Chapter 1

House came quietly into the house and found just what he expected. It was Sunday afternoon and Cuddy was asleep on the couch, the baby monitor letting out a soft whoosh of white noise on the coffee table next to her. It had taken him months, but he'd finally convinced her to take Sundays totally "off," not making herself work during every spare moment, which included Rachel's naps. He looked at her for a moment, lying there in a faded tee shirt and yoga pants, her bare feet tucked under a pillow. Then he kicked off his shoes and, with some clumsiness to favor his leg, snaked into the space between her and the couch's back, resting his hand on her hip and smelling her hair.

Cuddy stirred a bit, nestling back against him, and mumbled, "I thought you have a patient."

"I'm waiting on labs," he murmured back. His palm pressed against her stomach and his fingers tickled her skin. "And my brain still functions outside of the hospital walls, you know."

Cuddy smiled and rolled back a bit, grinding her hips against his. "Not if all your blood rushes to other body parts," she teased.

"Not a problem," he asserted, pushing right back. "My hands and feet just fall asleep." She grinned as he nibbled her earlobe. His hand slid down the side of her waist and pushed under the waistband of her pants to grip her hip.

"There's nothing hotter," Cuddy began, rolling over to face him, "Than sex with a man who is thinking about rare infectious diseases the whole time."

House stared at her. "Your eyes are the color of healthy brain matter," he murmured in a mock seductive voice.

Cuddy laughed. "You should write sonnets," she told him. He kissed her gently, leisurely. After a minute, she asked, "Do you ever wish we could have sex without all the banter preceding it?" her words muffled against his lips.

"Nope," he said matter-of-factly as he began kissing her jaw line.

She laughed softly, moving her hands to the back of his head. She felt his stubble sliding along the most sensitive parts of her neck and his hands sliding up the back of her tee shirt, one set of fingers deftly unclasping her bra while his other hand tickled up and down her spine. Her breath came out in a shaky exhalation as one of his hands glided over her ribs and found her breasts. He was both insistent and relaxed - running his fingers over her nipples in ways he knew drove her insane, but taking his time smelling her skin and peppering her neck and chin and mouth with slow kisses.

Returning the affection, Cuddy's hands drifted down his body. She snaked one up under his shirt, sliding her palm along his stomach. With her other she pushed against his groin through his jeans, causing House to inhale sharply. Cuddy smiled and undid his pants, weaving her fingers in to tease him. His quiet groan encouraged her and she began sliding his jeans down.

"Man, right to business," he joked. "Shirt still on. You just need my manhood and that's it?" he teased. He pulled back and looked at her with a mock pout. "I remember how you used to touch me," he said in fake whiny high-pitched voice.

"Like this?" she asked, fondling him without hesitation. House closed his eyes and his head lolled back against the couch.

"Uh-huh," was all he managed to sigh out. She pushed her pelvis against his, though her yoga pants were still separating them. House's hand suddenly pressed hard against her ass, pulling her to him. God, he wanted her. He was all for foreplay, but something was also unbelievably sexy about Cuddy when she wanted to skip right to the important part.

Cuddy shifted and pushed against his shoulders, rolling him onto his back and climbing on top of him. "Tell me about the patient," she said in her most boss-like voice. Then she bent her head and started kissing his stomach, one hand propping her body and the other still busy below the beltline, turning him on more and more.

"Who?" he groaned.

Cuddy smiled against his belly. "The convulsing guy," she reminded him.

"Oh, yeah… 'Twitchy,'" House murmured. "We're… thinking… Moersch… Woltman… syndrome," he said between labored breaths as Cuddy kissed down his body. "We started… immuno… suppressants."

"We started immuno-suppressants?" she teased, right before running her tongue along the length of him. House's hips pushed up and a half-sigh half-moan answered her.

"I'm hard at work," he retorted, though his voice sounded a little like he was in pain. "Supervising… them… The kids…" Cuddy's mouth was around him now and he couldn't even think anymore. She loved actually being able to shut him up.

House's brain was turning to molasses because all he could focus on was what Cuddy was doing with her mouth. He had come home because he liked being around her on her day off, and had half-hoped for some afternoon "nap sex," but this was more than he had dared to expect. He lay there being transported to a far-off happy place, feeling her nails lightly scratch his stomach, then felt the familiar tension mounting deep inside of him.

"You need to stop," he said suddenly. "I can't believe I'm saying that, but I am. If you don't, you'll have woken up for nothing. Then every time I come home on a Sunday you'll think I'm expecting this. Then you'll start resenting it. It will be bad," he explained in a tumult of words. Cuddy looked up at him, smiling.

"You're nuts," she said.

"I'm not. I know women," he retorted.

"You know crazy women," she rebutted.

"There's another kind?" he asked.

"Shut up before I stop wanting to do you," she scolded as she crawled up his body, somehow using yogic skills to slip out of her yoga pants on the way up. House looked over her shoulder to unabashedly stare at her lace-covered ass, sticking out below the hem of her tee shirt. Cuddy craned her neck to follow his gaze.

"Stare all you want," she told him. "It will never stop being awesome," she joked.

"I can't figure out if it's the height or the width," he told her, still staring, but now with a furrowed brow. "Maybe it's the way it curves into your thighs…"

She looked at him with a half grin. ""All of the above," she replied. "It's how it all comes together."

He nodded in agreement. "Your ass is a Gestalt," he summarized.

"You and the poetry again," she said before covering his mouth with her own, sliding her tongue between his lips. House put one hand in her hair, trying to gain a foothold back in this sexual duel she was winning, sliding the other hand down to her ass to fumble with her panties. He sucked at her bottom lip and kicked his pants all the way off, losing some of his former patience due to her oral attentions. He got her panties halfway down her thighs and then slid a hand between her legs, causing Cuddy to gasp and arch her back, pushing her belly into his. "God, House," escaped her lips and it was, as always, the best moment of his day. His fingers felt her wetness and he used his other hand to, finally, slide her tee shirt up her torso and over her head, revealing her in all her bra-less glory. Her hands were pressed on his chest and her head was thrown back and she was so fricking beautiful he couldn't stand it. He put a hand on each hip and with one careful but precise motion he was inside of her, losing the battle with his eyelids as the pleasure pulled them down despite his desire to keep staring at her. Through closed eyes he felt her tightness around him. He slid his hands along her skin, up her ribs, down the mound of her ass, along her thighs, trying to comprehend how softness like this existed.

Cuddy had regained her senses a little and was re-focused on driving him wild. She used her thigh muscles, tensing under his palms, and slid so slowly along him, her hands over his hands, keeping them from taking control over the pace of this. She looked down at his face, eyes alternating between staring up and down her body and falling closed, mouth half open as he breathed heavily. She continued moving on him, excruciatingly slowly. She saw his pulse racing in his neck and wondered if only doctors noticed things like that. The calloused pads of his fingers pressed into her thighs and his breath grew shakier. "God, Cuddy, please" he whispered. "I need you."

House on the edge of an orgasm. It didn't get better than this. It was the amazing juxtaposition of manliness – complete consumption with sexual need – and vulnerability – saying and doing whatever came to mind right then without a censor. Cuddy lifted her hands off his, giving him permission to circle her hips, taking over more of the steering. Her hands skated across his stomach and it was her turn to close her eyes and just feel. His hands pressing into her butt, his thumbs on her hip bones. Her body coiling up like a spring around him. His eyes devouring her like they always did – Yes, she could feel his eyes. Had for years.

House sat up suddenly and pulled her against him, burying his face in her neck. His hands were holding her back and they moved together, finding this perfect rhythm. Cuddy looked down at him and their mouths just grazed each other, their breaths mingling as they both almost forgot to inhale. She pressed her forehead against his and he slid one hand up her body to the back of her neck, his thumb stroking the little indentation at her hairline. His other hand pressed her to him still. Cuddy put her hands on either side of his face, loving every line of his eyes as he squeezed them shut in anticipation.

The strangest thing pushed her over. He'd lowered his face to her shoulder, and she'd continued to move her hips over his. Then she felt his eyelashes on her skin when he blinked, and a puff of his breath wafted over her breast. His humanity struck her right then. He was crazy and loud and bravado-over-sentimentality most of the time. But he was flesh and bone that breathed and blinked and wanted her more than anything. And the feeling of his back muscles under her hands, his hair tickling her chin, his body inside of her – she just couldn't take anything more. She fell back a bit, propping herself on her hands and met his eyes the instant before she came and had to close them. One of his hands slid from her throat down her sternum to her belly, feeling all her muscles spasm beneath her skin. Then his other gripped her thigh and he followed her, pushing up into her with abandon and feeling her bear down on his every thrust. He felt himself biting his lip so hard he wondered if he'd broken the skin.

Then they were trembling statues, frozen in place as their physical releases settled, their muscles shaking slightly from the work of it, their chests heaving as they tried to get more oxygen. House wrapped an arm around Cuddy's back and pulled her to him as he fell back onto the couch again, her head on his chest. She heard his heart thudding in her ear.

"Sorry for wrecking your nap," he quipped.

"No, you aren't," she pointed out.

"You're right," he admitted, smiling at the ceiling and letting his eyelids drift shut. He tickled her back absentmindedly, but she noticed his fingers slowing to a rest after a couple of minutes and knew he was drifting off.

"You need to go back work," Cuddy reminded him.

"There you go, with the ole 'wham bam, thank you House' routine," House retorted through closed eyes.

"Or stay," she said, snuggling her legs up around him, "I don't care."

"I might remind you that you're my boss," House replied. "You're supposed to care."

"I know," she sighed, "But I just blame all my bad boss behavior on your bad influence and then I don't feel so guilty about it."

House's phone rang. He groaned in complaint and reached down to his jeans pocket and pulled it out. He opened it and, without a greeting or waiting for the caller to say a word, said, "I'll be there in 15," and closed it an instant later. After a few beats of staring into space, he exhaled and sat up. Cuddy wiggled off his lap and tossed him his underwear. He begrudgingly swung his legs off of the couch. "How's Rach?" he asked as he began dressing, rubbing his scarred thigh a little. "How was the park?" Cuddy sighed heavily. "Oh, sorry," he said, standing up and pulling up his pants. "Didn't mean to bring up such a stressful topic. Swings. Balls. It's a warzone."

"That awful mother was there," Cuddy said, ignoring his teasing. She leaned her head back against the couch and rubbed her temples.

"Why do you even talk to her?" House asked, sitting down to put his shoes back on.

"I don't," Cuddy protested. "She's aggressive. She went out of her way to give me a hard time."

House stopped and looked at Cuddy. "Gave you a hard time about what?" he asked.

Cuddy sighed again and flopped back on the couch. "Her awful daughter went up to Rachel and took this little plastic shovel. Right out of her hands!" Cuddy exclaimed. "And before I even got over there, Rachel went and pushed her and took it back." House laughed. "It's not funny, House. The mom went ballistic and started scolding Rachel. Hell, she was scolding me, telling me I need to teach my daughter to 'use her words' or something like that."

"'Use her words?'" House repeated. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It's crazy-uber-mom talk for, like, talking," Cuddy said, laughing a little.

"Did you tell her to tell her daughter to get her own damn shovel?" House asked, getting defensive on Rachel's behalf.

"I didn't really say anything. It all happened so fast and this woman wouldn't shut up. She's worse than you," Cuddy said, poking him with her big toe. "And she's always there – whatever time we go. I just want to avoid her. So I said something dumb and just got Rachel and left."

"What the hell, Cuddy?" House said, staring at her is disbelief. "Does someone remove your spine when you enter a playground?" he asked.

"What did you expect me to do?" Cuddy said, fishing around for her clothes on the couch and floor.

"I dunno, something," House replied. "Since when are you able to be intimidated by anyone? Especially some idiot who says things like 'use your words'?" he asked her.

Cuddy just looked at him. "What?" he asked.

"You don't understand," Cuddy protested.

"What, that you can fire people, outwit insurance reps, and run a fucking hospital but can't talk back to a random park mom?" he asked.

"House, I don't always know what I'm doing," Cuddy said. "Maybe she's right."

"What?" he exclaimed. "Right about how her kid can take our kid's shovel and not have any repercussions?"

"These women read parenting books and blog about being moms. They have lingo like 'use your words.'" Cuddy explained. "At the hospital, I know that I know what I'm doing," she continued. "As a mom… I'm not always so sure," she confessed.

House's phone rang again. He picked it up and continued staring at Cuddy. "Yeah," he said gruffly. Cuddy looked back at him in the silence of the living room, wondering what he was thinking. "I'm coming." He hung up. "Patient's spiking a fever," he informed Cuddy.

House stood and picked his jacket up off the floor and turned back to the half-dressed Cuddy half-reclined on the couch. He bent and kissed her forehead. "You are an excellent Dean of Medicine, an excellent performer of oral sex, and an excellent mother," he said, nose to nose with her. "The perfect woman," he concluded. "And if you don't know that by now, there's no helping you." He stood back up and started toward the door.

"I love that she got her shovel back," Cuddy called out from behind him, smiling.

House smiled to himself. "Hard to believe it's not genetic, eh?" he called, walking out the door.