Josh turns and looks at me from the open door, forehead crinkled, hair sticking up in every direction, looking every inch like a confused puppy, and I have to stifle a snort of laughter. He checks the hallway again before turning back to me. "There's no one there. Ronna and Edie are gone."

I don't know if I should even grace that with a comment. "Duh" seems like a good response, though probably not one he'd appreciate. After all the giggling and stumbling around they must have just heard, I can't say as I'm surprised that they disappeared.

I can just barely see him bend over, presumably to pick up the paperwork left behind, and it occurs to me that Ronna said something about me being needed for spin. I know it's important—crazy, insanely important—but I'm still in a vague post-coital haze. Getting dressed and being on camera is not something that interests me at the moment. Never mind that I probably look like I just got laid…oh, God. I probably do have that look. That weird, trying-not-to-smile, spring-in-my-step look that everyone who hasn't had sex for a while gets but tries to hide. I can't go on TV like that. My parents are going to see me like that, then they'll call me to find out why I'm acting so strange.

I blink a couple of times as the door closes, trying to shake my brain out of that line of thought. It's possible I don't have blood flowing in all the proper places quite yet. I watch Josh as he shuffles back over to the bed, his head down, focused on the numbers that were left in the hallway. He drops down onto the mattress, not far from my leg that's still poking out from under the comforter. I wait a moment, almost holding my breath to see what's going to happen, but he says nothing, completely absorbed in paperwork again. The whole moment is so oddly comfortable that it rattles me down to my core.

I shift off my elbows and flop back down to my pillow, letting out a huff of air. It doesn't seem to register with Josh; for the moment, that's fine.

This is…weird.

Well, it is, and it isn't. Moments like this, where he behaves as if we've spent countless nights together, as if the two of us sneaking off to have sex in the middle of the afternoon is commonplace…that's the part that's weird. The actual sex part has been anything but weird. Truthfully, it's been pretty great.

All told, last night's adventure has already taken on a hazy, almost dream-like quality to me. I wasn't planning on propositioning Josh at that moment, and I really had no idea if he'd actually take the hint this time and follow me. I think he might have been in a state of shock when we got to his room—he let me take the lead and set the pace for the most part. He wasn't passive by any stretch of the imagination, but he's not an idiot. There's a lot to be said for sleeping with someone significantly older than myself. He's not opposed to taking direction and trying new things when something else isn't working, and by God does he have staying power. And enthusiasm.

So much enthusiasm.

I thought I was going to split in two last night. Not that I'm complaining. I just had no idea what to expect, despite copious amounts of fantasies over the years. It was far better than I could have imagined it to be, though part of me still feels like maybe it didn't really happen. With running on so little sleep, it's not that unusual for the mind to play insane, vivid tricks, and it really does feel very surreal. The room was dark, save for the light coming from the bathroom, so neither of us really got a terribly good look at each other naked, which just adds to the whole dream-feel. The low-light, the alcohol mixed with sleep deprivation, the years we'd been putting this off only for it to finally come to a head after three campaigns together, everyone showing up in his room in the middle of the night because suddenly no one could sleep, and add in an actual toe-curling orgasm…it's no wonder my brain can't catch up.

I shudder a little and feel knees actually go weak at the memory of it all. Of all things, I never expected sex with Josh to be so good. It's not that I anticipated it being bad, really, but I figured with almost nine years of some form of tension between us, there was no way the act of it could live up to my imagination. I figured it'd be a letdown in that regard, and I was okay with that. But as far as first times go, it was fairly perfect. Aside from the fact that we didn't really talk much during it all, sticking mostly to grunts and groans with the occasional "harder" and "faster" thrown in for variation. I don't know if I even said his name last night—maybe my subconscious thought names would make it too real, or make us think too much about what we were doing.

By comparison, this afternoon—less than half an hour ago—was…different. Not bad different, but still different. It felt less clandestine, though we in no way advertised that we were running off for some action. There was more laughter as we fumbled with taking off each other's clothes, and it felt even more absurd as we tried to find places to drape them so that we wouldn't look all wrinkled afterward. His room was filled with nothing but sunshine that laid bare all those parts of us that were hidden last night. Every imperfection, every uncertainty, every piece that we might have wanted to conceal was available for scrutiny. In a less-than-shocking turn of events, Josh didn't seem to care in the slightest about the parts of me that cause me insecurity, not that we took a lot of time to really examine each other this go 'round, either. Truthfully, naked Josh was nothing but a turn-on for me, and when a guy goes from zero to hard-as-a-rock at just the sight of my bare breasts, it's an ego boost.

So, this most recent tryst was a bit more…boisterous. Not that we were swinging from the curtains or throwing heavy objects at each other, but I'd say we were definitely more "into" it than last night. I was definitely more vocal and, at times, really, really loud. He seemed to appreciate that part, often staring at me in a combination of wonder and smugness. The downside is that it made the after part a little awkward. I don't think I knew how to come back from that. How does anyone come back from, for lack of a more delicate way to put it, riding a man like he's a bucking bronco, to casual conversation? I imagine that if sex was something we'd been doing for more than twelve hours, it wouldn't be that odd to go from all that…activity to lying side by side in bed. Typically, I'm not a sex-in-the-middle-of-the-day person, so any behavior that might be considered excessive by some can easily be ignored by rolling over and going to sleep. This time, though, I felt wide awake. I still feel wide awake. Josh is showing no signs of fatigue, either.

Maybe we know each other too well. It took some time for us to find our groove again as friends and co-workers, but we still know almost everything there is to know about each other. This sort of intimacy is the final frontier. It's possible that we don't have anything left to talk about, no post-coital get-to-know-you conversations. Or maybe it's just hard to navigate this part right now. Am I thinking too much about it? Am I making this harder than it has to be? We just had a moment while we were watching election coverage where it felt like us and not two strangers who'd tumbled into bed together. It's easy to fall into old patterns and conversations, but I know we have more in common than electoral maps. Maybe I'm just being too self-conscious about enjoying myself in bed. I'm not normally. But this is Josh. It feels weird that he now knows what I'm like during sex.

Or, again, maybe it doesn't feel weird. Maybe I just think it's supposed to.

This part with over-thinking everything is horrible.

I try to make myself focus, at least for a few moments, on anything that makes sense. I know that we kissed a few weeks ago, and my attempt to proposition him at that point didn't work out so well. At least I found out that it wasn't because he'd rejected me—he just wasn't quick enough to get the key. Still, that left me a little gun shy. I knew after that that I wanted to kiss him again, but I couldn't figure out how. Getting half a second alone with Josh was next to impossible, despite the fact that everyone else on the campaign with us seemed to be mating like bunnies in every spare moment. I know that the stars aligned for us last night and that this time he didn't hesitate and even though I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest with an ungodly combination of emotions, we managed to actually have sex. And it was good.

The "good sex" part is something my brain has no trouble grasping right now. It's just everything else that's throwing me for a loop.

Of course, that would be why I suggested we "de-stress," despite our awkward encounter before the sun even contemplated rising this morning, with what might have been the Grand Canyon between us in bed, him walking in on me getting dressed and accusing me of sneaking out—which is what I was doing, even though I hate myself for it, and even more for lying to him about it—and me very doggedly avoiding having a conversation with him, there were a lot of tiny moments that felt very natural. Him leaning over me to check the news sites, him watching me get dressed, going for coffee, all things that felt as if they were part of the natural order of things. All of that added up to me realizing not that long ago that I still wanted him. I mean, I wanted him bad. There was nothing about our encounter that felt like an itch that had been scratched. It just left me wanting more.

Hence round two.

I sigh. My thoughts are going in circles. Not even real circles, either—abstract, Picasso-like circles that aren't actually round but instead have a million tangents and make less sense than one would think possible.

I shift a little and manage to fold my arm under my head, giving myself a better view of Josh who, not surprisingly, is still completely absorbed in the information before him. I tilt my head and watch him, feeling oddly fascinated. Josh is a good-looking guy. This is not revelatory. He's absolutely adorable, at least when he wants to be. Right now, though, it's more than that. Right now, he's making my heart flutter. He's making my stomach twist. His profile is actually rugged. An old lyric shoots through my mind—"Although he may not be the man some girls think of as handsome." I know there's more to it, but I absolutely forbid myself to think of it. I know how I feel about Josh, even if at this moment I'm not at all prepared to face it. And really, a lot of women think of Josh as handsome, or at least enough to form an insane, online posse. He's just not traditionally "handsome." He starts off as cute and goofy and almost charming, and once you get to know him, either you want to kill him or you can't stop staring at him.

"Is my face frozen in an odd way?"

I blink a couple of times, Josh's voice startling me out of my reverie. Tilting my head, I grin a little, really studying his profile. "Little bit." His eyebrow lifts for a fraction of a second and I roll my eyes. "Not entirely unattractively."

He huffs out a little bit of air that isn't quite a laugh, and I notice that he's hunched over, his shoulders slumped, his body already looking so tense I could bounce a quarter off of it. Without really thinking, I stretch out my leg for a minute, loosening the kinks, and drape it over his thigh. I brush my toes over the back of his calf, the muscles there twitching beneath the fabric of his pants. Both of his eyebrows shoot up, his forehead transforming into a dozen little hills and valleys, but other than that, he has no response.

I wait, watching him. I'm okay with taking the lead—truly, I am—but I wouldn't mind if he'd give something back instead of freezing like a deer caught in headlights.

Then his hand lands on my knee. For a very long moment, nothing happens other than that. His eyes never leave the paperwork still clutched in his left hand. His thumb twitches. It hardly registers at first until it happens again, and my eyes fly to his hand. Very delicately, his fingers start to stroke my skin. It's not sexual. It's feather light.

It makes my breath catch in my throat.

All right, so here we go. My first foray into Josh/Donna smu-rotica. I fully admit this first part kind of sucks and isn't terribly great. I was still finding my footing. I know this story has been done a million times by now (I may be new to the fandom, but I've gone through a good portion of the fic out there already), but this was another idea that grabbed hold and wouldn't let go. I think it gets better as it moves along, but time will tell. There are no natural breaks in the story, either, so I'm going to be going through this thing again, finding stopping points that aren't entirely ridiculous. Rating will change when the content changes.

Also, is it arrogant to be totally charmed by something you yourself have written? Because I'm totally smitten with Chip Reader. That's horrible of me to say, isn't it? Like, I wish told people IRL that I write fanfic because I think I'd pass that one on to people.