By Ainm

*~*~*

Rating: R

A/N: I don't have any short snippets/WIPs on my hard drive, but I do have several unfinished sentinel_thurs pieces. :-) I'm taking the opportunity to finish my accursed "song lyrics" fic. That challenge asked you to pick something from the first song you heard when you turned on the radio. It struck me as just outrageously fortuitous that the song "Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover" came on, but it's nonetheless taken me a month and a half to finish the stupid fic. :-) And: you might still consider this to be an "unfinished snippet," in that I (predictably) don't make the most of the set-up that I've got -- if we waited for me to finish the smut, I'd be posting this for challenge 276... If that's going to annoy you, or if a Blair made stupid by lack of sleep & lack of coffee isn't your thing (he gets better! ;-) ), don't click the cut-tag. :-)

*~*~*

It was hardly the first time that Jim had come out of the bathroom in only a towel, hardly the first time that Blair's mouth had practically watered at the sight of all that smooth flesh on display.

Usually, though, Jim and his towel headed upstairs, with at most a stop in the kitchen to snag a cup of coffee -- coffee, oh god I need coffee -- leaving Blair to think about what would happen if he followed Jim and the towel upstairs and then pitched the towel over the rail.

While his fantasies had Jim engaging in wild sex with him at that point, his more practical side figured Jim would probably just stand there in the glorious nude and lecture him about throwing wet towels on the floor, oblivious to the sex part altogether. After all, he had proven remarkably immune to all the heated looks that Blair couldn't quite contain.

This morning, however, Jim apparently had been bitten by some sort of cleaning bug, and was flitting about the loft tidying things that seemed already tidy and wiping away invisible dust, while Blair stood watching, slack-jawed.

His back toward Blair, Jim leaned over to retrieve another invisible something from under a chair, bending from the waist rather than with the knees, and Blair unashamedly took the opportunity provided by the towel riding up to feast on the view suddenly provided of the bottom of Jim's ass. He could even glimpse Jim's balls, shadowed between his partially spread legs.

Damn! Blair thought appreciatively. The next words to that Sophie B. Hawkins song popped into his head -- "I wish I was your lover." Oh yeah...

Jim straightened and turned suddenly. "What?"

"What?"

"What's the matter?"

"What?"

"Jeez, Sandburg, are you awake yet?" Jim shot him an exasperated look. "What did you say?"

"What? Nothing." I didn't say anything, did I? Damn, I really needed more than 3 hours of sleep last night...

"Yes you did, you just said 'damn.'"

Oh shit. "Did I?"

"I'm pretty sure you did, and since I'm the Sentinel here, I think I'm going to trust my ears over the opinion of a groggy anthropologist."

"Hmm." I can't believe I said that out loud! What now?

"So..." Jim dragged the word out as if he were speaking to someone without a firm grasp of the language. "What's the matter?"

Think, think... "Just can't believe you're cleaning in a towel." Shit, that didn't sound right... "I mean, the towel doesn't look that dirty." Shit! "I mean, the loft isn't so dirty that it had to be picked up before you got dressed, right?" Oh god, where is my brain?!

Jim just smiled, not an "isn't Blair funny when he's half asleep" smile but a dangerous, predatory smile. He made his way across the room slowly and came to stand directly in front of Blair, well within his personal space.

"So," he said in a voice that made Blair's already interested cock wake all the way up and pay attention, "you'd like me to get dressed?"

Blair didn't know where to look -- Jim's eyes seemed to be hypnotizing him but when he managed to look lower to escape them, there was the vast expanse of Jim's chest, smooth and hard and just calling to him to touch and taste... wrenching his eyes lower still he saw the trail of dark hair leading from Jim's navel down under the towel, now perched somewhat precariously on Jim's lean hips.

Oh shit, I am doomed, Blair thought as he struggled to ignore the vision in front of him and determine the right answer to whatever the question he was supposed to answer was.

"Hmm?" Jim prompted.

"What?" Blair asked stupidly. It was as if he'd left his rational mind back in bed this morning, and all he could do without it was gibber and drool.

"I asked if you'd like me to get dressed, but you seem to be struck a little speechless here, so let me tell you what I think. You know what I think, Blair?"

He was well and truly caught now, the dark seduction in Jim's tone gluing him in place and erasing any hope of sanity. "No," he answered truthfully. He didn't have a clue, because the clues Jim was giving just couldn't be leading to the conclusion that they seemed to be.

"I think, Chief, that you don't really want me to get dressed. In fact," Jim continued, placing a remarkably warm hand on Blair's right shoulder, "I think that you want just the opposite."

"What?" In some dim part of his mind, Blair realized that no deer in the headlights could top the look on his face, but he was helpless to find a witty comeback, deflect Jim from whatever course he was bound on. He could just make monosyllabic statements and hope the course was a good one.

"I think that you'd rather I just get rid of this towel altogether." And with a flick of his free hand, the towel hit the floor.

Blair's jaw felt like it hit the floor as well as he took in the sight of his partner's completely nude body. It wasn't the first time he'd seen it, but it was always in passing, never directed at him, so to speak. Jim was just heart-stoppingly gorgeous, but somehow the only thought that had words attached to it spilled out without thinking.

"Towel on the floor?" he said, and then held his breath at the sheer ridiculousness of the observation. Maybe he was actually still dreaming. That was a nice hope, but even his very best dreams of Jim weren't like this.

Jim seemed frozen for a moment, but then he burst out laughing, and Blair began to breathe again.

"Oh, Chief, what am I going to do with you?" Jim laughed. "I couldn't stand the waiting any more... it seemed pretty clear that you weren't going to make the first move without some prompting, so I tried to give you a little push, but apparently I just scared the crap out of you. I should have known not to do this in the morning -- you're hardly at your best."

"I'm awake?"

"I don't know, partner, are you?" Jim shook his head in gentle amusement. "Parts of you seem to be, at any rate," he added with a glance toward Blair's groin.

Blair looked down helplessly at the bulge in his jeans, then back up at Jim.

"I see some evidence, Chief, but I need to hear you tell me I'm not on my own here. Or we can just pretend this never happened, OK? Your choice," Jim said softly, and dropped his hand from Blair's shoulder.

Finally his partner's words burst through his caffeine-deprived brain, and Blair realized he'd left his heart's desire standing in front of him literally and figuratively naked.

"God, Jim, I'm sorry! I mean, no, I mean not "sorry, no" sorry, "sorry I've got no brain" sorry! You and that towel, I swear, man, I can't even think!" And then they were both laughing, and Blair was finally able to reach out and touch what he'd wanted all along.

"No wonder you run through the ladies so fast, Sandburg, if a little skin makes you this tongue-tied!" Jim sounded strained, but Blair didn't know if it was the idea of him with other people or just the fact that Blair was trailing a finger around his nipples, teasing but not touching. Yet.

A moment of lucidity shone through the chaos in his mind. "No. No, it's you. I mean, it's you that makes me tongue-tied, and you're the reason I've been, um, not looking for a long-term commitment. You are my long-term commitment."

"For the diss." The words were remarkably dispassionate for being delivered by a naked man.

"No, Jim, no. For you. I love you, Jim, not for the senses, not for the diss, not even for that damn fine body you are distracting me with. But for you."

Blair offered a quick thanks to whatever deities had chosen to intervene to give him his words back, because judging by the fierce hug his partner was giving him, the words were the right ones. He wrapped his arms around Jim and gave back as good as he got, loving the feel of Jim's face buried in his hair.

Who needs coffee when you've got all this?

Fin

Send feedback to Ainm

Go back to Story Page

Go back to Home Page