 hours keeping our hands off each other."

"There is that," she admitted reluctantly, unable to fight the smile that pulled at her lips as she realized how much she cared for the man in front of her.

"Let's get dried off and dressed. We're going to be late to work," he reminder her as he shoved the shower curtain to the side and grabbed at the towels he'd brought into the bathroom earlier, handing her one as he climbed out, roughly rubbing the fabric he couldn't feel over himself until he couldn't see any more water.

Once he dried off he headed to his bedroom, moving to put on his boxers, socks and jeans before Audrey followed, her towel wrapped around her as she looked for her promised clothes and headed to them immediately, dropping the towel on the bed as she shimmied into the sweats and slid the shirt over her head. Done she sat on the bed and picked up the towel again and looked at Nathan, her heart thudding in her chest as she did so.

"You realize that they're gonna know something's up when you show up to work smiling like that," Audrey said as she toweled off her wet hair while as Nathan slipped his belt into his jeans.

"Like what?" he asked, looking up at her with a questioning gaze even as he fumbled for his Henley shirt.

"Like you just had loving, emotionally fulfilling sex with your 'partner'," she said with a look that spoke of worry as well as pride and love.

"Well, like I said before… we do have to tell people about us eventually…"

"I had thought we'd decided that we'd have a few dates before we had to give the mayor a heads up or something. At this rate Vince and Dave will announce it with a huge banner article on the front page of the Herald."

"At this point, I'd be fine with that," Nathan replied seriously, clipping his weapon and badge to his waistband.

Her eyes widened even as she let the towel drop from her fingers. She didn't want to not do this, but the fact that Nathan had seemed to have decided to throw caution to the wind made her nervous.

"I thought…"

Before she could finish, Nathan moved to sit on the bed where she had been watching him. He sat on the edge and reached out, cupping her face in his hands, still awed by the feel of her warm skin in his hands.

"Audrey, this… us… I would stand on the roof of the station and yell it across town if it meant that I could have you by my side, in my life, in my… or your bed for as long as we have."

"What happened to one step at a time?" she asked, stunned by the depth of feeling and conviction in his words and tone.

Nathan shrugged and moved his hands away from her face to catch her hands in his, turning them over so the palms of their hands faced them.

"Since that first day when I tried to convince you to get out of that stupid car before you fell over the cliff, I think we've been heading towards this. We've been through a whole lot in the time you have been here, and my feelings for you… the fact that I fell in love with you, regardless of the fact that I could feel you meant a lot… and the realization that you felt the same way about me..."

Audrey swallowed hard but nodded in understanding. Every case, every box of cupcakes, every rescue and touch and supportive shoulder had built brick upon brick to the foundation of their relationship.

"So…"

"I want to take you back to your apartment, let you get changed and drive us to work. And once there I'll call the mayor, let him know I am having a relationship with you and it is a non-negotiable fact that they cannot use against me. Then we'll let everyone else know, including Duke when you tell him you're giving him 30 days notice."

Audrey unconsciously licked her lips, thoughts of being here, with him like this every day overwhelming her. For a second she almost let her head talk her out of it, suggesting they slow down, and then she looked up from where her hands were held in his and saw the desire and longing in Nathan's face, asking, pleading with her to want this with him and she found she couldn't say no.

"Okay."

The smile that lit Nathan's face at her simple one word acceptance of his plan nearly blinder her, and she found herself grinning too. Then he was grabbing for her head, slanting his lips over hers in a hard, passionate and unreserved kiss that made her shudder to her very bones even as she reached up to capture his face in her hands.

They kissed for a long time before he finally pulled back, their lips unsealing with a near audible pop before he reached down for her hand as he stood up, pulling her with him. Her eyes narrowed questioningly before he have her that maddening half smirk/half smile of his.

"If we don't leave now, not only will we be late, but we might never leave, and I'd like to actually get you some clothes so you can temporarily move in here and so when we leave work tonight we can come home together…"

"Well, I guess then," Audrey started, smiling at the man before her with a wicked grin even as she started for the front door, pulling him behind her, "we need to get going."

Nathan nodded in agreement as they headed to the door, knowing the next time they came through it everything would be different from here on out.

- end-

So, that's it everyone… I hope you all enjoyed. Thanks for reading, Ms. J.