"Cal, stop it."

He wishes he has some of her talent for hearin' truth in tones.

Because he honestly doesn't know whether she means it or not - not when the hushed lulling of her voice is somewhere between sleepily annoyed and sensually throaty.

All he knows for sure is that having her wedged between his legs, the firm little curve of her arse pressed right up into his crotch? The way she's stretched entirely back into the front of him and essentially brought his arm about her well enough that he's either got a handful of Foster-bits or he's got to reach for the back of the couch? Well, it'd been damn unfair from the moment she'd flopped down onto the cushions with him and forced herself into his space and between his legs and cuddled up with him. And he'd been workin', hadn't he? Behaving himself and propping his own eyelids open while trying to get through one of Loker's dry (though, sometimes amusing) papers on primates and their -

"Stop it," she demands again, her book dropped noisily onto the coffee table as her head goes thudding back along his collarbone and digs in.

His left hand stills its movement near instantly, though. He finds himself cupping the weight of one breast gently up in his palm as her hair rubs his cheek. Her head shifts minutely and he's instantly groaning a half apologetic sound onto her cheek. "Sorry. Stop what, love?"

"Stop teasing me. You're being a shit." Her tone is low and dry, near whispering as she sighs into an arch that has her breasts rising into the way he's still got one palm firmly curved on her.

Aye-aye. He loves her, he'd tell the world as much.

But bloody fuckin' hell, he's blind mad for her when she's so distinctly demanding.

She doesn't censor herself nor what she wants and he still feels his brain fall into his feet some days at the very idea – that Gillian Foster'd just out and impatiently tell him to shut up and put his mouth between her legs. First time she'd ever come onto him in his kitchen – well after a bit of his own teasing, granted – he'd gone soft in the brain and instantly hard elsewhere. Because she hadn't asked so much as just casually flicked the stove off, gently taken the knife from his fingers and then kissed him swoony. And the kiss had just been a prelude to carefully pushing him down onto his knees and whispering love on his scalp with her fingernails.

He likes to remember that evening when she's bein' especially snitty at the office. Reminds him how much (and why) he appreciates her being so direct, regardless of subject matter. Sure, doesn't hurt that it also reminds him of the graciously appreciative and moaning sound she makes when he finally puts his mouth to her. Let alone the taste of her on his tongue and lips and fingertips.

"Just appreciating the finer points of Foster." Cal grins, unable to control the way it sweeps his lips up before he rubs his face into her hair and gives up a groaning. He closes his palm tighter, lets his thumb press her nipple along the side of his finger and feels the fabric rasp between them. "Serves y'right anyhow."

"For why?" she asks, nearly pouting the words out.

"You're a walkin' tease, my love." The papers in the other hand go forgotten and he couldn't care less if they end up crumpled under his arse and illegible, not when he's got her curled up with him like this. "Know you're doin' it, too. Don'tcha?"

She shrugs and it seems even she knows the movement isn't all that convincing. "It's not always intentional."

"Often enough." He cups his palm fully around her breast again, enjoying the heated feel of the fabric against his skin, the weight in his hand.

"Cal." He can feel the shiver that rattles up and down her, can hear its echo in her moaning tone. And it sounds so delightful (delightfully damn surreal) to him, has him smiling pride as he nuzzles on her ear. "Please?"

"Go on. Tell me, then." The words get kissed against her cheek, up to her temple and then back into her hairline – mainly because he can't help himself from it. Especially when he knows how much she adores it when he's quite so affectionate, when he knows it'll get her head turning toward his. "Hmm? Whatcha want?"

Her breathing is lush as she turns her head up enough to kiss at him, lips warm and soft against his.

"Don't be mean." She murmurs it on his lips like she's scolding an incorrigible child - gently, assuredly and with such a soft little hint of humor. "Be nice, Cal."

He kisses soundly on her lips, sharply and chaste before he jerks his head back.

"Don't be such a fuckin' saint," he murmurs back in humor, noting how gilded bright her eyes are as she lets herself relax farther into his shoulder, forcing him to angle his jaw deeper to hold her glance. She's letting herself study his glasses, her bottom lip nipped up in her teeth as she just looks at him. "Tell me what y'want, Gillian."

She simply smiles at him, dazzling him with a sensual smirk and long dipped lashes.

Then her tongue skips across her bottom lip.

Wicked little minx. Doin' it on purpose, too.

"Y'don't usually have a problem tellin' me where to go or what to do," Cal teases over her, voice lulling as gentle as the way she's looking up at him. "What's different? Eh?"

The grin she gives him is... quixotic? He's got nothin' else in his brain readily available to describe it. Primarily because she's got half his neurons fried and the way she's cuddling closer into his hold is starting to singe on what's left of them. But, really, because she looks so ridiculously... happy. Hopeful. Nothin' but pleasure and positively pretty romanticism on the woman. There's suddenly something other than just lust or teasing in her eyes and it's beautifully wide and bright in blue, something adoring.

"What, Gill?" He shakes his head in confusion, feeling unexpected laughter breathe up his throat as he studies the look on her face. "You keepin' secrets?"

"Nope." She nears laughter herself as she catches against his jaw, strokes her fingers against stubble and her laughter becomes clearer as he growls into scrubbing his cheek against her palm. "No secrets."

"Hmmm? You sure?" His accusation is more playful than anything, taunting over her as she brushes her fingers on his lips and he mocks nipping at them. "What's with the big beautiful eyes, then?"

"You're adorably paranoid," she sighs off, lets him catch one of her fingers between his teeth so that he can draw it into his mouth and suck against it. "Maybe I just love you."

He shades a hooded look back toward her eyes, kissing the fingertip she draws from him as he blinks at her. "You playin' me, Foster?"

"Like a fiddle." Christ, there's very rarely any guile in the woman – and even the days there is, he isn't sure he'd even know it, now would he? An endeared smirk tricks over his mouth after she's answered, and especially with how quickly she's given the sweet confession between them. "Hand, please."

Right, no guile, none at all. Not when she's in such a mood and so happily asking him to put his hand in her pants, eh? Not when her right hand is still on his jaw to hold his glance to hers and the other hand has somehow wriggled its way down to catch one of his and pull it over her stomach. Cal grins wide, unintentional but with an arched brow of appreciation as he tugs his fingers from hers and finishes the tripping of his fingers down between her thighs. She's just smiling at him as he ticks his nails against the inner seam of her jeans, the blue of her eyes lookin' like broken-bottle-sea-glass and hazy.

"That's whatcha want, eh?"

She nods quickly though the movement is small, fast agreement but there's still enough Gill in her to be a little shy about it. Sure, she's direct. Doesn't mean she doesn't blush delightfully when he teases her just so. Hell, and he truly loves teasing her. Whispering brash innuendo and taunting naughty little things over her skin, getting her to flush up until she's all lovely rose heat and melting warmth and a sweetness that he doesn't necessarily have in his life otherwise.

Cal smiles indulgently as she ducks her face into his throat, angling farther into his hand in a quiet urging that he sure as hell doesn't need. They could be mid-argument 'bout a case and if she asked him to touch her he'd be running ten fingertips far and fast as he could before she could get to 'where' with which hand. He tugs loose the button of her jeans without question, without shame, makes quick work of finding the fabric of her underwear and skiffing it between his fingertips. She near whines annoyance when he just runs a few stroking touches up and down the silken fabric, her fingers digging on his jaw as she flicks him a half glare.

Her eyes have gotten shades darker but, hell, it's awfully lovely. "Be nice."

Cal just arches her a half grin and dips his mouth on hers, dumb and stupid (speechless and idiotic in love/lust with her) as he pushes his hand under the fabric and kisses her at once. She lets him take her mouth hard, even as he skims his fingertips softly under fabric and finds slick warmth. A groan breathes up his throat and settles on her tongue as he quickly searches out her clit and circles it. Her hips come up reflexively and he takes advantage of the movement, gamely makes more space for his hand inside fabric and strokes through wetness.

The gasped break her mouth makes from his is enough to make him flush up with pride.

Because she hums appreciation and affirmation against the corner of his smile while he just skims his fingers inside her.

"Mmm. Right there." It's murmured as he stretches his finger into her and he barely registers it at first, half back toward her clit before she makes a weak noise of disagreement. "No, just - "

Right, correction. He's on it, he is. Lightman to the rescue.

He nods without realizing he's made the quick and silent agreement. His mouth searches out hers again as he slides a finger back into her, adds another. She tightens on him, her body shivering even as she slips a moan into his mouth like a secret little truth (for him, they're all for him now, yeah?) and he swallows it, holds it down in his chest as she traces her tongue on his.

"Mmmhmm." Christ, that sound she makes in her throat as she ends the kiss is addictive, it's the very thing that makes him want to curb himself, be better, be everything she thinks he can be. "That's good. That's nice."

He angles his hand, pushes deeper into her and watches the gorgeousness of her moaning response as he presses his thumb along the side of her clit and just pushes steady pressure.

"Cal."

He's fairly sure that making her use that tone of voice, that needy and insistent whimpering, making that sorta sound come off her lips is simply one of his absolute favorite things to do.

"Needed something inside you, didja?" He can feel how breathy full of grit his own voice is and rather than be self-conscious about it, he's damn pleased. Because she tends to sigh into him when he gets that near strangled and groaning tone of voice and, hell, anything to get her closer. Not that she can get too much closer than she already is when her hips are arching into his touch and his fingers are full into her. "Well, thank God I was here."

She shudders a little in response and flexes tighter around his fingers. The way her body clamps up and pulses around him says that she's been winding herself up, something's been working her up and she's near undiluted in her pleasure. Probably one of those stupid books she has laying around his house – as though he'd ever have something so bloody insipid on his shelves. He chances a glance toward the one she's dropped to the table but it's not at all one of her ridiculous romance novels.

He's stunned still for a moment.

Because it's his book. His.

Not one he owns but one he wrote.

The second one. The one with Em's forward and a dedication that is... indecently romantic by Lightman standards. A dedication he'd fought himself over for months before idiotically (read as: drunkenly) emailing it off to his editor one night before he could lose the guts to do so. And he mentally stores up the realization that it's been printed into paperback because, well, wasn't aware of that. Didn't realize they were going to do a bit of both hardcover and soft. He's gonna need to have a chat with -

"You have such nice hands," she murmurs lazily, her nails drawing his attention back as she scrapes them lightly up the skin of his forearm. "Have I told you that?"

The tingling spreads fire-wise up his arm and he feels himself tense up in response, nuzzling his mouth along her ear and tasting the smell of her shampoo on his tongue. He's using his thumb on her clit and pressing his fingers tighter into her, drawing them in and out slowly. "Just the hands you like, then?"

"Certainly not," she counters quickly, a little breathlessly as her head drives farther back against his shoulder.

He slowly withdraws, gives a light pinch against her clit and it rucks her up into an arching that gives him a glorious view right down the front of her shirt. The movement has him watching her body appreciatively as she stretches farther back into him. Her head presses solid and comfortable weight into his shoulder and he turns his glance back up over her face, craning his neck near uncomfortably to be able to watch her eyes dip closed as she moans for him. Cal strokes his fingers back down, pushes one back inside her while the heel of his palm grinds against her clit and has her whimpering toward his ear in answer.

"Gill?" His voice is terse but quiet, half implication and half a begging because this is becoming more a tease to his body than a consummation and it's maddening on him. As she usually is, yeah?

"Both hands," she tells him while she's got both of her own wandering and begging on his forearms, eyes shut delirious. "Make me come."

It's bloody unreal, that tone she uses that's a beg and a promise all at once.

Not that he isn't enjoying it or anything.

Is a bit unfair, though. One-sided and all.

And she's got him so hard...

"Cal."

Hell... the things she can do to him with the twist and tingle of her voice on his name. Doesn't matter what he wants, does it? Not entirely. Not really. Not at all, actually. Not when she's so gloriously trusting in the hold of his hands and she's guiltlessly enjoying his touch rather than pushing it away. Bein' a bit selfish but if anyone's got the right to take advantage of his talents he'd say one Gillian Foster, Master Head Shrinker, well... she's the one. And she has an excellent point – he has always been especially adept at bringing her off with his fingers and harsh little whispers right at the back of her ear. Learned that right up against the inside of his office door while they had a crew of Federal Agents impatiently waiting for them in the conference room. And she's so righteously pretty in pleasure. Sure, he'd say she's lovely any time but he just simply can't look away from her when she's flushed up like this.

"Gorgeous, you are." He lets his voice gutter down for her as he shifts into using both hands, tone heavy with accent and cocky grit. He can feel the responding moan start in her chest and shiver down the length of her. "Don't deserve you. Shouldn't be allowed to love you much as I do."

Because it's true, isn't it? She shouldn't allow it.

But if she's gonna... he's prime ready to take advantage of that silly mistake.

"Shouldn't be lettin' me put my hands where ever I please, Doctor Foster." The urge to smile when a whimpered sound claims its way up her throat is undeniable and he doesn't argue with the instinct. A smile that slips into the intensity of his tone and he hooks his fingers deeper, starts rounding his other fingers harder in tight little circles along her clit. "Crap decision on your part, isn't it?"

"Please?" The sound of her so innocently, guilelessly, begging him to do anything (even if it's house chores) will ever and always make his cock twitch. And he's suddenly entirely blinded by his own pleasure and shoved back from it at once. Because she's more important at the moment. She's more important in general, really. "Fuck, please?"

Sass-mouth and cursing, begging? From the incomparable and suitably professional Gillian Foster?

He'd bloody well murder to keep such a silly little thing safe.

And that re-realization sobers him, re-directs his attention back to how stunning she is, utterly destroys any jealousy on his part in regards to pleasure.

"Go on, darling," Cal whispers along the side of her mouth, intentionally leaving behind the taunting tone of voice in trade for a gentleness that surprises even him. Hadn't meant to go quite so soft and sweet on her but, well... she brings both sides of him (the mischievous shit and the buried romantic) 'round to the front, doesn't she? "I've got you."

The muted noise that she makes sounds like a humming of his name and matches how tightly she clenches up on him, all of her clutching him closer as she dips her face toward his throat and exhales harshly.

He knows this body in his arms near as well as he knows his own. Better, probably. Actually.

He's had a decade to peruse and study and learn its lines, its perfect imperfections, its curving warmth and how long, how willowy winsome is seems despite her shorter stature. He's mentally mapped and measured curves, angles, straights and the lines that go all the way up and culminate in the perked corners of every smile she's ever given him. The crinkled fault lines that bracket her eyes as she laughs make him feel like he's in the middle of a tremor – she laughs for him and the ground fucking moves, doesn't it?

He's given himself a decade to learn her and in return she's given him the singular right to worship every one of those curves and lines and her laughter, every smile... they're partially his now, yeah?

It's not a fair trade that he's tricked her into – but Cal Lightman isn't a man to pass up an advantage of any sort.

"Got y'right where you belong now," he demands roughly, forces his fingers into sharper and harder movements, stroking in and out of her while other hand goes unforgiving with repeated pressure on her clit. "Not goin' anywhere, Gill."

She's never pretended that him accenting her name so warmly doesn't do something for her.

Since the first time he tried the syllable on his tongue and let himself be cheeky about it, ply accent and heat on it in combination... she's always let him know (even if silently, facially, physically) that she likes his voice saying her name.

No different this time, either. Because he says it again, tied to a "Go on, Gill, please?"

And she soaks his fingers as she comes, her breath a panted and moaning repetition on his ear as her entire body shivers. Her face goes buried into the side of his throat as she whimpers and he can feel the open mouthed and long drawn moan she makes against his skin as her body clamps against his fingers. Both hands go still between her legs, trapped up by the way her thighs have clenched up and tightened on him. Cal smiles stupidly into the way she shivers on him, her entire body an uncontrolled shake that comes from her hips first. Her mouth is making a long line of kisses on his skin, grazing them back and forth, damp and warm. Even as she whimpers, coming down and going loosened, he smiles wider. Can't help himself as she runs her nails skimming on his forearms in appreciation and a sort of silent gratitude, lazy appreciation. He slowly slips his fingers from her, wiping their dampness up her skin as she cuddles in his arms and starts shifting farther onto her side.

"Feeling better then?" he asks into her hair, letting her fall more relaxed in his arms, resting harder into his lap.

A sated noise hums low in the base of her throat and he gentles how tightly he's holding her as she continues to shift, her voice muzzy in whispering, "Definitely."

Cal lets her turn farther onto her side, feeling like a loon for how widely he's smiling to himself. Got a right to be proud of himself, though. Right? Not every night he finds her cat-curled in his lap and damn near purring after she's let him put his hands all over and inside her. Not every night she gets herself all worked up because of somethin' he's done right. He snugs her up tighter and buries his face down into her hair, grunts up a half laugh as she cuddles closer in response. Her bright and slightly embarrassed laughter echoes against his chest as he playfully rubs his face deeper into her hair. Her hand escapes their tangle long enough to lift against his face and carefully draw his glasses off. He lifts his head into the blind movement and closes his eyes as she clatters them to the coffee table and tucks back in. His face rubs back into her hair with a new groaning fervor and he squeezes on her, feeling her make a small sound of comfort rather than necessarily hearing it.

"Ask you somethin'?" he asks quietly as he lifts his jaw, head setting against the top of hers.

"Sure," she says, as though any subject is fair game between them, as though her trust in him is unyielding, impenetrable, implicit.

Terrifying woman.

Terrifying and brilliant woman.

"How many copies of that thing you got?"

She muffles her response as far into his space as she can, shy but proud all at once and he can feel the warmth of her tone against the underside of his jaw. "A couple."

"Just a couple, eh?" Cal chuckles in answer, digging down so that she's got to make room for the way he scruffs his stubble against her cheek.

"Three."

Three. Right, but he only gave her the one. Which means she's been out nabbing up more than her fair share when he isn't around. Undiluted pride and surprise humor cracks heat open in his chest at imagining her in a book store, not being able to just walk past the book that's got his name on it, regardless of the fact she's got, literally, the first copy to come back from the publishers. And with his signature right under the dedication too. But the idea that she can't possibly leave the store without another in her hand, in her bag, tucked up against her chest for safekeeping?

... he loves this woman. The sort of incalculable love that drives lunacy and navigates extremely stupid decisions like ancient tattered star maps.

"One I gave ya," he leads quietly, letting the words hush off in her hair.

"Mmmm," she answers just as gently. "And this one."

"And another?"

It's a few beats of uncooperative silence before she sighs a sound through her nose and her body just laxes even looser in honest resignation. "In my car."

He grins again and feels utterly foolish. Can't help it, though. Not with the realization that she keeps his words close to her as often as she can. That she likes to travel around the avenues of their lives supplied with what he's said and implied about her (both the intentional adoration and the unintentional love he'd layered between the words – not like he doesn't know it's there, that she can read everything about him, even between lines).

"Liked it that much didja?"

"I liked it very much." And the way she says it is warm, quietly tender, but still so heated to him that he feels suddenly sleepy cozy wrapped up around her. The smell of her curling back on him just as much as he tightens his arms around her in unconscious reaction to the statement.

"Y'do know all the sappy bits were about Em and not you, right?" he teases, lips rubbing into the dry silk of her hair. And his body jumps sharply when she pinches against his stomach in swift response, no compunction about it, either. "Oi! That hurt."

"Liar," Gill murmurs in lazy argument, nudging her head closer into finding kisses on her temple. "You used my name, Cal."

"I used your name." He nods slow agreement, letting his voice get hushed and dazed as her fingertips tease at him apologetically, soothing the spot on his stomach with gentled touches. "That is true."

Not Foster, not Alec's name. And while he still often calls her Foster for the sake of business and friendship and all things they were before she started letting him touch all over her... it just hadn't been right when he'd needed to say something without necessarily saying it (still). She wouldn't have believed him true in his intentions if he'd used her ex-husband's name on something that'd been meant to be so... well, honest.

And not even Gillian either... He'd considered her full name and it hadn't felt right. Hadn't felt close enough to the truth.

And she'd be the only one to really read truth or lies in the space of a few sentences from him, wouldn't she?

So... just Gill.

Gill, darling...

It's everything I've never been able to say.
It's everything you've always heard anyway.