Cuddy's Pair

She was on her feet when her cellphone rang.

Cuddy (wisely, it turned out) checked the number before putting the thing to her ear, so when House's voice came over the connection she was ready.

"What?"

He came right to the point. "You're tense."

"Given who I'm talking to, it's clearly cause and effect," She countered in a terse tone. "Which is why I'm going to make this conversation very short—what do you want?"

"Ah, such a loaded question, fraught with possibilities," came his low murmur. Not expecting this, Cuddy caught her breath a moment, and shifted uneasily, wishing (not for the first time) that her office didn't have quite as many glass windows, and that her agitation wasn't obvious.

"House—" she warned, trying to sound stern, and almost succeeding. On matters medical she could still shut him down quite efficiently; it was on nearly everything else that he could (and did) manipulate her. Part of her despaired at ever regaining his respect for her position, and part of her admitted it didn't really matter—the man did what he did better than anyone else in the country.

Probably the world, for that matter.

"I have a gift to help you ease some of the awesome and terrible strain you bear," House told her in a low (and suspiciously) seductive tone. Cuddy closed her eyes while visions of lurid battery operated devices paraded across her mind, (most of them gyrating or playing tinny versions of 'Love to Love You, Baby.')

"No." came her swift response. "NO."

"Too late; I've already spent the money," came House's mild reply. "Quite a bundle too, and I have an offer to make that you, in all your snappy, cranky not-getting-laid-enough glory ought to LOVE."

"There isn't a single THING you can offer me—"

"—I will do clinic for a MONTH straight, and cover for anyone needing it during that time. Do I have your attention so far?"

"--I'm listening; what's the catch?" came her swift (and skeptical) reply. Cuddy turned her back to the glass front of her office and looked down at her desk, wishing she could see more blotter and fewer files. In her ear, House purred, and she pictured him suddenly as Shere Khan, from Disney's The Jungle Book—the same George Sanders smugness in his tone.

"In your desk I've left an ancient stress-relieving device, procured through a hell of a lot of finesse and wrangling. You will use said device for the next three days. If applied correctly I predict that Lisa Cuddy, world class virago and undisputed alpha bitch of the greater New Jersey area will find her early hypertension dissipating, and her TMJ considerably lessened."

Cuddy's brows drew together. "I don't have hypertension or TMJ."

A loud and annoyed sigh echoed in her ear. "Listen carefully—Board. Certified. Diagnostician. That big word on the end means that I look at symptoms and figure out what's wrong with people. That's why you give me those pretty pieces of paper with large denominations on them."

"House, I know what you are on TOP of your qualifications," she replied, forcing herself to be calm. "What you are not is my personal doctor."

"Consider mine a second and overriding opinion then. Six Tylenol in twenty hours is not a good sign—take it from someone who has a lit-tle more experience with pain management."

"You counted my doses?" Cuddy growled, slightly embarrassed to be caught out.

"A month of clinic . . . fifteen days of semi-legitimate work out of me . . . " he crooned.

"A month is twenty days. Nothing less than twenty days."

"Seventeen," House countered. I'm taking the next three days off to monitor your treatment. It's only fair you know—if I prescribed it, I should follow through like the responsible and caring public servant that I am."

Cuddy blew a loud, wet raspberry into her phone and hung up. She'd barely had the chance to sit down at her desk and eye it suspiciously (her mind contemplating the worst case scenario of the Bomb Squad deactivating a dildo roughly the size of the Washington Monument while all the local news station filmed it and repeatedly mentioned her by name) when her phone rang again. She flipped it open angrily. "What?"

"I turned in my rotation schedule for the clinic. You can call Brenda the Barbarian to confirm it, if you like. However, if you sign off on it, Cuddy, then we have a deal. Seventeen straight days of clinic for three days of . . . therapy."

Cuddy was silent. Never in a hundred thousand million years would she admit that yes, lately her jaw ached, and sometimes when rushing between crises she got faint-headed and had to catch her breath, because the only thing she hated more than House being right was House finding out he was right and lording it over her.

Clearly, the best way to prove him wrong was to do whatever the damned 'therapy' was, and then go back to Tylenol when he was wrong.

"Fine. I'll be out to stick my signature on it after I find this mysterious device of yours," she replied, and hung up again.

It felt good to hang up on House—she so rarely got to do it, and twice in an hour had to be some sort of record. Carefully Cuddy opened the drawers of her desk and began to look. A few moments later, she found a small grey silk box in the very back of the left hand drawer. Drawing it out into the light, she noted it was heavy, and that the pink embroidery on it had little dragonflies.

She shot a guilty look at the glass doors, half-expecting House to be looming outside watching her, but no one was there, so she used her thumb to flip open the ivory little hook and eye catch on the box. Inside, nestled in two hollow spaces in the black velvet sat two gold spheres.

Cuddy stared at them for a moment, then drew in a breath. "Oh God. No. He can-NOT be serious. Nooo." Alarmed, she tried to shove the box back into her drawer, but her hand shook, and one of the gleaming balls wobbled out. Reflexively she caught it, the heavy weight startling her anew. Cuddy unwillingly brought it closer for examination, and noted the tiny 18kt mark under the delicately etched dragonfly motif.

She groaned. "Crap. I don't believe it—eighteen karat so I can't just throw them away—what the hell is he thinking?"

00oo00oo00

When he caught up with her in the elevator on the way home (which was a minor miracle in and of itself—she'd doubled back twice from her office and taken the cargo lift to avoid House, all to no avail) Cuddy flamed into a rosy blush and glared at him, mentally willing him to stay quiet in front of the other passengers.

Her mind control attempt failed. (Of course.)

"So . . . I take it you got that THERAPUTIC DEVICE I left for you?" House announced loudly. The two interns and the pharmacy rep in the car with them pretended not to listen in. Cuddy knew better.

"Yes I did. I'm sorry you went to all that EXPENSE, Doctor House, especially for something that ISN'T going to be used," Cuddy replied loudly. "Given how you feel about Eastern medicine in general."

"So you're saying you're willfully choosing to be NON-COMPLIANT with my medical instructions, Doctor Cuddy? That despite my accurate and professional diagnosis of your medical condition,--House cheerfully began yelling back, nodding at the now staring interns. The pharmacy rep began jabbing the elevator buttons repeatedly.

Cuddy quietly, firmly stepped on House's foot, making him break off with a yelp. "Perhaps we should continue this at another time," House—" she hissed.

He glared at her. "Maybe on the way to Orthopedics, while I get damaged metatarsals treated?"

"Don't be a baby."

"Don't drive that railroad spike you call a heel into my foot then," he growled back. The doors opened onto the lobby; the interns and rep fled, moving out at breakneck speed.

Cuddy moved to follow them, but the sudden swing of House's cane into her path forced her to stop. She didn't look at him. "No."

"I spared no expense—"

"No."

"I know they're the right size—"

"No."

"Fine. I can say 'no' too. As in no clinic. Kiss seventeen days of devoted doctorly duty goodbye. AND I'm submitting my receipt to Accounting."

The thought of Karl seeing a reimbursement slip for solid gold Ben Wa balls put her in a serious panic, and Cuddy turned to House, nostrils flaring. "No. And by that I mean yes. All right, whatever it takes to get you into doing your damned fair share of work!"

He held back his smugness (but only slightly, Cuddy noticed; the curl at the corner of his scruffy mouth burned like acid for her) and gave a nod. "See? That wasn't so hard. Because I don't trust you an inch, let's get you started right now."

"Now?" Cuddy blurted as House grabbed her wrist and towed her back towards the clinic. Cuddy wrestled to free her hand, but House glanced back at her and nodded, his gaze sharp.

"Certainly. Given the value, I know you have them on you instead of leaving them in your office, and the sooner you get them in, the sooner you can . . . benefit."

There was something so blatantly salacious about how he rolled that out that Cuddy squirmed. Trying to look calm she followed House reluctantly into Exam Room Three, frowning as he locked the door behind them. "The nurses will talk—"

"—Well if you'd feel better with a chaperone—"

"GOD no!" Cuddy shot back, glaring at him. "You are determined to humiliate me, but that's not going to happen. I'll go through this, oh yes, but in the end, you WILL be doing seventeen days of clinic duty, AND filling in for anyone who happens to need a sub in that time."

House said nothing, but Cuddy noted he wasn't smiling; instead, he had the glittery-eyed intensity that meant he was taking her words seriously. She slammed her purse on the exam table and began to fish in it nervously. He opened a drawer and pulled out a tube, handing it to her.

"KY meets Ben Wa—sounds a bit like a Kung Fu movie, don't you think?"

00oo00oo00

She'd gone behind the screen and propped one leg up on a chair, insisting House stay on the other side. Cuddy felt defensively detached; as if the whole situation was some odd nightmarish dream. All it needed was a walk-through by her old Social Studies Teacher and a talking animal. Through the screen House was tapping his cane impatiently.

"Heavy ball first, then the lighter one; not rocket science here Cuddy."

"What's rolling around in this first one?" she demanded, shifting a little as she tucked the small sphere in, (grateful she'd warmed it a bit first) and flexed a little.

"Traditionally it was mercury, but the core of these is silver," he replied. "Just be glad I didn't get the chiming ones."

Cuddy gave a moue and lightly tucked the other ball in, feeling . . . full. Unimpressed, she wiped her hands on one of the paper towels and tugged her underwear back up, along with her panty hose, then smoothed her skirt down.

It happened as she stepped around the screen. When she moved, (trying like hell to put her focus back on regaining her dignity) the little shift deep within her made her flex, convulsively. House was intently watching her.

"Felt that," came his comment.

Cuddy lifted her chin higher. "I've got weights in me. No big deal."

"It will be," he predicted confidently, moving closer to her. In one quick move her grabbed her slender hips and shook them; startled, Cuddy reached up and shoved him, but the vibration of the two balls within her was enough of a sensation to make her tighten all her muscles, and House's grin flared out, his stubble-flecked dimples deep. "Oh yeah. Just wait until your drive home."

He turned and lurched to the door, unlocking it as he called over his shoulder to her. "Three days. You can take them out for urination or bathing, but other than that I expect you to keep them in that snug silk quim of yours Cuddy."

Stunned at his audacity, she stared after him and wondered how she would ever get through her hour on the treadmill later that night.

00oo00oo00

It was good. Cuddy didn't want to admit it (no she did NOT want to come out with that confession to anyone, least of all House) but the low and heavy weight was creating some amazing sensations.

Climbing stairs was nice. Yoga was incredible. The old rocking chair was fabulous, and even the simple act of walking made her smile lazily. Cuddy could feel the click and shift deep within her, and the sweet pressure and nudges relaxing and tensing her by turns.

She hated that House was right, but that hate was fading hour by hour, replaced by a serene pleasure. It wasn't the earth shaking intensity of an orgasm; more like that pleasant little ping of arousal on a constant muted note. At any point in the day, Cuddy was , aware of herself. Certainly one thing was clear—whatever clenching she was doing, it wasn't along her jaw line.

House studied her the first day, his expression shifting from curious to intrigued when she merely smiled back at him. Just to tease, Cuddy swayed her hips a bit more exaggeratedly and gave a soft moan as the balls swirled within her.

Later, he stopped into her office and cocked his head, watching her. "Having fun?"

"Having a ball," came her lazy retort. "I'm keeping my end of the bargain."

"So it seems. I haven't seen that much hip action since Wilson found those cockroaches in his office. Try not to get addicted."

By the evening of the second day, Cuddy's simmer (which had already been going well before House's gift had made an appearance) was on full, slow boil, and she made her decision.

Thoughtfully she called House down for a consultation, and once he stepped into the exam room, she slipped around him and locked the door. He blinked. "Patient?"

"Not any more," Came her deliberate growl. With a little push she forced him back against the exam table and cupped his scratchy face in her hands, kissing him softly. House responded with alacrity (and talent—even Cuddy had to admit the man had the sexiest tongue she'd ever sucked), pulling her to him firmly.

In between slick, deep kisses, he tried to talk. Tried to, anyway. "So . . . feeling . . . a bit . . . horny?"

Cuddy chose to answer by example, slithering around him until her pert fanny rested on the table, at a lovely and convenient height for more in-depth action, (action indeed being the operative word). She had him out of his jeans and boxers, hooking her own bare legs over the crooks of his elbows. "Do me. Now."

"Oh yeah. CAN do—" House croaked, and thrust himself forward.

The slick rolling sensation of the balls along the underside of his cock did indeed make him grunt, and Cuddy arched her hips up, her own long nails digging into the crinkly paper and Naugahyde of the exam table.

They huffed and puffed, and by the time demolition was inevitable, the House indeed came, in every way including down. Cuddy let him collapse across her bare stomach, savoring the sweet aftermath of her soul deep orgasm quaking through her in tiny, sensual aftershocks.

"I love your balls," she told him huskily.

"My balls love you," he groaned, his words muffled against her half-open bra. "All four of them."

end