Extreme Sensitivity… as an impediment to getting to where you really, really want to be. – A Women’s Murder Club Series, part 17

TITLE: Extreme Sensitivity… as an impediment to getting to where you really, really want to be. (17/?)
PAIRING: Lindsay/Cindy
DISCLAIMER: Women’s Murder Club does not belong to me. The characters do not belong to me. They are the property of James Patterson, 20th Century Fox Television and ABC. (Well, not anymore. Jackasses.) I have no problems with that as long as I can borrow them for short bursts and use them in pursuit of my own enjoyment. I am not trying to infringe. Though, I don’t know why anyone has a problem with fan fic. After all, it really is a compliment. If anyone wants to write fan fiction about my book, feel free.

(Lindsay’s POV)

In her own qualified opinion, Lindsay had been extraordinarily obedient. Like a perfect passenger, she held only to Cindy’s offered hand, relinquishing it when required for safe driving. As such, Cindy was able to deliver the SUV, complete with all of its contents, into the driveway without incident.

Once the car was in park and shut down, she could still sense Cindy’s caution in her offering of support, as if afraid of what might happen if she got too close to her simmering co-commuter, but Lindsay did nothing whatsoever to warrant such mistrust. She laid her arm innocently across Cindy’s shoulders, refused herself the desire to lean into Cindy’s body more effusively than necessary, and made no attempts at hindering their walk from vehicle to porch.

If she did say so herself, she was a virtual saint in her chaste behavior.

With only a slight struggle, due to the added weight that she was helping to support, Cindy unlocked the front door of Lindsay’s building, and, even though Cindy’s distraction was a perfect opportunity to try something mischievous, Lindsay simply leaned patiently on her without an action or utterance that could be construed as sexual.

In fact, despite Cindy’s positively melting touch and her smell, which was producing outright salivation, Lindsay had been so very well-behaved, she thought she deserved a little something for those excruciating labors.

After all, they had made it safely home and wasn’t that the whole point in her restraint?

Bearing that in mind, and frankly tired of having to wait, Lindsay turned before Cindy could take them up onto the first step, her hands palming slender shoulders and pushing gently until Cindy’s back connected dully with the wall.

The way that Cindy’s eyes widened as they settled, without delay, on her lips gave an effective rev to Lindsay’s already humming chassis, and what remained of her self-discipline dissipated instantly as she surged forward, freshly ogled lips merging with Cindy’s in a frantic kiss.

There was a moan. Cindy’s or hers, Lindsay wasn’t entirely sure. She simply didn’t care. If it wasn’t her own, it very easily could have been, and if it was hers, she had every intention of drawing one out of Cindy soon enough.

A first of many.

“Linds,” Cindy’s voice purred against her ear as Lindsay ducked beneath her chin to suck a pulsing vein into her mouth.

It wasn’t a moan so much as a whimper, but it would suffice for the time being.

Cindy’s skin tasted like something beyond immediate description, with just a tang of salt, almost certainly generated during her challenging drive back.

Mouth trailing up Cindy’s jaw to bite gently down on her already swollen lower lip, and hand sneaking below the back of Cindy’s skirt to grasp a firm thigh in a manner that could never be confused as pure, Lindsay smiled against skin.

Now there was that moan she was after.

“Linds,” Cindy breathed as she pulled away, short bursts of air stinging Lindsay’s wet lips. “We’re in the hallway.”

“Mm hm,” Lindsay answered, once again claiming Cindy’s mouth as her body pressed forward in search of more contact.

“Someone’s going to see us,” Cindy tried again, when Lindsay pulled away, kissing back to tease a dangling earring and the lobe to which it was attached with her tongue.

“That’s fine,” Lindsay whispered into the nearby ear, not entirely sure what she was saying.

When she felt Cindy’s hands on her biceps and a soft push, Lindsay groaned her heartfelt disapproval. Opening her eyes, she found Cindy returning her gaze, a somewhat discolored smile turning her lips.

“We have to go upstairs,” Cindy declared with an unfortunate amount of firmness.

“Okay,” Lindsay rasped back. “Let’s go upstairs.”

And she wanted to. She did. But it was far from an easy journey.

Every three steps, Lindsay was walloped by an uncontrollable need to put her open mouth somewhere on Cindy and run hands deprived for far too many miles, and far too many months, over her perfect body. As a result, they did considerably more staggering than climbing up the stairs, challenging gravity and their own equilibrium each precarious step of the way.

Panting for breath, and tangled up in each other’s clothes and limbs, they tripped up the final stair, just barely able to prevent a tumble to the floor. Fused like an infinity statue, they slid along the wall, neither of them harboring the capacity to stand fully… or watch where they were going apparently, as proven when they jointly kicked over a neighbor’s potted plant.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lindsay’s unwillingness to fully relinquish Cindy’s lips mangled her words to nearly unintelligible. “I’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

Cindy must have comprehended the garbled mess, and concurred that it was a fine solution, because she never slowed in her progress toward Lindsay’s door.

How she managed it, Lindsay couldn’t begin to fathom, but she heard the jingle of her keys, and then Cindy was pushing her backward into her apartment, and there was another wall and an accent table that had always seemed perfectly-placed until her hip rammed into it with a ferocity that was sure to leave a bruise.

But there were also Cindy’s lips… and Cindy’s body… and her hands, and it was next to impossible for Lindsay be concerned about the many contusions she was acquiring in the pursuit of those things.

Feeling especially audacious, Lindsay’s hands roamed beneath the fabric of Cindy’s tight shirt, uncovering silken skin bit by bit, and she ingested the resultant gasp like an aphrodisiac. They were right on the cusp of that universally understood point of no return when a pitiful whine that didn’t belong to either of them intruded on their lustfest.

Like the Good Samaritan that she had tendency to be, Cindy was the first to pull away and look to the needy animal waiting at the door for a divine force, or bighearted human, to lend a hand.

Lips fire red, and chest heaving, Cindy looked rather out of place standing there staring at the dog. She really looked more like she should be in the middle of Lindsay’s bed than the middle of her entryway.

Something easily remedied.

“I’m going to take Martha out.”

Not expecting that particular declaration, it took Lindsay a moment to grasp the uninvited announcement.

“Uh… oh… kay,” she replied, in complete discord with her actual feelings on the matter.

Knowing it made her a terribly selfish pet owner, she still couldn’t help an internal growl at the ill-timed dependence of Martha as Cindy struggled to detach herself. Couldn’t the damn dog hold it? Or just have peed somewhere on the carpet while they were gone?

If it didn’t have the potential to get her committed, she would swear that Martha was smirking at her as Cindy attached her leash.

“Be right back,” Cindy promised, not quite back to her normal breathing pattern.

“Okay,” Lindsay said again.

It really wasn’t. It was completely brutal. Like trying to stop a runaway train with your big toe. But, regardless of her internal contradiction, Cindy took her at her word and disappeared out the door with Martha.

After listening to their departure down the hall, Lindsay carefully made her way into the living room and over to the sofa, sitting down gingerly. Now that she wasn’t under the completely overwhelming influence of Cindy, she could tell just how careless she had been with her injury and how much she was going to pay for it in painkillers.

But, damn, would it be worth it.

If they could just get to the rest of it, she thought, glancing toward the door expectantly.

Surprisingly anxious waiting for Cindy’s return, when the door finally did open, and Martha rushed in to nuzzle at her legs, Lindsay could only watch Cindy appear from behind the wall, still looking rather flushed and incongruous with her current surroundings.

There was something peculiar in Cindy’s expression, the way she kept staring from a distance, watching Lindsay studiously for the longest time without saying anything.

“Do you need anything before I go?” she finally asked.

If biology weren’t a fairly unbending science, Lindsay’s head might have spun around Linda Blair-style at the quietly posed question.

“Wait…” she stuttered. “You’re leaving?”

If it was a joke, if Cindy was tormenting her intentionally, Lindsay would forgive the cruel charade. If it was a joke, Lindsay would forgive anything. But it seemed rather authentic when Cindy nodded in response.

“Now?”

Acute disappointment struck Lindsay when Cindy slowly nodded again.

“Why?”

It came out small and as insecure as she felt, and that brought Cindy the few steps it took to reach the edge of the couch.

A gentle hand lifted Lindsay’s chin and Cindy kissed her lingeringly, pulling away with a reigniting nibble to her bottom lip. She pulled back just enough, and Lindsay found herself staring into warm chocolate eyes for the hundredth time that night, and just as all the times before, not wanting to ever look away.

“Because I want it to last,” Cindy whispered.

Unsure if she was being blessed or haunted by her own words, Lindsay watched Cindy walk off again, into the kitchen, returning a few seconds later with a glass of water and her located bottle of painkillers. She sat them on the coffee table, went to the wall next to Lindsay’s bedroom door and snagged the crutches from where Lindsay had left them earlier in the evening, holding them out until Lindsay finally had enough sense to reach out and take them.

“Need anything else?” Cindy asked.

“Uh yeah,” Lindsay uttered at once.

There was no way Cindy was really going to do this. Was she?

But Cindy just smiled, and assured her that she was.

“Night, Linds,” she murmured, leaning back in for one last kiss, during which Lindsay couldn’t help but contemplate the fact that her considerable upper body strength could have Cindy flat on her back underneath her in less than three seconds.

But before she could do anything but think it, Cindy was ending the kiss, smiling with a disheartening certainty, backing slowly toward the exit, and turning on her heel.

It wasn’t until the door opened and closed, though, and Lindsay sat there in stunned silence for several minutes without the redhead’s return, that she realized Cindy was serious.