"It's called the Rite of Rarevanu," Daniel said, pushing his glasses back up his nose.

"And we have to do, what exactly?" the colonel asked slowly, as if singling out information from a child.

"Well, all you have to do is sit there," Daniel said, indicating a stool that sat in the middle of a small amphitheater of sorts. "Sam's the one that has to do all the work."

"And what, exactly, do I have to do?" Sam's patience was running thin with Daniels short answers.

"You have to... I guess, shave him."

"Shave him," she repeated, nonplussed.

"Just his face," Daniel was quick to reassure her.

As if it did.

"Why?" The colonel wanted to know. As if that were the burning question.

"It's symbolic of the cleansing of... do you care?"

"Not really, no."

"I didn't think so." Daniel turned back to Sam. "So they're going to want to take you with them to have you change into their ceremonial garb."

"Ceremonial garb?"

"It's customary."

"I gathered." She hated ceremonial garb.

"And you too, Jack."

"Peachy."

"And then you'll come back here and she'll..."

"Shave me." He looked over at her. "You ever done this before, Carter?"

She cleared her throat. "Yes, sir."

He looked surprised and then an emotion she couldn't quite catalog flitted across his face before he nodded. "Oh. Okay. Good."

And then they were being led in separate directions.

She was undressed to bare skin and then given a gauzy sort of dress to wear – and nothing else – that left ridiculously little to the imagination. If the lights out in that amphitheater were better, everyone would have been able to see clear through the thing. As it was, she'd be lucky if the colonel wouldn't be able to. She was half afraid they'd want to address her hair and makeup situation, but they didn't. It seemed to be just her clothing that they wanted to conquer.

When she was outfitted to their satisfaction, she was led back out to the center of the room to stand in front of the stool. There was a tall table upon which sat a pot of oil on a warmer, a small stack of cloths and a straight razor. She gulped.

The colonel appeared wearing a thin pair of pants that appeared to be made out of the same immodest material as her dress – and nothing more. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt... and he hadn't seen the straight razor yet.

He took a seat on the stool in front of her.

"Sir," she said quietly, "I'm going to apologize now."

"For what?"

"The last time I did this it was with a disposable razor." She tipped her head in the direction of the table.

He reached up and scratched behind his ear. "I guess it was too much to hope that Gillette distributed to P4C-989, huh?"

Around them, people were filing into the room and filling the seats from the bottom of the theater to the top.

"Sir, I..."

"You know the principle behind this, right?"

"Yes, sir."

He looked her in the eye. "Take a deep breath, and go slow, Major. It'll be fine."

She felt herself relax into the tone of his voice, soft and intimate between the two of them, sure that she wasn't going to do him in with a razor blade.

"There's no shaving cream," she fretted.

"The oil will be fine," he soothed.

She reached for the oil and found her hand was shaking.

He reached out grabbed her hand. "That's not what I want to see moments before you pick up a razor," he joked softly. "Carter, you've got to relax."

"I'm afraid I'm going to cut you."

"If you cut me, you cut me. I'll live."

She didn't like that answer at all. If she cut him with a straight razor, it could be serious. But she gently pulled her hand out of his and reached for the pot of oil one more time, this time careful to keep her hand steady. She dipped her fingertips into the pot of oil and then drew them out, slightly cupped to carry the oil to his face. She smoothed the oil onto his cheek and jaw, over the two day's growth of whiskers that tickled her hand as she moved. Lucky, she supposed, he hadn't shaved that morning, as it would probably be easier to shave him with the straight razor with more than just a day's stubble.

She took her time and worked slowly. She found it a little mesmerizing as she repeated the process of dipping into the little pot and smearing the oil over his skin until all his stubble was covered. When it was done his eyes were dark and heavy-lidded but affixed to hers in a most surprising way. She found herself a little shocked at the intensity there.

She picked up a cloth and broke his stare to concentrate on wiping the oil from her hands before she picked up the razor blade. She picked up the razor. She stepped up to him at the same moment he spread his legs to give her more room to step closer to him. A frisson of awareness skittered up her spine, over her shoulders, and down across her chest causing her nipples to rise into the fine fabric. She willed him not to look down, but he did, at her hands holding the razor. His eyes tripped over her chest – how could he miss the indecent show she must be putting on? Could he see through the material at all as she was afraid he might be able to? Was it, in fact, indecent?

She was embarrassed, immediately for the outward show of arousal her body betrayed her with, just from the simple act of stepping between his splayed legs. Yes, she was attracted to him. Insanely attracted to him, but honestly, she'd hardly touched him and the act of stepping between his knees was barely prurient.

She raised her fingers to temple and turned his head just a little so his cheek and jaw were in better light and then she laid the blade against his skin.

"Are you ready?" She asked him softly.

"Ready."

With a sure, steady swipe, she scraped the blade from the top of his cheek to the cut of his jaw taking the oil and his whiskers away in one smooth motion.

She made a satisfied sound that he answered with a guttural noise that hit her low in the stomach in a way that felt more like arousal than anything else. Her eyes snapped to his to find his eyes focused on hers again. The way he was watching her felt unlike anything she'd ever shared with him before and it was a little disconcerting. The were so close to one another and she was beginning to feel so turned on...

She raised the blade back to his face, he licked his lips and she felt everything pleasurable begin to tingle. She made another pass with the blade and he made that sound again. She wondered if he even knew he was doing it.

Her traitorous eyes wandered down to his bare chest. She knew she shouldn't be looking, she should be focusing on the task at hand, but how could she not take advantage, at least a little bit? She loved his bare chest and she usually only ever got fleeting glances of it. But here she got to look her fill. He was tanned completely, as if he spent a fair amount of time bare-chested when he was on Earth, and maybe he did. And his chest hair was greying attractively. He still wore his dogtags, which she thought was interesting as the women who dressed her had made her take hers off.

He cleared his throat and her eyes snapped back to his. She felt her cheeks flush as he raised an eyebrow at her in question. She'd been caught staring and he didn't even understand what had caught her attention. She cleared her throat and raised the razor blade again. She methodically finished shaving his left cheek and then started on his right. He turned his head into the light for her.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

"You're welcome."

When she'd finished his cheek she started on his jaw. She put her fingers under his chin to tilt his head at a better angle for her to see. He let her maneuver him easily. She marveled at how warm his skin was beneath her fingertips.

On the first past of the blade along his jawline he made that guttural sound again, but with more force behind it. It sounded like pleasure. And she made the mistake of dropping her eyes to his lap – she wasn't entirely sure why, instinct perhaps – and saw that he had definite interest in what she was doing. He wasn't fully hard, she'd be able to tell in the light pants, but there was activity.

And damn if the information didn't do more to turn her on. She looked up to find she'd been caught staring at his groin. She blushed again. He didn't react. There was no embarrassment as she suspected there might be. But there wasn't any acknowledgement either. She found she was a little disappointed. Though what had she expected him to do?

She felt a momentary flash of sympathy for him, though, to be getting turned on by this in a room full of strangers and he'd have to walk out of this room, in those pants, with obvious arousal he couldn't hide from them or from her...

"Carter?"

She looked at him slowly. "Yes, sir?"

"You gonna finish?" He did sound a bit unsure, as if maybe he was afraid he'd crossed a line with her.

"Yes, sir," she said resolutely.

She lifted the blade back to his jaw and finished the right side. He managed to refrain from making the sound again until she crossed back over to the left side and hit what must have been a particularly sensitive spot at the back of his jaw.

"Shit," he hissed, when she pulled the razor away from his skin.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

Her eyes, of their own volition, dropped back to his lap to check the state of his arousal and found that he'd ratcheted up several notches.

For her part, she was feeling rather slick and slippery at just the thought of him being hard mere inches away. She'd spent a lot of time with him in a lot of situations, but to the best of her knowledge he'd never been aroused in any of them. This was entirely new territory and it was really enticing territory.

With quick, efficient strokes designed to not torture him any further than strictly necessary, she finished his jaw which left just his lip and chin.

He pressed his lips together, drawing the skin tight for her and she made quick work of his upper lip. She stepped up closer to him, just a bit to contemplate his chin. She wasn't sure why he did – she'll never be sure if he knew why he did it – he reached out and put a hand on her hip. She gasped then made a low, satisfied sound. He made a small circle on her hipbone with his thumb and the touch went from circumstantial to deliberate. They were crossing a line. She'd started them crossing it back when she'd openly looked at his arousal and hadn't turned tail.

She needed to finish his shave. With as steady a hand as she could manage, she raised the razor. She had to lean back just a little and it pressed her into his fingertips. She carefully moved the blade over the contours of his chin and then, she was done – his face was as smooth as it possibly could be.

She picked up another cloth from the pile on the table and, rather than hand it to him, shook it out and began to wipe the excess oil gently from his face. He sat there, quietly, his hand still on her hip, as she ministered to him.

She was so caught up in his eyes that she didn't notice Daniel's appearance until he cleared his throat, "Now you two are going to be taken to a room."

The colonel dropped his hand and looked away abruptly. "What? Why?"

"I don't know. I just found out. It's part of the ritual. But you'll be taken to the room and then, after a period of time, you'll be allowed to rejoin the rest of the assembledge."

"Okay, fine," he said, an edge to his voice that hadn't been present when just the two of them had been speaking to one another. He stood up and pulled her to stand in between him and Daniel. Daniel smirked a little and Sam wondered if he'd noticed the colonel's problem or at least suspected why Sam might be being used as a human shield. "And who takes us?"

Daniel indicated a short woman standing a few feet away and then stepped back to allow Sam and the colonel to walk in her direction. She led them out of the theater and down a hallway to a room also lit by candlelight that held nothing but a small pallet of blankets. She shut them into the room and then left without saying a word.

Sam turned and looked at the colonel. He was looking at the pallet of blankets.

"Well," she said.

"I guess we know what the room is for."

"I guess we know why they need it," she said softly.

His head whipped around to her, his eyes narrow. But then, when he saw no recrimination in her eyes, his drifted down, down, down to catch on her still hardened nipples – evidence of her own desire because there was no claim that the room was chilled.

Her own eyes fell to the front of his pants. There was no mistaking his erection when he was standing. "Carter..."

"It was a very... sensual... situation. It's only natural that-"

"It wasn't the situation, Carter." He took a step towards her. "I mean, it was. The oil... the lighting... the blade... you in that dress..."

She looked down at herself. In the candlelight she could see exactly what he could see, and she could see though the sheer fabric, just a bit, a hint of the dusky darkness of her areolas. She crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm sorry, I-"

He reached up and pulled her arms down. "I'm not," he quirked a grin. "God, Carter, I'm not. You look... okay, so maybe it's not the height of fashion, but that'll go down as one of my favorite looks."

She could feel herself blush again.

"Carter, tell me I'm crazy... but something happened out there between us.."

She took a step closer to him. "You're not crazy," she said quietly. "I know we can't, that we're not supposed to, that nothing could ever... I know you probably don't..."

"Carter," he said with an exasperated smile, "finish a sentence."

She shored up all her courage and asked him point blank. "Are you attracted to me?"

He raised an eyebrow, looked down at his obvious erection, looked back at her like she was nuts and then asked her, "Are you serious?"

"Sir," she said, and rolled her eyes.

"Jack."

She didn't pretend to not understand the entreaty. "Jack," she said softly, looking at him through her eyelashes.

"Yes. Tell me you're not attracted to me and make this whole thing go away," he begged her.

"That easy?"

"I'd make it that easy."

"I can't," she said, shaking her head. "I know this isn't supposed to happen."

"But it has happened." He looked at her very seriously for a long moment and then he stepped up to her and said, "I'm just gonna..." And he bent his head and kissed her.

She couldn't help but kiss him back. He was considerate and careful, he teased her lips and suckled at her mouth. He was gentle. At first. And then he wasn't. He nipped at her lips and when her mouth opened on a gasp he coaxed her tongue into play with his own. He was a skilled and artful kisser and she felt the kiss all the way down to the soles of her feet.

She hadn't even noticed that he'd wrapped an arm around her and had her body pressed flush against his. She could feel his hardness pressed against her and it caused a delicious answering surge of wetness to pool between her legs.

"I'm not going to ask you to do something that would jeopardize your car-"

"You don't have to ask me," she said breathlessly against his mouth. She spun them around and maneuvered him backwards towards the pallet. He went willingly, navigating backwards gracefully. At the edge of the blankets she coaxed him down with her hands on his shoulders. He knelt down in front of her. He took a moment to press his face into the plane of her belly as he grasped her hips. She could feel the heat of his exhalations through the gossamer fabric of her dress.

He released her hips then and reached down and grasped her right ankle. She gasped at the sensation of his warm hand encircling her leg. He then slid his hand up to her knee rucking up her dress. He didn't lift the dress any higher but he stroked at the sensitive skin behind her knee and then looked up at her, "I'm going to touch you everywhere," he said, his voice low.

Her knees wobbled. He steadied her and then smiled up at her. He reached for her hand as he sat back and then, as he moved to lie back he guided her down to sit over him, just short of intimately, she sat over his thighs, her center warm and open, her dress folded up around her thighs hiding her most intimate place from him.

He reached for her. He pressed his long middle finger into the seam of her sex and encountered her slick wetness, collected there. With his other hand, he lifted her dress out of the way so he could see her. Boldly, she reached down and took her dress from him then raised it over her head and discarded it leaving her bare to his eyes. Her breasts were heavy under his gaze and with the weight of her arousal. Her nipples ached as they were pulled into taut buds that called for his attention.

He raised one hand to her breasts and palmed her warm flesh. The hand that was between her legs moved just right and caught the underside of her clit. She moaned. Her head fell back and her hips pushed towards him, closer to his straining erection.

He circled her nipple with the pad of his thumb. He found her opening and teased it with the tip of his finger. She shifted her hips to try to get him to enter her, but he was content to tease her. Her breathing was labored.

Suddenly, he withdrew his hands from her pleasure centers and drew them to her shoulders and then down her arms to her wrists. He tugged her forward until she was seated over his groin, her wet center pressed over his erection, soaking through his pants.

"Oh," she breathed, when she felt the hard ridge of his penis against her swollen clit. She was so wet that even with the cloth between then she could easily move over him and she did, rocking her hips, finding the right motion that brought her pleasure.

Jack gripped her hips at first, then reached around with one big hand to palm one buttock as she moved over him. "Can you come like that?" He asked her, his voice rough, edgy, like he was barely hanging on.

"I don't know," she said breathlessly. "I think I need more, but... oh," she moaned as a wave of pleasure washed over her, "maybe."

"Keep going," he said, as leaned up and took a nipple into his mouth.

She cried out softly and buried her hand in his hair, holding him to her breast as she continued to rock on his erection. She felt a need to be filled, but the pressure on her clit was so delicious and the things he was doing to her nipple with his tongue and his teeth were so good... And then there was the hand on her ass that was kneading in counterpoint to the sucking on her breast. She really did feel like he was touching her everywhere.

Her orgasm built slowly and she had plenty of warning. She got to tell him it was coming and move his sodden pants out of the way so that she was moving slickly over his peachy satin skin – so much better – and move his mouth to her neglected breast. It broke over her in waves so intense that she felt her toes curl and her eyes clench shut, her mouth dropping open in a series of gasps she couldn't control.

When it was over, she was underneath him, his hard cock smearing wetness – his and hers – on her inner thigh. He kissed her first. She made love to his mouth, stroking his tongue with hers, she fed her fingers into his hair and held him to her.

As he slid into her warm, willing body, he slid his tongue across hers. She whimpered at both pleasurable intrusions. She wrapped her legs around his hips and her free arm around his ribs and held on, asking with her body for what she couldn't ask for with her words.

He understood her.

He started off slow and easy but he built to a wicked rhythm that spoke to the secret parts of her that she couldn't share with every man but that she could share with this man.

"You'll come again." He said, his lips next to her ear.

"No," she said, "but it's okay."

"It wasn't a question," he said.

Heat suffused through her body. Supporting himself on one arm he reached down and coaxed her left leg off of his hip. Then he reached between them and worked some kind of magic on her clit because, miraculously, she did feel another orgasm building. It didn't feel as strong as the one she'd had before, but there it was, nonetheless.

"Tell me when," he said.

She didn't have to wait long. He was good. And knowing it was him, and the years of wanting him, it was a perfect storm. "I'm coming," she gasped.

"Good," he grunted.

He saw her through her orgasm and then both his arms were braced next to her head again and he was pounding into her relentlessly, chasing his own pleasure. It felt... incredible.

And then... a sudden stillness. And a low groan. And then slow flexing of his hips pressing her thighs wide open. Then a sigh.

A moment later he was kissing her and then her body was bereft as he pulled out of her and rolled to the side to lie next to her on his back, spent.

For long moments he was quiet and then a low, "Jesus, Sam, I always thought it would be good, but..."

She turned and looked at him. "You thought about it?"

"You didn't?"

She blushed, and he had his answer.

He ran his hand down the center of her body, from throat to mons. "I wish I knew how much time we had. There's so much we haven't done."

"We've got all the time in the world," she said, offhandedly, and then she realized that maybe, for him, this was a one-time, off-world thing and her mouth snapped closed.

"Oh, the things I'm going to do to you in a shower," he said lowly.

She resumed breathing. But for the time being... "I think we should get dressed."

"Yeah, probably."

She used a corner of one of the blankets to clean herself up and then slipped back into her dress.

There was nothing to be done about the front of his pants and he threw her a lascivious look when he put them back on. "Think they'll let me take these home?"

She wrinkled her nose at the thought of him wanting to keep them. "Be glad your uniform is clean somewhere."

He winked at her. "You should look into keeping that dress, too."

They'd no sooner made themselves as presentable as possible when the short woman returned and opened the door. She stood aside and Jack and Sam made their way out of the room and followed her back down the hall into the theater where Daniel and Teal'c were waiting.

"So?" Daniel asked.

Jack was standing strategically behind Sam once more.

"So what?" Jack asked, feigning stupidity.

"So what was the room all about?"

"Beats me. Didn't come with instructions."

"Huh. Well, we're free to go, so whatever you did, you did it right."

"Good. Just let me and Carter here change back into our BDUs and we'll be on our way."

Sam shared a glance with Jack as they each went off in a different direction to change back into their uniforms. She didn't know exactly what life was going to bring when they got back to Earth, and she had no idea how she was going to handle a relationship with her commanding officer – or if he was even going to be her commanding officer for much longer – but one thing was for certain, her relationship with Jack O'Neill was irrevocably changed. And all because of the Rite of Rarevanu.