Dr. Rookwood and the Kiss, part 3

part one
part two

Surprisingly, Ercinee didn't come back with a counter offer. Instead, she got to her knees, her black eyes fixed on Josiah's, and leaned forward. One side of her robe conveniently slipped over a pale shoulder as she finally seemed ready to seal the deal.

Josiah didn't lean forward to meet her. For all of his prudish tendencies, his heart leapt a little at the contact. She really was very beautiful. He raised a hand but didn't lay it on her shoulder. Instead, it hovered while she kissed him. She tasted sweet, and he thought briefly that it'd been a while since he'd kissed a girl. And then he thought it seemed strange how sweet her lips were, and then he thought about how warm her mouth was. He'd only gotten to "three" before he forgot to keep counting.

Ercinee kissed Josiah very very slowly, letting her tongue imprison his mouth much as the cheeked vial of liquid she had kept under a pillow began to imprison his senses. Three seconds turned to ten, and climbed to twenty. At some point she had drawn herself practically into his lap, one arm around his shoulders, her other hand massaging his scalp in time with the kiss. A completely unfaked moan escaped her lips. Nothing was sweeter than the temptation of innocence.

It was just a kiss, Josiah thought. A really nice kiss that went a little further and stretched a little longer than he'd set a limit on. Then... a little longer. And he felt his limbs get heavier. Oh. That was... a bad sign. Crap! Regardless of the company - the really nice company - he was pretty sure that his more military minded compatriots would be frowning at him. He imagined Silverhawk glowering in disapproval. So... he could just push back. Wipe his mouth, grin sheepishly and say "All right. That was your kiss. Let's do it again." No, wait. Not what he meant to think.

So he pushed back, meaning to wipe his mouth and grin sheepishly and say something more appropriate. But his arms didn't obey him with any sort of immediacy. "Mmphf," he murmured, unsure himself whether it was a sound borne out of pleasure or resistance.

Ercinee seemed quite pleased with his reaction, or lack thereof. In a few more seconds had become so comfortably heavy that being gently pushed back onto the pillows and cushions was almost a relief. Ercinee was fairly assured that her little love potion slash sedative was working before she disengaged her lips and took a seat on Josiah's abdomen. She kissed his eyelids and murmured, "Poor Josiah. I won't let you be lonely..."

"Lonely..." he repeated murmuringly. "'mnot..." He blinked quickly as the realization of what had obviously happened warred with the strange feeling that his situation wasn't really all that bad. He couldn't think exactly clearly, but he wasn't thinking poorly either. "Ercinee," he attempted. "Did you do something...?"

The young woman was moderately surprised, and thrilled, that Josiah was resisting her even in his inebriated state. "You aren't like the others," she whispered sweetly, tracing his ear with her lips. "You have so much more potential... I fear for you. The universe is a crushing, unstoppable trap for the curious, for you, Josiah. I just want to save you... is that so bad?"

"N-no..." he replied, rallying even as her lips on his ear evoked an involuntary shudder of delight. She hadn't denied doing something to him. The others? She... did this before? Crap. Crap! Wait. He wanted to kiss her. She wasn't being wicked to him, really. Was she? Oh cripes, get it together, man. He'd never been drugged before. Did it always make a person want to, ah... be "together" with another person? "Save me from... the universe?" he slurred softly, quelling the insistence from his lesser intelligenced body parts firmly. "Not sure what you mean."

Ercinee made further conversation substantially more difficult as she began to undo buttons and clasps at his neck and chest. "Humans are so fragile...so fragile. Imagine what could have happened to you if I didn't have your best interest at heart? But I do, Josiah." she went for his bare neck, now, and kissed it so ardently that it almost hurt at the same time sending more insistence signals elsewhere. "I will help you... help you to be ready for the universe, but you have to trust me..."

Josiah caught his breath at her lips on his skin, his vulnerable throat. /What could have happened to you.../ No, nono, he thought fervently, commanding his body to co-operate and get up, pull his gun and start making demands for... stuff. But even as he got himself over the mental hurdle of hormonal, emotional arousal, he could tell that his physical body wasn't anywhere near complying with his hasty mental commands. Oh, crap crap crap.

"I don't," he bit out. "I don't trust you. Let me go. The universe and I have an understanding. I don't uh n-need help." If only that were true.

"But you do need help, and so do I," Ercinee pleaded. "The only ones who have an understanding with the universe are the Dead, and they don't explain anything. They don't feel...they don't feel pain, they don't fear as you fear." She opened his fatigues to reveal the black ribbed t-shirt underneath. "But neither do they feel this," she promised, sliding her long fingers over his almost-bare chest. "And this comes with my help. All of it. All of me."

"No," he breathed. So dramatic, but he thought it was warranted. She'd drugged him, after all. And was now attempting to... well. Hardly counted as an attempt, did it? If he was offering up such weak resistance? Her fingers felt warm through his tee shirt, too warm. "Wait, Ercinee," he managed through a breath. The drug that'd made his limbs heavy wasn't so potent that he couldn't fight it, but with her weight on his chest, slight as it was, he was pretty well trapped. And thinking about himself in a detached analytical way didn't stop those electrical impulses shooting through his nervous system, telling his parts to do things and feel things.

"Ah..." he relaxed back into the pillows and heaved a sigh. "You brought me here, didn't you. No one's going to ring in. You're not a captive. I'm not..." Not the dashing hero. Ah heh. "I'm not going to just go along with this," he said instead.

"You are right and wrong," she answered, giving in, politely, to his attempts to be rational and logical about the situation. After all, it was what was keeping him from being thoroughly swayed. She could respect that. He was strong, which of course was simply enticing her further.

"I gave you the opportunity to come here, and no one is going to ring in, but I am a captive nonetheless. Of that I promise you. In exchange for your help, I'm going to help you in return, I can help you become stronger." Her hands were traveling south, but she allowed him some reprieve from total physical mutiny. "I wish you'd open your closed eyes. If I wanted to destroy you, don't you think I would have done so? If I had desired your secret knowledge, don't you think I would have taken it by now? Think... think about it, Josiah..." Her voice was sweet, pleading, and she leaned forward so that he could feel the fullness of her chest on his.

He put a hand on her shoulder and pushed at it meagrely. He didn't actually have proof that she could have killed him or gotten information from him, but he didn't like the confidence in her voice. "I can't help you," he murmured. "You drugged me. I can't trust you now. I have no idea what you're capable of." Probably shouldn't have admitted that. Oops.

Ercinee stared into Josiah's eyes. Her hands had stopped and she appeared to be considering something. "I see..." she laughed a small self-deprecating little laugh and leaned up. She dismounted Josiah's hips reluctantly. "I was too eager for you ... and you are too strong. I overestimated." She smiled sadly and looked away, "I thought you would come to understand... I'm sure it's too late now."

Josiah swallowed roughly. She was... giving up? That didn't seem right. Just like the empty ache in his abdomen at the sudden disappearance of her warmth wasn't right. Not right at all.

He shrugged and pushed himself back to sit up a little. If her life so far had been protected or bought with her affections, IF that part of what she'd said was true, it was a sad possibility that she'd been going after him in order to secure his assistance. Even after he said he didn't want anything from her. Maybe. "Understand what?" he murmured. "The universe? The way you want to help me?"

"Yes," she admitted, "Understand that you are still vulnerable, that you're lonely. Understand that I could help you with both, and help myself at the same time." She winced, "and, I admit, it stings a bit that, after all that, I'm still so...repulsive..."

"Not repulsive," Josiah replied immediately. Not at all, his body told him, clamouring for her touch on his skin again. "I told you about my ways." He hitched himself a little higher against the headboard and sighed. "I'm not lonely, Ercinee," he said with effort. But still pretty vulnerable, his heavy limbs added. "But perhaps you are..." He smiled kindly.

part four
part five
part six
part seven
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Ercinee (c) Mary Logan
Post written co-operatively