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The morning after Don walks out on her and leaves her hanging, Cuddy wakes up from a stubborn dream that comes back to assault her at the worst possible times. It's House--and she hates that it's House, but everybody lies and she's no exception. He's standing in her bedroom, leaning on his cane, and mocking her décor, her knickknacks, her outfit--and when she looks down, she's wearing something sheer and lacy and revealing, or a French maid's costume, or nothing at all. House's stare prickles against her skin like she imagines his stubble would, burning just on the perfect side of painful. And when she looks back at him, he's jumped across the room and he's in her space, pushing her back, and his hands are large and warm and pressing closer and everywhere--
Cuddy always wakes up before the dream goes anywhere, but it leaves her feeling empty and wet and frustrated. She stares blearily at the alarm clock and wishes she'd left herself half an hour's grace before she needs to be at work, but there's no time, and she can't do anything about the ache between her thighs except try to wash it away in the shower.
Today it's not as easy to banish the dream to the depths of her subconscious where it belongs. Cuddy tries to push it away, repeating all the usual inanities. Everyone has sex dreams. They don't mean anything. There's some meaningless statistic that everyone you know has fantasized about you on occasion, so there's no harm in returning the favour. And she knows that House has plenty of fantasies that involve her, since he never hesitates to share each time he dreams up a new one. She's survived for years by brushing his innuendoes aside as jokes; House lies as easily as his patients do. But last night, there was something else, something more... Not that that matters, because she does not need to be thinking about House right now.
House ruining her date before she could take the edge off with a guy that seemed reasonably decent. House showing up at her front door, his eyes slipping down the front of her robe--House caring about whether or not she was getting laid.
Passionate about her work, Don had said, as if the brightness, the spark, that fills her every time she spars with House is nothing more than professional zeal.
"You like me," she told him last night, and he hesitated before deflecting the comment. He hesitated.
Damn it, House, she thinks, closing her eyes and letting her hands wander just slightly in the hot soapy wetness of the shower. It's not enough, but maybe it's about time she figured out what would be, and do something about it.
Maybe House really does like her. Maybe it's time to test that theory.
***
The sounds of House finding a case are unmistakable. Outside Cuddy's office door, the drone of clinic patients revs higher and then drops, like a sports car shifting sweetly into fourth gear. There's a break in the roll call of petty illnesses and minor traumas, followed by the quiet, orderly hum that should be music to any administrator's ears. Cuddy knows it's only the calm before the storm. She waits for the complaints to start while she balances the budget (another new MRI machine versus salary increases). She bets with herself as to who she'll hear from first: an apoplectic call from Brown raging about the respect surgeons deserve when they're scrubbed in; stiffly worded memos from Fadh in the path lab about sampling procedures; or, simply and inevitably, the storming revolt of every technician in radiology.
This time it comes in the form of Nurse Warren from the psych ward, who bursts into Cuddy's office without knocking and declares she'll have to commit herself as her own patient if she has to deal one more time with House. Cuddy shakes her head, suitably appalled, and murmurs that of course she'll deal with it, of course it will be taken care of. She soothes Greta--it is Greta, isn't it?--with small diplomatic pats and words like reprimand and censure. She holds the door for Nurse Warren on her way out. Then and only then does Cuddy follow her instinct for the kind of trouble that starts with a capital H.
Her instincts take her to Chase, who's alone in the lab, bent over samples and microscopes. "What's he got?" she asks Chase. He looks up, startled, and tries to rush out with a mumbled excuse, but she stops him with a hand on his forearm. "What's the case, Dr. Chase?" she repeats, and smiles her I'm your boss smile.
"Nothing," Chase says, his eyes going wide and surprised. He's the worst bluffer Cuddy's seen since she won the pants off her last poker adversary.
"Hmm," she says, and lets her smile linger long enough to grow dangerous.
"Sorry," he says, "I don't know what you're talking about."
Of course he doesn't. Cuddy leaves him terrified and heads back to her office. She takes her coat from its hook and tells Kyle that she very unfortunately won't be available this morning. No, no emergency. Yes, please cancel with the Davis foundation, and could they possibly reschedule for Thursday? Cuddy fluffs her hair, leaves her hat, and bundles up in her Aunt Ruth's carmine-red monstrosity of a scarf instead. She'll be back on time for the board meeting, yes, and the department heads' meeting as well. Hold all the calls, would you, Kyle, and then she's free and nothing smells better than the crispness of the air after a fresh snowfall when finally she's the one playing hooky.
***
The coffee shop is too obvious, of course. That's why Cuddy goes there, orders a latte, and corners Dr. Quong for three quarters of an hour. He's bright, single, and completely devoted to nematodes. Cuddy listens absently, enough to nod at the right times in his ecstatic description of his research, publishing, and recent keynote address to the New Jersey Genomic Sequencing conference. She's actually watching the flow of people past the windows, and the soft drift of the last of the snow. After what feels like forever, Quong looks at his watch and says regretfully that he has to go, that they should do this again some time.
"Of course," Cuddy murmurs, thinking that never will be too soon to hear that much about flatworms again. A few minutes later, she pays and leaves, and lets the rest of the day flow over her. The meetings, the annoyances, the paperwork detritus of managing a hospital--none of it so much as touches her.
House doesn't appear in her office yelling, not once all day. He's not scheduled for the clinic, and he's occupied with his patient. He won't find out about her little excursion until the details have been hopelessly muddied along the Princeton-Plainsboro gossip trail.
It was just coffee, but the hospital staff will have her engaged and halfway down the aisle by the time Diagnostics gets a hold of it. To House, it'll be nothing more than an engraved invitation.
***
Later, Cuddy curls her feet up under her, sitting on her couch with a glass of red wine. Her hair twists damply against her neck, sliding free of the loose knot she'd put it up in after soaking in a hot bath. She feels marvelously loose, drained of tension, but she's still wide awake. Her body sings with eagerness. If House doesn't show--which he might not, the contrary bastard--then there's at least one problem she's going to have to solve on her own. She's not quite sure what to do with the idea that House may not, after all, care about what she's doing. Who she's doing.
She glances over when her cell phone starts its buzzing dance on her coffee table. She didn't have to worry, after all. The annoying, nerve-grating tone means House, and furthermore, House who is also on his cell and therefore not at the office. Cuddy touches the tip of one fingernail to the phone's casing, feeling the vibration move up through her finger. She lingers over the first ring, and the second, and halfway into the third before she picks the phone up, and answers just before her voicemail kicks in. "What?" she snaps.
There's a pause on the other end of the line, and she knows it's more from amusement than because he's taken aback. "Do you answer your mother like that?" he asks, and the warm scratch of his voice jolts straight through her even though she knew it was him.
"This isn't a good time, House," she says, and her voice wavers between the pissed-off she was aiming for and the turned-on she actually is. It works even better than she hopes, she realizes, when she hears the swift intake of his breath.
"But I need a consult," he whines, a near-perfect recovery, and Cuddy can imagine the pout on his face as clearly as if he's standing across the room for her.
"Get someone else," she says. "I'm busy."
"Dr. Cuddy," he exclaims, scandalized. "Two nookie sessions in two days? Someone's being a naughty girl."
"I'm not on call," she repeats, and hangs up on him, closing her phone with a very satisfying click.
***
The rap of his cane on her front door comes far too soon for him to have been further than three blocks away when he called.
She answers the door wearing the same robe as the night before, and very little else. It's deliberate, of course. The way House's eyes widen, and the way he tries to hide it, makes the draft sliding up between her thighs seem very much worth it.
"Show me the file," she demands, keeping it strictly professional. Admittedly, for House, that means sticking out her hand and rolling her eyes.
He blinks at her, and then glances down. She's caught him off-guard, for once, but when he looks back, he's smiling slightly. "I'd much rather shoot the breeze," he says, and his eyes drift to where the wind has caught and lifted the hem of her robe.
Cuddy narrows her eyes at him. He really does advocate for his patients, when he needs to. And he's not holding a chart. "There was no case," she realizes. Chase really was that clueless.
"There was no date," he says, and he has the nerve to not even bother looking past her shoulder for evidence of her supposed tryst.
"It got you here," she says, tired of playing around. "Still going to pretend you're not interested in getting me for yourself?"
"Could be operant conditioning to you opening your door in things like that," he retorts, trying on a leer.
House acting purely from Pavlovian response sounds about right. Cuddy crosses her arms and leans her shoulder against the door jamb. "Hookers aren't giving you enough of a show?"
"Have you got a better one?"
"Depends on what you like," Cuddy says, staring at him evenly.
"I could list the titles in my porn collection if it'll give you inspiration," he says. "Not that you're doing too badly on your own."
Cuddy smiles, the dangerous smile again. The I'm your boss smile that never seemed to work on House until last night. "No," she says. "I'm saying if you're here for me. If you're serious. Then yes, you can come in, and I will blow you away."
"Literally?" House asks, and his grin is heated, predatory.
She leans forward, to be certain she has his undivided attention. "If you're good," she says, low enough to make him strain to hear the promise.
He swallows, and his mobile face goes still long enough for her to trust him. "I like what I see," he says quietly.
Cuddy raises her eyebrows, and walks away from the door. After a moment, she hears it close, and the tap of his cane as he follows her.
***
House doesn't fit in her bedroom.
He stands in the middle of the room, leaning on his cane, but it's not the same as the memory of her dream. He's out of place; he doesn't belong amid her carefully chosen fabrics and colours. He's in her space, and suddenly he seems too tall, too large, too--House. Cuddy's heart speeds up, but he's just as uncertain as she is, in this moment anyway, for once looking at her and not searching out the corners of her room for clues to the puzzle he thinks she is.
He's waiting for her. It's so unfamiliar that Cuddy almost doesn't move, but she's been waiting all day for this--longer, if she's honest--and anticipation coils warmly in her stomach, floods through her bloodstream like alcohol. Before she knows what she's doing she steps forward, in front of him, meeting his eyes and smiling deliberately.
The leather of his motorcycle jacket is cool under her touch. Cuddy smoothes her hands over his chest, and then grabs his lapels and yanks the jacket down off his shoulders, low enough to tangle his arms. At the same moment, she gives him a push, not hard, but enough to put him off-balance. House tries to adjust, to get his good leg and his trapped hand holding the cane under him, and while she's got the advantage, she lifts her face to his. He's staring at her warily, his mouth slack and inviting. She feels the warmth of his breath against her cheek, and she reaches up to catch his lower lip between her teeth, still watching his eyes. She runs her tongue over his captured lip, tasting the line where the bristle of stubble gives way to softness.
He makes the slightest move to pull away and she tightens her bite, before letting him go. "Get on the bed," she orders softly. They are going to do this her way, and if House is half as smart as he thinks he is, then he isn't going to argue the point.
He doesn't. She helps him get the jacket the rest of the way off--his button-down shirt comes with it, leaving his t-shirt underneath--and he makes his way slowly to her mattress, sitting down and facing her again. He's not smiling, quite, but there's appreciation and lazy approval in his eyes that turns Cuddy on more than his usual leer ever could. He trusts her.
Cuddy takes his cane away.
She rests it against the bedroom door, at least ten feet away from him. It almost hurts to see how hard he's trying not to care. "Have you taken a pill?" she asks.
"Have you ever known me not to?"
"House," she warns.
"Want to know if it'll hurt when you whip me, Mistress?"
"Want to know that I can."
House pauses, takes a breath, and then pulls his pills out of his jeans pocket. He takes one, tossing his head back to dry-swallow it. Cuddy watches his throat working, thinking this should not be hot in the least, but it is, strangely. When he's done, she takes the pill bottle, too, tucking it into his jacket and throwing it across the room. This time he can't quite stop his eyes from following. He's got nothing left to lean on, now. Except her.
"Take your shirt off," she says. "Shoes too." She's working hard not to show how much this is exactly what she wants. He's listening to her, doing what she says, toeing off his runners and socks. He strips the t-shirt over his head to show his lean torso, the surprisingly firm muscles of his arms and chest; but his age shows too, in the softness around his middle and the grey in his chest hair. The pucker of the bullet scar on his abdomen hasn't faded to white yet, even after months. Cuddy lets her gaze linger where it wants. Lets herself look. She can't imagine that there's anyone House will allow this much freedom, and it's intoxicating, far more than the wine she drank earlier.
After a moment, House says petulantly, "Are you going to get on with this?"
Cuddy's lips curve before she can stop herself. He's still asking, waiting, giving her control. The heat in her belly sinks lower and she feels the slide of her arousal between her thighs when she moves to stand between his spread legs. House places his hands loosely on her hips, and looks up so that she can see the dip and rise of his Adam's apple. When Cuddy kisses him, the prickle of his lips is so bright, so intense against hers. She imagines feeling the pain-pleasure of his mouth against her breasts, on the inside of her upper thigh, and she moans, wanting it, his touch.
House's hands move, then, and he doesn't bother pulling at the sash holding her robe closed, but lifts his hands through the gap to cup her breasts. His hands are large and hot and his thumbs brush over her nipples. Cuddy's breath comes harsh and fast, catching on ragged words that she's not ready to say. She pushes into his touch and kisses him so hard that he won't be able to say any of the million crude things she's sure he's thinking. It's not enough to keep House silent. He strains up as much as he can, and his tongue traces insults and lust into her mouth, like this kiss is just one more fight he thinks he deserves to win.
She's not going to let him. She breaks away and breathes, "Lay down." House doesn't even argue, but pushes back and sinks down, and Cuddy feels a flash of heat like lightning go through her, searing and bright. She has to close her eyes before she can look at him again.
"Going to have your wicked way with me now?" he demands, but it's a shadow of his usual sarcasm. He's lying on her duvet in nothing but jeans tight enough to give away how he's really feeling. One hand's resting on his stomach, his thumb rubbing absently at the trail of hair just below his navel. Cuddy wants to see him pop the button on his jeans open, wants to make him touch himself while she watches. She imagines the pull of his fingers around his dick, hard and hot. But more than that, she wants the sight of his face when he forgets he's performing and he lets her see the naked desire, the look of open need in his eyes. She's on the verge of saying it, ordering it--she knows he wouldn't refuse--except it would be over too quickly and there are other things she wants more.
"Arms over your head," she says.
"You're not the boss of me," he whines, but he's already lifting his arms to the headboard. "You've really got to learn to leave your work at the hospital. That's why Dan left, isn't it? And without taking a ride on the Cuddy train, from the look of you. The poor deluded sap."
"Don," she corrects absently. She crawls on top of him, straddling his legs. Her robe gapes open again, only an illusion that she's still clothed. House starts to bring his hands down to touch her. "Arms up," she says. "Leave them there."
"What's next? Handcuffs? Ties? Little silk scarves?" House says. "I never would have believed it. I wanted to believe it, but--"
"You're going to leave them there," she interrupts. She sits back on her heels, keeping her weight off his leg.
House tilts his head sideways and looks at her with a glint in his eyes. "Why?" he asks, caught between defiance and curiosity.
"Because you want to."
"When there's all of you to touch? I'm not the lube man, Cuddy. I'm staying from the cruddy opening act right through the last encore, and I'm pretty sure I've got my backstage pass."
"You're going to leave your arms up," she explains, very sweetly, "until I tell you to move them. You're going to do what I say, when I say it, because if you listen to me then this is going to be very, very good, House. It's your choice. But if you don't, then you're going home. And you will be very hard, and very alone, and your hand will be very cold comfort."
"Leaving you to cry into your vibrator?"
Cuddy smiles. "If that's what you'd rather be left imagining, then yes. Probably several times." She pauses, and runs her palms down his chest, letting his hair tickle her palms. "I'm hoping you'll make a good choice."
House stares up at her, narrow-eyed, as though he's trying to strategize his way past a worthy opponent. Cuddy ignores him, and moves her hands up his chest again, massaging softly, letting her fingers stroke across his nipples as if by accident. House's intake of breath is quick and sharp, and before she can say anything, he slowly lifts his arms back over his head, glaring at her the entire time. Cuddy doesn't even stop to acknowledge the win, but bends low over him and slides open-mouthed kisses over his collarbone and down his chest. She catches his nipple on her tongue and sucks hard.
"That--" he says hoarsely, and then stops.
Cuddy lifts her head, her hair still whispering over his skin. "Want more?"
His throat works, but he doesn't answer. "So did you lure me here to play stud?" he asks instead. "Babymaking for the succubus?"
"Trust me, I don't want you for your genes," she says, reaching for his fly.
He lifts his hips enough that she can strip the denim off, and mutters, "Puns are beneath you."
"So are you," she points out, "but I don't see you complaining about that." She can see the outline of his erection through his boxer-briefs. The shiver she's been repressing blooms into goosebumps across her arms, and her nipples tighten painfully.
House's smirk returns. "Sure you don't want me to--"
"Patience," she says. She's waited this long for him; she can stand to wait a little longer. She's going to wait, until he asks nicely.
"I hate patients," he says.
Amusement curves her lips, and Cuddy forces herself to take a slow breath, in and out, before she reaches for him. She rubs her palm over his dick, through the cotton. "I wanted to watch you do this," she says conversationally. "Your hands, while I told you what to do."
He makes a sound high in his throat. "Don't tell me things like that," he says. "I'm almost fifty but I'm not made of stone."
"Well," she agrees, "not yet."
"Ha," he says dryly. "Puns."
"When they suit." Cuddy peels the cotton off him, leaving him naked beneath her. She's glad that she's seen the hollow, broken line of his leg before; that in this moment, his scars don't mean anything at all. "Mmm," she says.
"That better be approval and not judgment I'm hearing," House says. "Remember, almost fifty." He drops his head back and closes his eyes, shifting his legs wider beneath her. "You have very talented hands, Dr. Cuddy."
"I've got more than that."
House opens his eyes. Cuddy loves the look of him; for once, the mess of his hair and his scruff are appropriate for the setting, and the sweat that's starting to appear along his shoulders is very gratifying. He almost moves, and then he catches himself and grimaces. "Cuddy," he says, as if it hurts him to ask, "take off the damn robe."
"What, this?" Cuddy runs a finger along the opening to the sash, untying the loose knot on the way down, and then letting her hand rejoin the other on his erection. She arches her back and the robe slips off her shoulders, opening enough to show her breasts and stomach.
House's eyes are half-lidded with pleasure. He's already breathing hard. "I like what I see," he repeats. Cuddy watches his eyes when she strokes him. He's getting harder, and his hips pump slowly into the grip of her hand, but it's his eyes she wants to see. They remind her of India ink, the blue darkened and deep.
She uses just her nails, then, scraping as lightly as she knows how from the base of his penis to the tip, her fingers curving as she traces the head. House's chest heaves like a racehorse's, the ripple of his ribs appearing and disappearing with each breath. His eyes are closed and Cuddy enjoys the sight of his fists clenching, his biceps and pecs flexing hard as he struggles to stay where she wants him, to leave his legs spread.
"Jesus, Cuddy, you're going to give me a heart attack."
"I'm goal-oriented," she says. "Maybe one thing more."
She barely needs to look to open the drawer of her bedside table. House starts to grin--she knows he's seen far more of her toy collection than she ever wanted known--but the one she brings out is a recent addition. His eyes widen when she shows him the dildo, which is slender, the head not much wider than the shaft. In moments, she covers it with a condom, and sets a second foil wrapper aside for later. The lubricant she starts by spreading on one hand, until her fingers are slick with it.
House has tensed again. His cock is so smooth and hot against her thigh. "Isn't that why I'm here? So you don't need to spend another night with Raoul the robot?"
"Yes," she says, "and no," and as she speaks she glides her finger along his ass.
House's breath explodes out. "Oh hell no."
"Really?" Cuddy slides her finger along his crack again, the lube making the movement feel wonderfully dirty. House's eyelids flutter closed. "Are you sure, House?"
"What makes you think that I'm into that?"
Cuddy rolls her eyes. He's already stopped fighting her; he nudges against the rub of her finger. "You're a doctor. You have a prostate. I refuse to believe you've never tried."
"The circumstances," House mutters, pressing closer, "were entirely different."
"Oh, of course," Cuddy says, letting her laughter sound in her voice. She maneuvers herself down until she's comfortably curled between his legs, and then she tastes him. House grunts and his legs splay apart shamelessly. "Stay still," she breathes into his skin, and then licks at him again, slow and delicate. "Or I'll stop."
"Stop, and I memo every hospital employee about this," he threatens.
Cuddy smiles and drizzles lube on the dildo. "Really? Even the parts where you beg?"
"I'm not begging."
"Not," she says, pressing the tip of the dildo against his sphincter, "yet." She waits, licking and sucking at him until he's used to the idea. When he breathes and relaxes, she kisses the tip of his hipbone, then the dip where it meets his abdomen, while she works the dildo slowly deeper. His cock twitches, but he's silent above her, except for the rough sound of his breathing. Cuddy tries to tell herself that she never meant this for House, that she never once envisioned this moment.
Liar, she tells herself. Liar, she thinks, while she moves the dildo until House goes wide-eyed and gasps, "Oh, fuck, there," and then she waits for it; waits, hot and wet and damn tempted to go full speed ahead without warning, because this is really what she wants, this, House spread-eagled on her sheets and nearly writhing while she holds him in stillness on the point of a single motion.
She waits.
"Please," House says.
"Good boy," she whispers. She thrusts the dildo again, and House groans, his hands fisting the sheets. Cuddy pauses, long enough to grab the second condom and roll it over his erection. He whimpers when she pulls the dildo out, slowly, and then she leans over him, pushing down on to him achingly slowly; she's so ready she doesn't need to do anything more than sink downwards, focusing on the heat of him beneath her, on the way his cock stretches her open and fills her.
"Now, House," she says. "Touch me now."
He doesn't waste a moment. His hands press against her sides, her hips, and then he moves his fingers through her hair to touch her. Cuddy cries out; he's so good, half-sitting up to suckle her nipple, his teeth grazing over the tip, his stubble burning her skin; his finger circling around her clit, then pressing, then circling again, without pattern and without stopping. Cuddy starts thrusting on him, moving up and down quickly, to keep pace with House's hands. He mutters half-heard words into her breasts, more and faster and beautiful, like this, Cuddy, oh.
It's been so long and she's so turned on that it seems to take no time at all until she's riding the edge of her orgasm, wanting it and waiting, still. Waiting. "Ask me," she says, and he replies, "Cuddy. Come for me. Please."
She does. She tips over into endless sensation, his long fingers pressed against her clit, his cock deep inside her so that she can clench down on him and come as hard as she wants to, as much as she needs. "Good," she says, and, "Now," and he follows after her, with a husky groan.
***
Afterwards, when she's taken the condom off him and thrown it away, and she's lying with her face buried beneath the lean muscle of his arm, she says, "You like me."
"Are you kidding?" House mumbles. His face is hidden in the crook of his elbow. "I think in several cultures I just married you."
Cuddy tries not to shudder at that idea. "Don't even joke."
"Should I just check 'yes' or 'no' on your note, Lisa?"
She smacks his stomach, the only part of him she can reach without moving from her post-orgasm puddle of goo. "Shut up."
"It happened. It was damn hot. Can I sleep now?"
"It should happen again," she whispers into his side, not sure if she wants him to hear. She spreads her palm across his abdomen, soothing the place she slapped.
House's fingertips drift along her shoulder, and she shivers a bit. Aftershocks run through her muscles, the memory of pleasure. She's nicely sore, nicely worn out. Sleep, she thinks. He didn't hear. It doesn't matter. It's dark in her room; she's already turned out the lights. She'll wake up in the morning and he'll be there, or gone, and work will be hell for a few days while he makes jokes at her expense and she pretends she doesn't care. She frowns slightly, and closes her eyes.
It's then that House says, "I like what I see."
Cuddy smiles. "I have proof, now."
"You were right," he says. "That's really annoying."
"Told you," Cuddy hums, through a yawn. She kisses his chest and burrows closer.
"This doesn't mean I shouldn't get time off clinic hours for time served," he says.
"Shut up, House," she orders.
He does as she says, and Cuddy falls asleep curled in his arms.