Gale (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} iphignia939) wrote,@ 2004-12-03 21:12:00 |
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JoA fic: all hallow's eve (Luke/Grace, 1/1)
I haven't been this nervous about posting a story since...well, since Anthology, actually. But that's different, somehow.
This is for puppetoflove, for putting dirty thoughts in my head in the first place - oh, who am I kidding? But it's still her fault, dammit - and lovelypoet, who said in the early stages that this was good. And I tend to trust her judgment. And for Dacey, because everything's for Dacey.
Mildly dirty. Just so no one goes into this all surprised or anything.
all hallow’s eve
By Gale
SUMMARY: “Next time, Girardi, password-protect those files if you don’t want me looking at them.” In which Grace decides not to paint herself green *this* time, and Luke is a Bronte sister. Utter and total cliché fic for puppetoflove. So for the record, this is ALL HER FAULT.
“Hey, dork,” Grace says as soon as the door swings open.
Luke looks surprised to see her, but that’s not surprising; they’ve been going out for six months, not counting three months of making-out increments, and she can count the number of times she’s been over to see him, as opposed to coming over to see Joan and sneaking to his room to make out for a couple of minutes, on one hand. With fingers left over.
“Grace,” he says, putting the bowl of mini-Snickers down. “Hi. Sorry about that. We left the lights off tonight for a reason.” He sticks his head out the door and yells the last bit just a little. “So what are you doing here? Joan’s doing something with Adam, Kevin’s covering night court again, and my parents are at some department Halloween party, so…” He trails off, and looks at her.
“Third try, Girardi,” Grace says, coming the rest of the way inside. She looks around briefly, then decides, what the hell. She can second-guess herself on the way up the stairs. “Hey, I forgot something upstairs last time I was here. Come help me look for it.”
”O—“ is all Luke gets a chance to say before Grace has a hold on his hand and is tugging him up the stairs after her. He doesn’t ask a lot of questions, thank God.
His door is the second on the right, and it’s open. Good. Even better, it doesn’t look too foul. Not that she figured it would, based on the handful of times she’s been in here, but a sixteen-year-old boy is a sixteen-year-old boy. It’s like the law of the conservation of energy or something.
But no, not too foul, and the bed is made. Even better.
“Grace,” Luke says, watching her close the door after him and fumble with the lock (and yes, he has one, and yes, it works), “what is going—“
And then Grace takes her jacket off, and turns around feeling like fourteen kinds of idiot, and the rest of the sentence dies in Luke’s mouth.
For starters, Grace is wearing a skirt. Other than the idiotic pink thing she busted out for the Crystal Ball and her bat mitzvah dress, it’s the first time she’s worn anything with a skirt since she was ten and bloodied Doug Meyer’s nose for trying to look up it during temple. It feels weirder than she would have ever believed possible, which is saying something, but she knows it doesn’t look *bad* on her, just – different. Unusual. Very not-Grace.
The blouse and kneesocks aren’t very Grace-like, either, probably because Grace is not a Catholic schoolgirl.
Luke is staring.
More importantly, Luke isn’t saying anything, which is both flattering and worrisome. Flattering, because that’s the desired effect, and worrisome, because it’s entirely possible Luke’s going to start laughing. She would, if she weren’t the one wearing the damn thing.
Grace rolls her eyes and glares at him. “Anytime you want to say something, Girardi, feel free. I’m getting a draft.”
“No, no, it’s – you look good,” he says, blinking. “*Really* good. It’s just.” More blinking. “What brought this on?”
“I looked through your picture files,” Grace says, tugging on the back of the skirt. She feels more naked than when she’s in the *shower*. Stupid goddamn Catholics and their stupid goddamn backwards ideas about sexuality and what’s okay and what isn’t. She’s not sure what part showing your legs off plays in the process, but there’s no passage in the Torah about kneesocks, so she’s sort of fumbling here.
“You looked – Grace!” Luke sounds shocked. Luke sounds shocked about half the time. The Bronte sisters weren’t scandalized this often. “That – that is a gross invasion of my privacy! I can’t believe you did that!”
“Please,” Grace says, rolling her eyes. “I didn’t see anything weird or gross.” She shoots him a look and adds, “Though we might have to have a talk about that She-Hulk gallery.”
That earns her a huffy stare, but no words. Which means she’s going to have to power this along herself. Crap.
”Look,” she finally says, shoving her bangs out of her eyes, “I wasn’t going to make this a big deal, but apparently *you* want to, so we can just forget it, okay?” She rolls her eyes to show that yes, she’s pissed she went to the trouble of making herself look like an ass – an *out-of-character* ass, no less – but she tries not to let her disappointment show, mostly because she’s surprised she’s disappointed. Pissed off about going to the trouble to get an outfit together, sure; irritated about wearing a skirt for absolutely no reason whatsoever, obviously; but not disappointed.
”No, it’s not—“ Luke falls backward onto his bed and turns his head to look at her. “Did – did I make you do this? Am I pressuring you somehow?”
Grace snorts. “You’re never going to pressure me,” she says flatly. The only person who’s ever managed to successfully *make* her do something is her dad, and that was by pulling out the whole “you know, your grandmother might not be here next year” card. Rabbis are great at that. “I mean, you can try, but if I don’t want to do it, I just won’t do it. You know that.”
”Okay, then you need to explain it using small words, because I’m not getting this.”
*Now* he wants small words. “I don’t know,” she says. “I wanted to do something, and I figured this was easier than spray-painting myself green.” She sits next to him on the bed. “Why do you care, anyway? Don’t most guys *want* girls to do weird, spontaneous sexy crap?”
”Most guys,” Luke says, “would have been happy making out with you in five-minute increments behind Starbucks.”
And that’s their entire relationship in two easy sentences. “True.”
“It’s just – what am I supposed to do?” he asks, propping his weight on one elbow and half-sitting up. “Because I’ll tell you right now, there’s a world of difference between theory and practical application.” He rolls over onto his side. “What, I’m supposed to just smack you and—“
His hand flies out and smacks her lower back. Grace makes a noise, more startled than hurt. “Ow! Watch it, Girardi. That’s my back, not my ass.”
”Sorry,” he says. “So, what, like this?” His hand comes down again, and this time Grace instinctively leans away – because, you know, *ow*, that’s not *her ass* - and the smack lands firmly on her butt.
Neither of them says anything for a minute. Grace would bet anything Luke’s eyes are huge right now.
And then his hand's - not cupping, exactly, but not stroking, either. More like patting, very carefully, except it’s a little harder than that. ”Um,” Luke says, and stops long enough to shift around ‘til he’s sitting up. “How’s that?”
“It’s.” Grace thinks for a second. “It’s not bad,” she finally says, “but—“ She thinks again, then looks at him. “If you ever tell anyone about this,” she warns, and instead of finishing the threat, she sits in his lap.
It’s pretty much the stupidest position ever, but judging from the way Luke just went very still beneath her, she’s guessing it’s doing something for him.
“I’m not doing a voice,” she warns, glaring at him a little. But just a little, because his legs are stronger than they look and it feels surprisingly nice to be pressed so tight against him. “And I’m not role-playing, so you can just forget that. It’s bad enough I dressed up.”
”I’m still stuck on that,” Luke admits, staring at her with still-startled eyes. “It’s – it’s not very you.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Look,” Grace snaps, getting up so fast she almost tips over, “I was just trying to do something *nice*, okay? And guys don’t typically like flowers, and I know you have allergies *anyway*, and this was less sappy than getting you a card for no reason because I don’t do that, like, ever, so can we just forget about this?”
”No,” Luke says, grabbing hold of her wrist. “We can’t.”
There’s a very long silence. Grace is too busy staring at Luke’s fingers around her wrist to say anything, let alone to get confrontational and pull away. He has nice hands. Even better, he’s not a jerk about using them, getting all grabby and shove-y and full of machismo. And he’s looking at her steadily, which is just irritating, because goddammit doesn’t she *ever* unnerve him? He does it to her every couple of days, it seems like.
“I’m not good at this,” she blurts, not meeting his eyes. “The whole girlfriend thing. It’s bad enough we’re using the word now, but.” She looks at him. “I’ve spent pretty much my entire life *not* doing what everyone else does, Girardi, and now I’m trying to reconcile that with trying to be a good girlfriend and it’s driving me batshit.”
Luke just looks at her blankly. “I don’t want you to be a good girlfriend,” he says, sounding a little confused. “I want you to be Grace.”
Grace blinks.
“I mean, yes, no cheating or actual violence, and if you wanted to exchange gifts at Christmas I wouldn’t argue you down, but I don’t need, like, girlfriend stuff. I don’t need PDAs in the hallway or little gifts in my locker or whatever the societal constructs say I should have. I want *you*. I want to argue with you, and make out in private, and just *be* with you. Honestly, that’s all I need.” His smile is a little rueful. “And for the record, I’m not all that great at the boyfriend thing, but you don’t see me getting all discombobulated about it.”
”You’re not bad,” Grace says, and is surprised to find she means it. She’d always expected, in the back of her head, that anyone she might possibly ever date would want to spend *all* their time together, and abandon her interests in favor of his, or be vocal about the fact that she doesn’t like wearing skirts, dammit. Luke’s mostly cranky he doesn’t get to see her legs more often, but he doesn’t blink when she says she needs a night off or insists they protest animal abuse instead of playing Halo 2. Which, for the record, she can almost beat him at. “You’re pretty good, actually. All things considered.”
”Really?” Luke looks pleased. Then he shakes his head. “The point is, I want you to do what *you* want to do, not what you think other people *think* we should do. You’ve never cared before. Why start now?”
And that is an excellent point.
“Grace,” Luke says quietly, “you didn’t have to – you put on a Catholic schoolgirl uniform, for god’s sake! Without being asked! That’s pretty much the best thing ever, short of manning the Mars lander.”
”The Mars lander isn’t manned.”
It’s nothing at all for Luke to reach out and tug Grace back down onto his lap. Grace puts an arm around his neck for balance. “This is the sweetest—“
”Ah!” Grace hates that word.
“—least irritating thing anyone’s ever done for me,” Luke corrects. “I know *somebody* with a pro-choice rally in her future.”
Grace narrows her eyes at him, and opens her mouth to say something to that when she shifts her weight slightly and almost takes a header off Luke’s lap. She yelps and grabs tighter to his neck.
”Careful!” he says, steadying them both with an arm around her waist. “You okay?”
”Yeah,” Grace says, easing up a little on the pressure around his neck. “Thanks,” she adds, and shifts her weight again, going back to the way she’d been sitting a second before.
This time, though, it’s – different.
This time Grace is suddenly, shockingly aware that she’s in a guy’s lap – not Joan’s brother, not her boyfriend, not her partner for the science fair two years running – a *guy*, with all the accompanying parts and hormones. And from that guy’s perspective, there’s a girl – a *hot* girl, because she knows Luke and he’s never made any secret about finding her attractive – in his lap, and she’s wearing a skirt and a blouse and not a hell of a lot else, and no one else is in the house, and won’t be for a while.
And Grace leans up and kisses Luke on the mouth, deep and sure, because she can’t do anything else.
Luke makes a noise in his throat and kisses him back, and almost before she’s aware of it, the hand that isn’t around her waist is tentatively touching one breast.
”That,” she says against his mouth, and thank you God her voice is steady, “is not spanking, Girardi.”
”Radical new form of punishment,” he says, not moving his mouth away. “Anticipation’s always worse than realization.”
”Says who?”
”Says sixteen years of being a virgin vs. having you in my lap,” he says, and kisses her again.
He’s touching her a little more firmly now, more sure of his footing. They haven’t done this a lot, maybe once or twice, but it’s often enough that Luke isn’t fumbling as much as he had been a couple of seconds before. His breathing’s still pretty steady, but his heart’s going a mile a minute.
Or maybe that’s her own, and she’s projecting. God, this is not at all going how she’d planned.
”And again,” she says, a little breathless herself, “not really spanking, so much.”
”Plan B,” Luke says, and slides his other hand from her waist to the top swell of her ass.
Again, this isn’t anything new, if not exactly familiar territory; they’ve done *this* precisely once, and that was with her wearing jeans and real underwear. And the desk chair isn’t anywhere near as stable as her bed, but it’ll do. She can put up with all sorts of inconveniences as long as Luke’s touching her ass – actually *touching* her *ass*, because his hand is slipping up under her skirt and he’s breathing a little harder, and this isn’t at all what she expected when she came up with this whole half-assed plan.
It’s *better*.
And it's October 31 - maybe November 1, by now - and she's in Luke's room, dressed like a Catholic schoolgirl, and this is some shit she *never* thought she'd do, degrading herself for a guy, but this doesn't feel degrading because it's not like Luke asked. It's half her fault for going through his files when he wasn't looking, and maybe a quarter his fault for not password protecting them like a normal human being, and she's not sure whose fault the last quarter is but it's not hers and she's pretty sure it's not his. She can't make any noise because no one’s home now but they might be home any minute, and that's just making this even *better*.
Because Luke's hand is under her skirt, and under the ancient granny panties she dug out of the back of her underwear drawer, and he's barely touching her but it's so hot her brain feels stupid and melty and alien. Long, long fingers and blunt nails and she swears she can feel his breath stuttering in his chest and it's all making her crazy.
"If you want me to stop, you'd better say something now," Luke says, and his voice is shaky. Grace knows the feeling.
Grace looks at him for a second, then shifts her weight a little, enough to slide his fingers the rest of the way inside her.
And *oh*, that's weird, right there. Not bad, just - odd. Different, to feel someone else in there. Kind of nice, in a weird, sexy way, like she's doing something wrong. Which is stupid, because A) it's natural, and B) if she's doing anything wrong it's wearing a skirt.
She should say something. She's pretty sure Luke stopped breathing a second ago.
"You know," she says, and it's admirable how steady her voice is, "you kind of need to move. Just
having them in there doesn't mean you're done."
"Oh. um. right." Luke clears his throat. "Sorry," he says.
"That's o-" She wants to say "okay", but she can't, because has two fingers inside her and they're just...trailing. Moving around. Getting a feel for the place. And that's nice - it's great, actually - but the good hunting's up north, y'all, better get on that.
And when did she start thinking in *accents*? Fucking Girardis, messing up her head, making her form emotional attachments and dress up like schoolgirls and make noises like *that* on a
Sunday night. Things were so much easier when she just didn't care.
Easier, yeah, but nowhere near this much fun, because eventually he's going to--
--and OH SHIT there it is, right there, hello nurse. He's hardly touching her at all, though. That's gonna be a problem in another minute.
"Any time you want to *do* something," she grits out, "feel free."
Luke just looks at her for a couple of seconds. "Did I say you could talk?" he says, almost mild, and smacks her ass again. Smacks her ass again while he's still *inside her*, and that's setting off nerve endings she didn't know she *had*.
Grace doesn't say anything, just lets out a long breath and bites down on her lower lip to keep from asking him to do that again. She'll do it, the way she's feeling now, all stupid and horny and desperate.
"Harder," she finally says.
"What was that, Miss Polk? I don't remember giving you permission to t--"
"Luke." And that'll get him, because she never, ever uses his name. Why? It's not like there are ever any other Lukes in the room to confuse him. "Please. *Harder*."
He looks at her for a second, then tilts his head and kisses her neck. "Okay," he says quietly, and starts again.
Just the right amount of pressure this time, in just the right place, and that can't possibly be *her* breathing, all loud and gasping like that. That's not dignified. That's perilously close to a Very Special Episode of something, where Anorexic Female Lead Gives Herself to Impossibly Perfect TV Boyfriend Who Will Later Turn Out to Be an Asshole During Sweeps, Despite the Fact That the Audience Knew That Already.
"Am-" Luke tries, and clears his throat again. "Am I doing this right? Because you're not saying a lot, Grace, so I sort of have to guess-"
"No, that's good," Grace says, closing her eyes. "Not talking is a good sign."
Not talking is a *very* good sign, because she was lucky to get that out without embarrassing herself. Not that she's being all Queen of the Dignified already, what with one arm looped around his neck and making noises and--
--and those warm feelings in her thighs can only mean one thing, and it's not "slow down".
"Don't stop," she gasps, and she doesn't even care how stupid she must sound now, because she hasn't been this close this fast in a really, really long time. "Oh God oh fuck don't you fucking stop oh God oh God *OH*"
and then it happens the same way it always does, her brain going white for a few seconds before coming back, half-dead and fuzzy. Her toes are tingling and she's pretty sure she's smiling like an idiot, but not positive. Also, she might have kicked Luke near the end, there.
"Luke?" she asks, blinking. "Girardi? You okay? I didn't kick you or anything, did I?"
"No," Luke says, and well. That's a little brusque, right there. "I just - can you get up for a second, please?"
"You know," Grace says, "most guys would be all proud and crap, grinning because--" She shifts her weight again, and realizes two things at once:
1) His fingers are still inside her. That's really nice. That's *really* nice.
2) He's still hard.
Pressed against her thigh like that, it has to hurt at least a little, but he's being a gentleman about the whole thing, and he's really got to wean himself off that if he ever expects to have any kind of sex life. Any kind with her, anyway, and when the hell did she start thinking like that?
Moot point now, really. Grace shifts and twists a little, careful not to let him slide out - every time he bumps her she gets little aftershocks, which are nice - and slides a hand down to his jeans.
Luke squeaks. Loudly. Grace doesn't even try not to smile.
"Don't move," she warns him, and starts stroking.
And this isn't a total surprise, because of that one time they made out in the back of that Chinese place over on Grover and Maitland, but it's still strange enough that she can feel her eyes widen. Guys in general are sort of weird, all dangly and floppy and almost comical, except for the part where they're *not* comical.
Luke's not comical. He's longer than she figured, and touching him right *there* makes him breathe like a dog locked in a car, but he's not funny, not even remotely. If anything, he's beautiful. Except she's never going to tell him that, ever. She’s not even going to think it too loudly. She has a reputation to maintain, after all.
A reputation that’s being sorely tested by the sounds he’s making and the flush on his face, and the way his head is tilted back, like he can’t focus on anything and isn’t even going to try. She can’t blame him. She knows that feeling, too.
She’s so focused on how he feels in her hand – warm, hard, different but not uncomfortably so – that it takes her a couple seconds to realize he’s talking.
“We. You don’t have to do this,” Luke says, his voice about two octaves lower than usual. It does extremely nice things to the pit of her stomach. “It’s – if this is about paying me back or something—“
”Of course it is,” Grace says, and she’s laughing a little when she says it. But she’s not laughing *at* him. She hopes he gets that, because she’s not really in a mood to explain it just now. “But not because you want me to. Didn’t we already have this discussion?”
That’s punctuated by a careful thumb across his head, making sure her nail doesn’t scratch him. It earns her a very short high-pitched noise, immediately followed by Luke biting his lips to keep them closed.
”Girardi,” she says, and he tilts his head to look at her. “I *want* to do this, okay? So shut up and appreciate it.”
She’s a little surprised to find she means it.
Luke looks at her for another couple of seconds, then relaxes against her. It’s subtle, so subtle she almost misses it, but his fingers slide out of her – and wow, that sucks more than she’d thought it would – and his thighs relax a fraction under her, but not so much that she can’t still tell he’s close.
One of these days, Grace decides, she really needs to get this boy alone. Someplace they won’t be found for a while, and hopefully soundproof. See what he can do without time constraints and siblings on either side of his bedroom walls. It’s a nice thought.
And then Luke goes still in her hand, and Grace has already been through her reading-Jackie-Collins-novels-to-get-to-t
A moment, maybe two or three, and Luke lets out this long, slow breath that sounds like it’s been kept in for a hundred years, and suddenly her hand is damp and sticky. He doesn’t make any noise for a few seconds, not ‘til she’s stroking him through the last little nerve spasms and he gasps and wraps his fingers around her wrist. “Not now,” he says, and Grace hardly recognizes his voice, it’s so raspy.
He looks at her. “Grace,” he says, sounding helpless, and kisses her.
And that’s a mistake, because kissing Luke has always been her weak point, her soft spot, and never mind that he’s still woozy to do anything just now. She’d like to. She’d really, really like to, and no one will be home for an hour yet. There’s plenty of—
--other chances to be an idiot over this guy, says a little voice in her head, and Grace pulls away. She takes a deep breath and slides her hand out of his pants – and oh my God, that is *not* hot, stop it libido, turn *off* already – and wipes it on the bedspread. Luke barely notices; he’s too busy breathing hard and trying to make his eyes open. She knows the feeling.
“I should go,” Grace says, levering herself up and getting to her feet. They’re not entirely steady yet, though, and she almost stumbles for a second before righting herself. “It’s late, and I don’t want to risk anyone catching me here.”
Luke looks hurt at that for some reason she doesn’t entirely get, but he nods. “Do you need to – um. Were you going to change?” He nods at the backpack propped against the door.
“Oh. Right, thanks.” Grace goes over and takes out a pair of jeans, then tosses them on the bed and starts wiggling out of her skirt. It’s cute, if in no way surprising, when Luke looks away.
“It’s okay,” she tells him, grinning. “Nothing you didn’t see a minute ago.” The skirt drops to the ground as she sits on the edge of his bed and reaches for her jeans.
That apparently makes it okay for Luke to look at her again, even if he’s pink the whole time. “This is asinine,” he mutters. “Watching you put your clothes *on* is not supposed to be sexy.”
Grace just smiles and gets the jeans the rest of the way up her hips, then untucks the shirt to dip it down over the front. She can already feel things slipping back into place, as if the last half-hour – is that *all*? – had never happened. It’s very odd, not to mention a little disconcerting.
T-shirt on over dress shirt, leather jacket over *that*, trade out patent leather for boots, and suddenly she’s just Grace again, no sign of Miss Polk. Grace tucks the shoes and skirt inside her backpack and zips it closed. “You going to be online later?”
“I wasn’t going to be, no,” Luke says. He still looks a little dazed, but not come-stupid like he did a few minutes ago, and he’s managed to pull himself together while her back was turned. “The idea was more ‘long cold shower, then pass out.’”
”Oh.” Grace shrugs. “Because I still have some homework to finish, so I was going to be up for a while yet if you felt like talking.” She pauses, counts to three in her head, then adds, “But if you just wanted to go to sleep, I totally—“
”Or I might be up for a while,” Luke interrupts, and Grace manages to choke her grin down at the last possible second. “I’m not sure. It’s been a weird night.”
”Mmn,” Grace says noncommittally. “Whatever.” She stands on tiptoe and kisses him goodnight. It takes a little longer than she’d been expecting, though, what with the tongues and the hands settled firmly at her waist. Not that she’s complaining.
She pulls away after a minute, glancing at the clock. “Okay, now I’d *really* better be going.” She takes one last look at herself, decides she looks more like Grace and less like Mary Catherine Montessori, and grabs her backpack. “We still on for studying tomorrow night?”
“It is not that hard to understand basic quantum physics,” Luke says patiently, the way he’s supposed to. Things are starting to go back to normal. “You just have to get that quarks and masons are—“
”Aaaand I’m already bored,” Grace says, backing towards the door and the hallway beyond. It’ll be easier to explain this than her shimmying down a tree, should they get caught. Not that it would require an explanation; Luke’s on girlfriend number two and no one’s so much as thought about giving him the sex talk. Just thinking it makes her want to snicker. “G’night, Girardi. Go get some sleep.”
She looks at him for a long couple of seconds and adds, “And maybe a clean pair of sweatpants.”
And then she’s out the door before it registers on him, and she’s headed home in early autumn weather, doing her damnedest not to look pleased on the outside.
I haven't been this nervous about posting a story since...well, since Anthology, actually. But that's different, somehow.
This is for puppetoflove, for putting dirty thoughts in my head in the first place - oh, who am I kidding? But it's still her fault, dammit - and lovelypoet, who said in the early stages that this was good. And I tend to trust her judgment. And for Dacey, because everything's for Dacey.
Mildly dirty. Just so no one goes into this all surprised or anything.
all hallow’s eve
By Gale
SUMMARY: “Next time, Girardi, password-protect those files if you don’t want me looking at them.” In which Grace decides not to paint herself green *this* time, and Luke is a Bronte sister. Utter and total cliché fic for puppetoflove. So for the record, this is ALL HER FAULT.
“Hey, dork,” Grace says as soon as the door swings open.
Luke looks surprised to see her, but that’s not surprising; they’ve been going out for six months, not counting three months of making-out increments, and she can count the number of times she’s been over to see him, as opposed to coming over to see Joan and sneaking to his room to make out for a couple of minutes, on one hand. With fingers left over.
“Grace,” he says, putting the bowl of mini-Snickers down. “Hi. Sorry about that. We left the lights off tonight for a reason.” He sticks his head out the door and yells the last bit just a little. “So what are you doing here? Joan’s doing something with Adam, Kevin’s covering night court again, and my parents are at some department Halloween party, so…” He trails off, and looks at her.
“Third try, Girardi,” Grace says, coming the rest of the way inside. She looks around briefly, then decides, what the hell. She can second-guess herself on the way up the stairs. “Hey, I forgot something upstairs last time I was here. Come help me look for it.”
”O—“ is all Luke gets a chance to say before Grace has a hold on his hand and is tugging him up the stairs after her. He doesn’t ask a lot of questions, thank God.
His door is the second on the right, and it’s open. Good. Even better, it doesn’t look too foul. Not that she figured it would, based on the handful of times she’s been in here, but a sixteen-year-old boy is a sixteen-year-old boy. It’s like the law of the conservation of energy or something.
But no, not too foul, and the bed is made. Even better.
“Grace,” Luke says, watching her close the door after him and fumble with the lock (and yes, he has one, and yes, it works), “what is going—“
And then Grace takes her jacket off, and turns around feeling like fourteen kinds of idiot, and the rest of the sentence dies in Luke’s mouth.
For starters, Grace is wearing a skirt. Other than the idiotic pink thing she busted out for the Crystal Ball and her bat mitzvah dress, it’s the first time she’s worn anything with a skirt since she was ten and bloodied Doug Meyer’s nose for trying to look up it during temple. It feels weirder than she would have ever believed possible, which is saying something, but she knows it doesn’t look *bad* on her, just – different. Unusual. Very not-Grace.
The blouse and kneesocks aren’t very Grace-like, either, probably because Grace is not a Catholic schoolgirl.
Luke is staring.
More importantly, Luke isn’t saying anything, which is both flattering and worrisome. Flattering, because that’s the desired effect, and worrisome, because it’s entirely possible Luke’s going to start laughing. She would, if she weren’t the one wearing the damn thing.
Grace rolls her eyes and glares at him. “Anytime you want to say something, Girardi, feel free. I’m getting a draft.”
“No, no, it’s – you look good,” he says, blinking. “*Really* good. It’s just.” More blinking. “What brought this on?”
“I looked through your picture files,” Grace says, tugging on the back of the skirt. She feels more naked than when she’s in the *shower*. Stupid goddamn Catholics and their stupid goddamn backwards ideas about sexuality and what’s okay and what isn’t. She’s not sure what part showing your legs off plays in the process, but there’s no passage in the Torah about kneesocks, so she’s sort of fumbling here.
“You looked – Grace!” Luke sounds shocked. Luke sounds shocked about half the time. The Bronte sisters weren’t scandalized this often. “That – that is a gross invasion of my privacy! I can’t believe you did that!”
“Please,” Grace says, rolling her eyes. “I didn’t see anything weird or gross.” She shoots him a look and adds, “Though we might have to have a talk about that She-Hulk gallery.”
That earns her a huffy stare, but no words. Which means she’s going to have to power this along herself. Crap.
”Look,” she finally says, shoving her bangs out of her eyes, “I wasn’t going to make this a big deal, but apparently *you* want to, so we can just forget it, okay?” She rolls her eyes to show that yes, she’s pissed she went to the trouble of making herself look like an ass – an *out-of-character* ass, no less – but she tries not to let her disappointment show, mostly because she’s surprised she’s disappointed. Pissed off about going to the trouble to get an outfit together, sure; irritated about wearing a skirt for absolutely no reason whatsoever, obviously; but not disappointed.
”No, it’s not—“ Luke falls backward onto his bed and turns his head to look at her. “Did – did I make you do this? Am I pressuring you somehow?”
Grace snorts. “You’re never going to pressure me,” she says flatly. The only person who’s ever managed to successfully *make* her do something is her dad, and that was by pulling out the whole “you know, your grandmother might not be here next year” card. Rabbis are great at that. “I mean, you can try, but if I don’t want to do it, I just won’t do it. You know that.”
”Okay, then you need to explain it using small words, because I’m not getting this.”
*Now* he wants small words. “I don’t know,” she says. “I wanted to do something, and I figured this was easier than spray-painting myself green.” She sits next to him on the bed. “Why do you care, anyway? Don’t most guys *want* girls to do weird, spontaneous sexy crap?”
”Most guys,” Luke says, “would have been happy making out with you in five-minute increments behind Starbucks.”
And that’s their entire relationship in two easy sentences. “True.”
“It’s just – what am I supposed to do?” he asks, propping his weight on one elbow and half-sitting up. “Because I’ll tell you right now, there’s a world of difference between theory and practical application.” He rolls over onto his side. “What, I’m supposed to just smack you and—“
His hand flies out and smacks her lower back. Grace makes a noise, more startled than hurt. “Ow! Watch it, Girardi. That’s my back, not my ass.”
”Sorry,” he says. “So, what, like this?” His hand comes down again, and this time Grace instinctively leans away – because, you know, *ow*, that’s not *her ass* - and the smack lands firmly on her butt.
Neither of them says anything for a minute. Grace would bet anything Luke’s eyes are huge right now.
And then his hand's - not cupping, exactly, but not stroking, either. More like patting, very carefully, except it’s a little harder than that. ”Um,” Luke says, and stops long enough to shift around ‘til he’s sitting up. “How’s that?”
“It’s.” Grace thinks for a second. “It’s not bad,” she finally says, “but—“ She thinks again, then looks at him. “If you ever tell anyone about this,” she warns, and instead of finishing the threat, she sits in his lap.
It’s pretty much the stupidest position ever, but judging from the way Luke just went very still beneath her, she’s guessing it’s doing something for him.
“I’m not doing a voice,” she warns, glaring at him a little. But just a little, because his legs are stronger than they look and it feels surprisingly nice to be pressed so tight against him. “And I’m not role-playing, so you can just forget that. It’s bad enough I dressed up.”
”I’m still stuck on that,” Luke admits, staring at her with still-startled eyes. “It’s – it’s not very you.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Look,” Grace snaps, getting up so fast she almost tips over, “I was just trying to do something *nice*, okay? And guys don’t typically like flowers, and I know you have allergies *anyway*, and this was less sappy than getting you a card for no reason because I don’t do that, like, ever, so can we just forget about this?”
”No,” Luke says, grabbing hold of her wrist. “We can’t.”
There’s a very long silence. Grace is too busy staring at Luke’s fingers around her wrist to say anything, let alone to get confrontational and pull away. He has nice hands. Even better, he’s not a jerk about using them, getting all grabby and shove-y and full of machismo. And he’s looking at her steadily, which is just irritating, because goddammit doesn’t she *ever* unnerve him? He does it to her every couple of days, it seems like.
“I’m not good at this,” she blurts, not meeting his eyes. “The whole girlfriend thing. It’s bad enough we’re using the word now, but.” She looks at him. “I’ve spent pretty much my entire life *not* doing what everyone else does, Girardi, and now I’m trying to reconcile that with trying to be a good girlfriend and it’s driving me batshit.”
Luke just looks at her blankly. “I don’t want you to be a good girlfriend,” he says, sounding a little confused. “I want you to be Grace.”
Grace blinks.
“I mean, yes, no cheating or actual violence, and if you wanted to exchange gifts at Christmas I wouldn’t argue you down, but I don’t need, like, girlfriend stuff. I don’t need PDAs in the hallway or little gifts in my locker or whatever the societal constructs say I should have. I want *you*. I want to argue with you, and make out in private, and just *be* with you. Honestly, that’s all I need.” His smile is a little rueful. “And for the record, I’m not all that great at the boyfriend thing, but you don’t see me getting all discombobulated about it.”
”You’re not bad,” Grace says, and is surprised to find she means it. She’d always expected, in the back of her head, that anyone she might possibly ever date would want to spend *all* their time together, and abandon her interests in favor of his, or be vocal about the fact that she doesn’t like wearing skirts, dammit. Luke’s mostly cranky he doesn’t get to see her legs more often, but he doesn’t blink when she says she needs a night off or insists they protest animal abuse instead of playing Halo 2. Which, for the record, she can almost beat him at. “You’re pretty good, actually. All things considered.”
”Really?” Luke looks pleased. Then he shakes his head. “The point is, I want you to do what *you* want to do, not what you think other people *think* we should do. You’ve never cared before. Why start now?”
And that is an excellent point.
“Grace,” Luke says quietly, “you didn’t have to – you put on a Catholic schoolgirl uniform, for god’s sake! Without being asked! That’s pretty much the best thing ever, short of manning the Mars lander.”
”The Mars lander isn’t manned.”
It’s nothing at all for Luke to reach out and tug Grace back down onto his lap. Grace puts an arm around his neck for balance. “This is the sweetest—“
”Ah!” Grace hates that word.
“—least irritating thing anyone’s ever done for me,” Luke corrects. “I know *somebody* with a pro-choice rally in her future.”
Grace narrows her eyes at him, and opens her mouth to say something to that when she shifts her weight slightly and almost takes a header off Luke’s lap. She yelps and grabs tighter to his neck.
”Careful!” he says, steadying them both with an arm around her waist. “You okay?”
”Yeah,” Grace says, easing up a little on the pressure around his neck. “Thanks,” she adds, and shifts her weight again, going back to the way she’d been sitting a second before.
This time, though, it’s – different.
This time Grace is suddenly, shockingly aware that she’s in a guy’s lap – not Joan’s brother, not her boyfriend, not her partner for the science fair two years running – a *guy*, with all the accompanying parts and hormones. And from that guy’s perspective, there’s a girl – a *hot* girl, because she knows Luke and he’s never made any secret about finding her attractive – in his lap, and she’s wearing a skirt and a blouse and not a hell of a lot else, and no one else is in the house, and won’t be for a while.
And Grace leans up and kisses Luke on the mouth, deep and sure, because she can’t do anything else.
Luke makes a noise in his throat and kisses him back, and almost before she’s aware of it, the hand that isn’t around her waist is tentatively touching one breast.
”That,” she says against his mouth, and thank you God her voice is steady, “is not spanking, Girardi.”
”Radical new form of punishment,” he says, not moving his mouth away. “Anticipation’s always worse than realization.”
”Says who?”
”Says sixteen years of being a virgin vs. having you in my lap,” he says, and kisses her again.
He’s touching her a little more firmly now, more sure of his footing. They haven’t done this a lot, maybe once or twice, but it’s often enough that Luke isn’t fumbling as much as he had been a couple of seconds before. His breathing’s still pretty steady, but his heart’s going a mile a minute.
Or maybe that’s her own, and she’s projecting. God, this is not at all going how she’d planned.
”And again,” she says, a little breathless herself, “not really spanking, so much.”
”Plan B,” Luke says, and slides his other hand from her waist to the top swell of her ass.
Again, this isn’t anything new, if not exactly familiar territory; they’ve done *this* precisely once, and that was with her wearing jeans and real underwear. And the desk chair isn’t anywhere near as stable as her bed, but it’ll do. She can put up with all sorts of inconveniences as long as Luke’s touching her ass – actually *touching* her *ass*, because his hand is slipping up under her skirt and he’s breathing a little harder, and this isn’t at all what she expected when she came up with this whole half-assed plan.
It’s *better*.
And it's October 31 - maybe November 1, by now - and she's in Luke's room, dressed like a Catholic schoolgirl, and this is some shit she *never* thought she'd do, degrading herself for a guy, but this doesn't feel degrading because it's not like Luke asked. It's half her fault for going through his files when he wasn't looking, and maybe a quarter his fault for not password protecting them like a normal human being, and she's not sure whose fault the last quarter is but it's not hers and she's pretty sure it's not his. She can't make any noise because no one’s home now but they might be home any minute, and that's just making this even *better*.
Because Luke's hand is under her skirt, and under the ancient granny panties she dug out of the back of her underwear drawer, and he's barely touching her but it's so hot her brain feels stupid and melty and alien. Long, long fingers and blunt nails and she swears she can feel his breath stuttering in his chest and it's all making her crazy.
"If you want me to stop, you'd better say something now," Luke says, and his voice is shaky. Grace knows the feeling.
Grace looks at him for a second, then shifts her weight a little, enough to slide his fingers the rest of the way inside her.
And *oh*, that's weird, right there. Not bad, just - odd. Different, to feel someone else in there. Kind of nice, in a weird, sexy way, like she's doing something wrong. Which is stupid, because A) it's natural, and B) if she's doing anything wrong it's wearing a skirt.
She should say something. She's pretty sure Luke stopped breathing a second ago.
"You know," she says, and it's admirable how steady her voice is, "you kind of need to move. Just
having them in there doesn't mean you're done."
"Oh. um. right." Luke clears his throat. "Sorry," he says.
"That's o-" She wants to say "okay", but she can't, because has two fingers inside her and they're just...trailing. Moving around. Getting a feel for the place. And that's nice - it's great, actually - but the good hunting's up north, y'all, better get on that.
And when did she start thinking in *accents*? Fucking Girardis, messing up her head, making her form emotional attachments and dress up like schoolgirls and make noises like *that* on a
Sunday night. Things were so much easier when she just didn't care.
Easier, yeah, but nowhere near this much fun, because eventually he's going to--
--and OH SHIT there it is, right there, hello nurse. He's hardly touching her at all, though. That's gonna be a problem in another minute.
"Any time you want to *do* something," she grits out, "feel free."
Luke just looks at her for a couple of seconds. "Did I say you could talk?" he says, almost mild, and smacks her ass again. Smacks her ass again while he's still *inside her*, and that's setting off nerve endings she didn't know she *had*.
Grace doesn't say anything, just lets out a long breath and bites down on her lower lip to keep from asking him to do that again. She'll do it, the way she's feeling now, all stupid and horny and desperate.
"Harder," she finally says.
"What was that, Miss Polk? I don't remember giving you permission to t--"
"Luke." And that'll get him, because she never, ever uses his name. Why? It's not like there are ever any other Lukes in the room to confuse him. "Please. *Harder*."
He looks at her for a second, then tilts his head and kisses her neck. "Okay," he says quietly, and starts again.
Just the right amount of pressure this time, in just the right place, and that can't possibly be *her* breathing, all loud and gasping like that. That's not dignified. That's perilously close to a Very Special Episode of something, where Anorexic Female Lead Gives Herself to Impossibly Perfect TV Boyfriend Who Will Later Turn Out to Be an Asshole During Sweeps, Despite the Fact That the Audience Knew That Already.
"Am-" Luke tries, and clears his throat again. "Am I doing this right? Because you're not saying a lot, Grace, so I sort of have to guess-"
"No, that's good," Grace says, closing her eyes. "Not talking is a good sign."
Not talking is a *very* good sign, because she was lucky to get that out without embarrassing herself. Not that she's being all Queen of the Dignified already, what with one arm looped around his neck and making noises and--
--and those warm feelings in her thighs can only mean one thing, and it's not "slow down".
"Don't stop," she gasps, and she doesn't even care how stupid she must sound now, because she hasn't been this close this fast in a really, really long time. "Oh God oh fuck don't you fucking stop oh God oh God *OH*"
and then it happens the same way it always does, her brain going white for a few seconds before coming back, half-dead and fuzzy. Her toes are tingling and she's pretty sure she's smiling like an idiot, but not positive. Also, she might have kicked Luke near the end, there.
"Luke?" she asks, blinking. "Girardi? You okay? I didn't kick you or anything, did I?"
"No," Luke says, and well. That's a little brusque, right there. "I just - can you get up for a second, please?"
"You know," Grace says, "most guys would be all proud and crap, grinning because--" She shifts her weight again, and realizes two things at once:
1) His fingers are still inside her. That's really nice. That's *really* nice.
2) He's still hard.
Pressed against her thigh like that, it has to hurt at least a little, but he's being a gentleman about the whole thing, and he's really got to wean himself off that if he ever expects to have any kind of sex life. Any kind with her, anyway, and when the hell did she start thinking like that?
Moot point now, really. Grace shifts and twists a little, careful not to let him slide out - every time he bumps her she gets little aftershocks, which are nice - and slides a hand down to his jeans.
Luke squeaks. Loudly. Grace doesn't even try not to smile.
"Don't move," she warns him, and starts stroking.
And this isn't a total surprise, because of that one time they made out in the back of that Chinese place over on Grover and Maitland, but it's still strange enough that she can feel her eyes widen. Guys in general are sort of weird, all dangly and floppy and almost comical, except for the part where they're *not* comical.
Luke's not comical. He's longer than she figured, and touching him right *there* makes him breathe like a dog locked in a car, but he's not funny, not even remotely. If anything, he's beautiful. Except she's never going to tell him that, ever. She’s not even going to think it too loudly. She has a reputation to maintain, after all.
A reputation that’s being sorely tested by the sounds he’s making and the flush on his face, and the way his head is tilted back, like he can’t focus on anything and isn’t even going to try. She can’t blame him. She knows that feeling, too.
She’s so focused on how he feels in her hand – warm, hard, different but not uncomfortably so – that it takes her a couple seconds to realize he’s talking.
“We. You don’t have to do this,” Luke says, his voice about two octaves lower than usual. It does extremely nice things to the pit of her stomach. “It’s – if this is about paying me back or something—“
”Of course it is,” Grace says, and she’s laughing a little when she says it. But she’s not laughing *at* him. She hopes he gets that, because she’s not really in a mood to explain it just now. “But not because you want me to. Didn’t we already have this discussion?”
That’s punctuated by a careful thumb across his head, making sure her nail doesn’t scratch him. It earns her a very short high-pitched noise, immediately followed by Luke biting his lips to keep them closed.
”Girardi,” she says, and he tilts his head to look at her. “I *want* to do this, okay? So shut up and appreciate it.”
She’s a little surprised to find she means it.
Luke looks at her for another couple of seconds, then relaxes against her. It’s subtle, so subtle she almost misses it, but his fingers slide out of her – and wow, that sucks more than she’d thought it would – and his thighs relax a fraction under her, but not so much that she can’t still tell he’s close.
One of these days, Grace decides, she really needs to get this boy alone. Someplace they won’t be found for a while, and hopefully soundproof. See what he can do without time constraints and siblings on either side of his bedroom walls. It’s a nice thought.
And then Luke goes still in her hand, and Grace has already been through her reading-Jackie-Collins-novels-to-get-to-t
A moment, maybe two or three, and Luke lets out this long, slow breath that sounds like it’s been kept in for a hundred years, and suddenly her hand is damp and sticky. He doesn’t make any noise for a few seconds, not ‘til she’s stroking him through the last little nerve spasms and he gasps and wraps his fingers around her wrist. “Not now,” he says, and Grace hardly recognizes his voice, it’s so raspy.
He looks at her. “Grace,” he says, sounding helpless, and kisses her.
And that’s a mistake, because kissing Luke has always been her weak point, her soft spot, and never mind that he’s still woozy to do anything just now. She’d like to. She’d really, really like to, and no one will be home for an hour yet. There’s plenty of—
--other chances to be an idiot over this guy, says a little voice in her head, and Grace pulls away. She takes a deep breath and slides her hand out of his pants – and oh my God, that is *not* hot, stop it libido, turn *off* already – and wipes it on the bedspread. Luke barely notices; he’s too busy breathing hard and trying to make his eyes open. She knows the feeling.
“I should go,” Grace says, levering herself up and getting to her feet. They’re not entirely steady yet, though, and she almost stumbles for a second before righting herself. “It’s late, and I don’t want to risk anyone catching me here.”
Luke looks hurt at that for some reason she doesn’t entirely get, but he nods. “Do you need to – um. Were you going to change?” He nods at the backpack propped against the door.
“Oh. Right, thanks.” Grace goes over and takes out a pair of jeans, then tosses them on the bed and starts wiggling out of her skirt. It’s cute, if in no way surprising, when Luke looks away.
“It’s okay,” she tells him, grinning. “Nothing you didn’t see a minute ago.” The skirt drops to the ground as she sits on the edge of his bed and reaches for her jeans.
That apparently makes it okay for Luke to look at her again, even if he’s pink the whole time. “This is asinine,” he mutters. “Watching you put your clothes *on* is not supposed to be sexy.”
Grace just smiles and gets the jeans the rest of the way up her hips, then untucks the shirt to dip it down over the front. She can already feel things slipping back into place, as if the last half-hour – is that *all*? – had never happened. It’s very odd, not to mention a little disconcerting.
T-shirt on over dress shirt, leather jacket over *that*, trade out patent leather for boots, and suddenly she’s just Grace again, no sign of Miss Polk. Grace tucks the shoes and skirt inside her backpack and zips it closed. “You going to be online later?”
“I wasn’t going to be, no,” Luke says. He still looks a little dazed, but not come-stupid like he did a few minutes ago, and he’s managed to pull himself together while her back was turned. “The idea was more ‘long cold shower, then pass out.’”
”Oh.” Grace shrugs. “Because I still have some homework to finish, so I was going to be up for a while yet if you felt like talking.” She pauses, counts to three in her head, then adds, “But if you just wanted to go to sleep, I totally—“
”Or I might be up for a while,” Luke interrupts, and Grace manages to choke her grin down at the last possible second. “I’m not sure. It’s been a weird night.”
”Mmn,” Grace says noncommittally. “Whatever.” She stands on tiptoe and kisses him goodnight. It takes a little longer than she’d been expecting, though, what with the tongues and the hands settled firmly at her waist. Not that she’s complaining.
She pulls away after a minute, glancing at the clock. “Okay, now I’d *really* better be going.” She takes one last look at herself, decides she looks more like Grace and less like Mary Catherine Montessori, and grabs her backpack. “We still on for studying tomorrow night?”
“It is not that hard to understand basic quantum physics,” Luke says patiently, the way he’s supposed to. Things are starting to go back to normal. “You just have to get that quarks and masons are—“
”Aaaand I’m already bored,” Grace says, backing towards the door and the hallway beyond. It’ll be easier to explain this than her shimmying down a tree, should they get caught. Not that it would require an explanation; Luke’s on girlfriend number two and no one’s so much as thought about giving him the sex talk. Just thinking it makes her want to snicker. “G’night, Girardi. Go get some sleep.”
She looks at him for a long couple of seconds and adds, “And maybe a clean pair of sweatpants.”
And then she’s out the door before it registers on him, and she’s headed home in early autumn weather, doing her damnedest not to look pleased on the outside.
