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asimaiyatTitle: "Living In A Den Of Thieves"
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: Alex/Neal/Kate
Rating: NC-17; explicit f/f/m threesome.
Content advisory: Lying, cheating, stealing. Unsafe sex, both physically and emotionally.
Summary: Alex smiles, but ignores him. She takes off her leather motorcycle jacket and drapes it over the arm of the sofa, and turns toward Kate, placing a hand on her upper arm."Kate," she asks, "have you ever had a threesome before?"
Title from "Us" by Regina Spektor.
Even when they were still feeling each other out, Alex never thought twice about letting herself in to Neal's apartment -- after all, he isn't a stickler for privacy, and she isn't much for locks. Now that they've been doing this for a while, she gets a kick out of trying to sneak up on him, her favorite flat-soled boots barely making a sound against the carpeted floor. She pauses after closing the door, thinking she hears voices inside. Laughing voices, just below the normal conversational register.
She's already guessed before she sees them, and there they are, pressed hard against the overstuffed couch. Neal and Kate, making out like teenagers, the blueprints spread over the coffee table, and the two glasses of red wine, obviously forgotten. He's holding her soft cheek in one hand almost tenderly as he kisses her hard, her eyes shut tight and her delicate pink fingertips digging into the back of his neck. It's only a second before they both notice her presence behind the couch (she'd be disappointed if it took longer) and she's faced with two pairs of wide blue eyes staring up at her.
"Really, Neal?"
He looks up at her helplessly for a second, and then he shrugs, and says, "Uh... hi. Alex."
"Uh, hi, Neal. Kate." Alex isn't even mad; not as mad as she might have expected to be. It's more funny than anything. Part of her -- the cynical part, the part she survives on -- has seen this coming ever since she introduced the two of them. Kate is quick and eager and young (how young, Alex isn't sure; her license say she's 21, but it also say her name is Katrina von Trapp), and around Neal she always seems genuinely starstruck, getting high on his attention. Neal took to her right away, impressed by her vintage style and somewhere between amused and touched by her playing at Jean Harlow toughness. He always seemed to be showing her things, teaching her little tricks.
(Alex took a while to warm up to her, but if she's being honest with herself, that has more to do with the fact that when they first met, the girl had been in the process of walking off with an heirloom diamond-and-garnet necklace that really should have been hers -- absolutely gorgeous Polish craftsmanship -- and she'd crashed Alex's own rooftop party the next week with the pendent nestled in her perfect decolletage. It wasn't her fault, really; she just wanted to impress Alex and Neal, and eventually, evidently, she had. Alex had brought her in, made a project of her.)
"So, Neal and Kate." Alex walks around the couch the the coffee table, where she picks up Neal's glass of wine and takes a long sip. Maybe an Australian shiraz? Both of them are looking at her with that oh shit look; it takes her another second to catch the nuance in Kate's face, not just oh shit, I got caught, but oh shit, I got played.
Oh, that poor, poor thing.
Alex puts down the glass and sits down on the couch next to Kate, turning to her with a dangerous smile. "You know, Kate, a woman in my position could be forgiven for thinking you're kind of a bitch."
"But he said -- " is all the confirmation Alex needs, and all Kate can get out before Alex places one finger across her lips.
"Oh, honey, you don't have to say another word." Alex locks eyes with Neal, who's been watching with interest, and flashes him a smile. "So, Caffrey, I'd love to hear you talk your way out of this one. But he said what?"
"I said -- I said you wouldn't mind."
"Oh, really?"
"Well, I thought you wouldn't mind, actually, because I thought you'd never know." His eyebrows raise just a little. "Oops?"
"I can't believe you just said 'oops.'" She frowns ironically. "Wait, no. I can't believe that I have trusted you with my life, on past occasions, and you just said 'oops.'"
"Hey." The tone of his voice is casual, but she can tell that he's putting everything he's got into that apologetic half-smile. "Alex, hey, Alex." And he leans across the couch toward her (Kate still sitting between them, looking twitchy); he's second-guessing, trying a new tack. "I'm so sorry. You know how much I care about you. If I've hurt you --"
"You think I'm hurt? Oh, no, Neal, I'm a big girl. I know what we are -- or were, I don't know. You don't owe me anything."
At this point, she's stalling, trying to think faster than they can talk. Maybe she does love Neal -- they haven't said it out loud, but she looks forward to seeing him, to touching him; he's the best lover she's ever had, and one of the only people she's known who can really keep up with her, not threatened by her smarts or her ruthless streak, but not condescending because she's pretty and petite, either. He makes her laugh, her real laugh that even she doesn't get to hear that often. Whatever else, it's been fun. But in the long term, she knows she's got a big career ahead of her, and she knows she's going to need to keep Neal Caffrey as a trusted ally if she wants to be the best. Which means she has to think through this situation very carefully.
And this thing with Kate could go more than one way. It's possible that she's been played worse than she thinks, and Neal's really just like every other guy she thought he was so different from, taking advantage of the bright young thing who falls so prettily for every line in his repertoire. Or he really is the genuine romantic she knows so well -- and he's with Kate because he really, truly loves her. Maybe he has room in his heart for her and Kate; it wouldn't be the most impressive act of multi-tasking she'd ever seen him pull off. Or maybe things between them are already over, and he just hasn't bothered to tell her yet. Maybe this is his passive-aggressive way of telling her. Maybe he hasn't even figured out which is true yet, and he's waiting for his own actions to surprise him, to tell him who he is. He does that, sometimes. At any rate, Alex knows how Neal reacts to demands and ultimatums, and she knows that if she doesn't want to upset the balance of their professional relationship, she can't just flat-out make him choose. She can think of one way, though, to get a quick, clear read on the situation. It's a kind of tactic that she prefers not to use when she can help it, but with these two -- looking at Neal's pretty face, Kate's hot little body -- it'll hardly be a hardship.
She keeps her eyes level with Neal's, challenging. "No, it's not me you have to apologize to. It's this poor girl. She adores you, it's written all over her face. And you lied to her, and set her up to have to deal with me, a woman scorned." Neal looks more nervous than she's ever seen him before, like he's about to witness an act of violence, but there's a flicker on Kate's face like she's starting to get the joke, maybe. "I think we both owe the poor thing an apology, don't you?"
"Alex?" His voice is pitched just above where it ought to be.
Alex smiles, but ignores him. She takes off her leather motorcycle jacket and drapes it over the arm of the sofa, and turns toward Kate, placing a hand on her upper arm."Kate," she asks, "have you ever had a threesome before?"
"Not yet," Kate replies, "but I'll try anything twice." She looks a little confused, and Alex is concerned for a moment, not want to put too much pressure on her. She knows the girl worries about being seen as sophisticated enough, hanging out with this crowd.
"You don't have to," says Alex. "But if you're okay with sharing, I am."
"Alex, what are you -- ?" Neal looks kind of alarmed, over on his end of the couch, but Kate gives Alex this bright, conspiratorial smile that makes Alex's heart sink, because it's exactly the kind of thing that someone -- that Neal -- could easily fall in love with. And then she's found the zipper on the back of Alex's blouse, and Alex is running her hand down the back of Kate's angora sweater, and over Kate's shoulder Alex is looking through half-closed eyes at the emotions Neal is trying to keep from showing on his face -- confusion and anxiety and intense arousal. She twists a hand into Kate's thick brown hair and pulls her back, not too hard, just enough to remind her that it isn't just the two of them there.
"Aren't you going to play?" she asks Neal, and he laughs and if she hadn't seen his face a second ago she'd swear that this was just another easy, breezy moment for him.
"Sure thing," he says. Sure thing. He undoes the buttons that run down the back of Kate's sweater in instants, like he's already intimately familiar with the workings of this particular sweater, and who knows, maybe he is. Kate still has her eyes on Alex, and Alex tries to give her an encouraging smile, a little nod. To give her permission. Kate looks grateful and a little sheepish as Neal pulls the sweater up over her head, revealing this pale pink bra with a little lace around the edges and a body that's all soft curves, even tinier than she looks in her clothes, but not at all skinny. She's already trying to keep pace with Neal, yanking up on his own turtleneck, ruffling his hair in the process. He's all smiles, reaching out to Alex, and she plays right along like she always has, climbing into his lap and letting her hands sink into his hair.
"You are full of surprises," he murmurs to her, and at this range she can hear the edge in his voice.
"Oh, I'm the surprising one here," she says, and laughs, discarding her shirt amid the scattered blueprints for wherever. Unlike Kate, she wasn't wearing a bra in the first place, and Neal strokes the fingernails of one hand down her torso, along the firm lines of her stomach, as he unhooks Kate's bra with the other hand, not even looking. Alex reaches for Kate with her other hand and pulls her into a kiss, remembering all at once how long it's been since she's been with a woman -- it must have been three years ago, Anna in Amsterdam -- and how different it feels to kiss one. Different even from kissing Neal, who uses more moisturizer and lip balm than Alex does. Kate is tentative, a little spooked, not giving in to the kind of abandon she'd been lost in when Alex had first seen them. Alex goes easy on her, not using too much tongue, just tracing her full, pink lips. Kate makes soft, happy noises, pressing her tongue against Alex's lips, slowly relaxing into their arms.
"You've got good taste in women," Alex tells Neal, watching him watching, the fascination on his face, as if in the future he may need to recreate these movements in every detail. She lets herself fall back, lets Neal pull Kate closer and trace a hand up her skirt, holding her up with his other arm, not kissing her but just looking into her eyes as she drapes her hands happily over the back of his neck. It's not at all the way he touches Alex. It's softer, protective, the way he supports her as she trembles in his arms; it's beautiful and a little bit sickening. He's never held Alex up like that before, and she wouldn't want him to; she can keep her balance just fine on her own. She presses up against Neal's side, feeling him shift toward her, and unzips his pants, slipping a hand into his boxers. He makes a low, almost purring sound as she strokes his cock, and she wishes she'd somehow engineered this to happen in a bed, because things are about to get physically awkward. She tosses a couple of cushions off the couch to make room.
At this point Kate's skirt is around her waist, her thighs, soft and almost blue-white, spread open on the couch as he fingers her, and she's really shaking, not just those operatic little vibrations. She's biting down hard on her lower lip, and Neal's eyes on her are soft and sympathetic. It's not what she needs... it's what he does, she realizes, noticing the reverence in his face as he takes his time touching her, exploring the details of her sex. Kate may or may not need taking care of, but she seems to enjoy it just fine, if the keening sound she's making is as genuine as it sounds.
(Alex doesn't know if Neal has ever taken care of anyone, or anything, before. She gave him a potted plant, once, because she'd noticed that he loved flowers. It had thrived on his windowsill until he'd received one of his windfalls, and taken off for two weeks in Montauk without telling a soul. It had been dead when she dropped in to visit, dry petals scattered on the floor below.)
"Come on, please," Kate whimpers, arching her back like a classic pin-up. Alex half-straddles Neal as she reaches out to add her fingers to his, pressing down on Kate's swollen clit the way she's done a million times to her own, and Kate's thighs clench up as she comes ("oh, yeah, come on!"), her eyes squeezed shut and the hot pink flush of her cheeks spilling down her long neck, and Neal and Alex exchange a look that could mean any number of things. Neal is smiling, but that's more or less a given. He catches Kate mid-collapse, guiding her head to the cushion as she hums with sleepy pleasure, before turning back to Alex, his face open and honest, a little wild under his ruffled hair.
She kisses him hard, loving the way he responds when he's still just a little bit on edge, sinking his teeth into her lip. He's hot all over, heart beating fast, and she pushes past the part of her brain that's always asking why, and takes his face in both her hands, feeling the wetness of his fingers as he wraps them around her waist, pulling her back into his lap. Kate's crashed out against the arm of the couch, eyes fluttering, arms up around her head in almost innocent-looking repose.
Alex uses the solid strength of her hips and thighs (countless weekends of rock-climbing will do that) to change Neal's angle, pushing him down onto his back, his head resting against Kate's hip. She strips off her own pants, keeping her eyes on him. "Are we still on?" she teases.
"You've got it," he replies, looking her up and down as she reaches out to help him out of his trousers and climb back on top of him. She touches herself as she braces herself on one arm over him, strands of her wavy hair escaping from its ponytail to frame his face. When he looks at her like this, at the center of his vision, she can see that familiar sly glint in his eye, the challenge that's missing from his smile when he looks at Kate. It's a moment, at least. It's something. She takes his cock in the hand that isn't supporting her weight, and strokes him harder than necessary just to see his eyes widen, to hear him chuckle in that breathless way that means she's surprised him again, before guiding him inside of her.
She lowers herself onto him faster than she expected, just realizing how turned on she really was by that whole display with Kate. His hips twitch up against her, and she groans and lets her eyes flutter closed. It's almost too much all at once, but that's what she likes -- to have a little catching up to do, not to be eased in too slowly. She braces herself and finds her rhythm, riding him hard, trying to keep her eyes open, to watch his face as the sensation nearly overwhelms her. He's doing the same, she realizes; he's taking this as a challenge. She smiles, takes one of his hands, and places it on her breast, and his hips buck under her as he strokes the underside of her breast with the pads of his fingers, then takes her nipple and squeezes, hard, the way she can never resist. She scratches her fingernails down his chest, the way he can never resist -- they've been doing this for a while; they know tricks.
"We're good together," she whispers, somehow, without meaning to say anything at all.
"We're amazing," he agrees, pressing the palm of his hand to the small of her back in just the right way to change their angle by a few degrees, to adjust the pressure -- just -- enough --
They both come at the same time, or maybe she gets there a couple of seconds early. "Amazing," she repeats, practically gasping for air. "Fucking amazing." He's laughing, son of a bitch, that eyes-closed breathless laughter that means so many things, coming from him, that it might as well mean nothing at all.
Alex's eyes, on the other hand, are wide open, and she sees him lying flat on his back as if he's vulnerable, as if he trusts her, and Kate sitting there with her legs folded together now, watching, cheeks still flushed with arousal.
Neal extricates himself from Alex's lazy embrace, and rubs the back of his head as he sits up. "Mmm, excuse me, I've got to --" and then wanders in the direction of the bathroom, naked and a little wobbly.
After a moment of silence, Alex takes Kate's hand and strokes it, with affectionate, in both of her own.
"Well played, honey," she says, half under her breath. She's pretty sure Kate can read lips.
"I really like you, Alex," Kate whispers back. "I never meant to --"
"Don't worry about it." At this point Alex doesn't really care if Neal can hear them; he'll figure it all out anyway. "I should have moved on already anyway; there's a whole world out there waiting for me." When she says it, it feels true. It almost feels good.
"So this is it?" says Kate, reaching for her purse. She fishes out a packet of cigarettes and lights up, in Neal's apartment, something Alex has never seen anyone get away with before. She's about to say something to stop her when she realizes that she has no reason to care about the condition of the art on the walls.
"This is never it," says Alex, smiling as she walks to where she dropped her purse in the front hall, picking up her clothes as she goes. She fishes out a slip of paper and a pen, writes down a phone number, makes a quick paper airplane, and lets it glide over to Kate. "For both of you. You might need me someday."
"You mean, for...?" Kate's eyebrow raises as she takes in the room full of discarded clothes, the pungent air around them.
Alex laughs. "I mean if you're in trouble. You never know when you might need a friend in Europe." She dresses and talks at the same time, tugging at her blouse to smooth the wrinkles before attempting to re-create her tight ponytail.
"You're going to kick ass," says Kate.
"I better not see you wearing any more of my jewelry."
"You better stay quick, then."
"You know I will, Kate. And you better keep your eyes open while you've got that one around. He's slippery."
"Will do. See you in the morning papers?"
"Front page of the international section," Alex calls, slipping out the door just as she hears Neal coming back down the hall. "Look for headlines from Amsterdam!"
Fandom: White Collar
Pairing: Alex/Neal/Kate
Rating: NC-17; explicit f/f/m threesome.
Content advisory: Lying, cheating, stealing. Unsafe sex, both physically and emotionally.
Summary: Alex smiles, but ignores him. She takes off her leather motorcycle jacket and drapes it over the arm of the sofa, and turns toward Kate, placing a hand on her upper arm."Kate," she asks, "have you ever had a threesome before?"
Title from "Us" by Regina Spektor.
Even when they were still feeling each other out, Alex never thought twice about letting herself in to Neal's apartment -- after all, he isn't a stickler for privacy, and she isn't much for locks. Now that they've been doing this for a while, she gets a kick out of trying to sneak up on him, her favorite flat-soled boots barely making a sound against the carpeted floor. She pauses after closing the door, thinking she hears voices inside. Laughing voices, just below the normal conversational register.
She's already guessed before she sees them, and there they are, pressed hard against the overstuffed couch. Neal and Kate, making out like teenagers, the blueprints spread over the coffee table, and the two glasses of red wine, obviously forgotten. He's holding her soft cheek in one hand almost tenderly as he kisses her hard, her eyes shut tight and her delicate pink fingertips digging into the back of his neck. It's only a second before they both notice her presence behind the couch (she'd be disappointed if it took longer) and she's faced with two pairs of wide blue eyes staring up at her.
"Really, Neal?"
He looks up at her helplessly for a second, and then he shrugs, and says, "Uh... hi. Alex."
"Uh, hi, Neal. Kate." Alex isn't even mad; not as mad as she might have expected to be. It's more funny than anything. Part of her -- the cynical part, the part she survives on -- has seen this coming ever since she introduced the two of them. Kate is quick and eager and young (how young, Alex isn't sure; her license say she's 21, but it also say her name is Katrina von Trapp), and around Neal she always seems genuinely starstruck, getting high on his attention. Neal took to her right away, impressed by her vintage style and somewhere between amused and touched by her playing at Jean Harlow toughness. He always seemed to be showing her things, teaching her little tricks.
(Alex took a while to warm up to her, but if she's being honest with herself, that has more to do with the fact that when they first met, the girl had been in the process of walking off with an heirloom diamond-and-garnet necklace that really should have been hers -- absolutely gorgeous Polish craftsmanship -- and she'd crashed Alex's own rooftop party the next week with the pendent nestled in her perfect decolletage. It wasn't her fault, really; she just wanted to impress Alex and Neal, and eventually, evidently, she had. Alex had brought her in, made a project of her.)
"So, Neal and Kate." Alex walks around the couch the the coffee table, where she picks up Neal's glass of wine and takes a long sip. Maybe an Australian shiraz? Both of them are looking at her with that oh shit look; it takes her another second to catch the nuance in Kate's face, not just oh shit, I got caught, but oh shit, I got played.
Oh, that poor, poor thing.
Alex puts down the glass and sits down on the couch next to Kate, turning to her with a dangerous smile. "You know, Kate, a woman in my position could be forgiven for thinking you're kind of a bitch."
"But he said -- " is all the confirmation Alex needs, and all Kate can get out before Alex places one finger across her lips.
"Oh, honey, you don't have to say another word." Alex locks eyes with Neal, who's been watching with interest, and flashes him a smile. "So, Caffrey, I'd love to hear you talk your way out of this one. But he said what?"
"I said -- I said you wouldn't mind."
"Oh, really?"
"Well, I thought you wouldn't mind, actually, because I thought you'd never know." His eyebrows raise just a little. "Oops?"
"I can't believe you just said 'oops.'" She frowns ironically. "Wait, no. I can't believe that I have trusted you with my life, on past occasions, and you just said 'oops.'"
"Hey." The tone of his voice is casual, but she can tell that he's putting everything he's got into that apologetic half-smile. "Alex, hey, Alex." And he leans across the couch toward her (Kate still sitting between them, looking twitchy); he's second-guessing, trying a new tack. "I'm so sorry. You know how much I care about you. If I've hurt you --"
"You think I'm hurt? Oh, no, Neal, I'm a big girl. I know what we are -- or were, I don't know. You don't owe me anything."
At this point, she's stalling, trying to think faster than they can talk. Maybe she does love Neal -- they haven't said it out loud, but she looks forward to seeing him, to touching him; he's the best lover she's ever had, and one of the only people she's known who can really keep up with her, not threatened by her smarts or her ruthless streak, but not condescending because she's pretty and petite, either. He makes her laugh, her real laugh that even she doesn't get to hear that often. Whatever else, it's been fun. But in the long term, she knows she's got a big career ahead of her, and she knows she's going to need to keep Neal Caffrey as a trusted ally if she wants to be the best. Which means she has to think through this situation very carefully.
And this thing with Kate could go more than one way. It's possible that she's been played worse than she thinks, and Neal's really just like every other guy she thought he was so different from, taking advantage of the bright young thing who falls so prettily for every line in his repertoire. Or he really is the genuine romantic she knows so well -- and he's with Kate because he really, truly loves her. Maybe he has room in his heart for her and Kate; it wouldn't be the most impressive act of multi-tasking she'd ever seen him pull off. Or maybe things between them are already over, and he just hasn't bothered to tell her yet. Maybe this is his passive-aggressive way of telling her. Maybe he hasn't even figured out which is true yet, and he's waiting for his own actions to surprise him, to tell him who he is. He does that, sometimes. At any rate, Alex knows how Neal reacts to demands and ultimatums, and she knows that if she doesn't want to upset the balance of their professional relationship, she can't just flat-out make him choose. She can think of one way, though, to get a quick, clear read on the situation. It's a kind of tactic that she prefers not to use when she can help it, but with these two -- looking at Neal's pretty face, Kate's hot little body -- it'll hardly be a hardship.
She keeps her eyes level with Neal's, challenging. "No, it's not me you have to apologize to. It's this poor girl. She adores you, it's written all over her face. And you lied to her, and set her up to have to deal with me, a woman scorned." Neal looks more nervous than she's ever seen him before, like he's about to witness an act of violence, but there's a flicker on Kate's face like she's starting to get the joke, maybe. "I think we both owe the poor thing an apology, don't you?"
"Alex?" His voice is pitched just above where it ought to be.
Alex smiles, but ignores him. She takes off her leather motorcycle jacket and drapes it over the arm of the sofa, and turns toward Kate, placing a hand on her upper arm."Kate," she asks, "have you ever had a threesome before?"
"Not yet," Kate replies, "but I'll try anything twice." She looks a little confused, and Alex is concerned for a moment, not want to put too much pressure on her. She knows the girl worries about being seen as sophisticated enough, hanging out with this crowd.
"You don't have to," says Alex. "But if you're okay with sharing, I am."
"Alex, what are you -- ?" Neal looks kind of alarmed, over on his end of the couch, but Kate gives Alex this bright, conspiratorial smile that makes Alex's heart sink, because it's exactly the kind of thing that someone -- that Neal -- could easily fall in love with. And then she's found the zipper on the back of Alex's blouse, and Alex is running her hand down the back of Kate's angora sweater, and over Kate's shoulder Alex is looking through half-closed eyes at the emotions Neal is trying to keep from showing on his face -- confusion and anxiety and intense arousal. She twists a hand into Kate's thick brown hair and pulls her back, not too hard, just enough to remind her that it isn't just the two of them there.
"Aren't you going to play?" she asks Neal, and he laughs and if she hadn't seen his face a second ago she'd swear that this was just another easy, breezy moment for him.
"Sure thing," he says. Sure thing. He undoes the buttons that run down the back of Kate's sweater in instants, like he's already intimately familiar with the workings of this particular sweater, and who knows, maybe he is. Kate still has her eyes on Alex, and Alex tries to give her an encouraging smile, a little nod. To give her permission. Kate looks grateful and a little sheepish as Neal pulls the sweater up over her head, revealing this pale pink bra with a little lace around the edges and a body that's all soft curves, even tinier than she looks in her clothes, but not at all skinny. She's already trying to keep pace with Neal, yanking up on his own turtleneck, ruffling his hair in the process. He's all smiles, reaching out to Alex, and she plays right along like she always has, climbing into his lap and letting her hands sink into his hair.
"You are full of surprises," he murmurs to her, and at this range she can hear the edge in his voice.
"Oh, I'm the surprising one here," she says, and laughs, discarding her shirt amid the scattered blueprints for wherever. Unlike Kate, she wasn't wearing a bra in the first place, and Neal strokes the fingernails of one hand down her torso, along the firm lines of her stomach, as he unhooks Kate's bra with the other hand, not even looking. Alex reaches for Kate with her other hand and pulls her into a kiss, remembering all at once how long it's been since she's been with a woman -- it must have been three years ago, Anna in Amsterdam -- and how different it feels to kiss one. Different even from kissing Neal, who uses more moisturizer and lip balm than Alex does. Kate is tentative, a little spooked, not giving in to the kind of abandon she'd been lost in when Alex had first seen them. Alex goes easy on her, not using too much tongue, just tracing her full, pink lips. Kate makes soft, happy noises, pressing her tongue against Alex's lips, slowly relaxing into their arms.
"You've got good taste in women," Alex tells Neal, watching him watching, the fascination on his face, as if in the future he may need to recreate these movements in every detail. She lets herself fall back, lets Neal pull Kate closer and trace a hand up her skirt, holding her up with his other arm, not kissing her but just looking into her eyes as she drapes her hands happily over the back of his neck. It's not at all the way he touches Alex. It's softer, protective, the way he supports her as she trembles in his arms; it's beautiful and a little bit sickening. He's never held Alex up like that before, and she wouldn't want him to; she can keep her balance just fine on her own. She presses up against Neal's side, feeling him shift toward her, and unzips his pants, slipping a hand into his boxers. He makes a low, almost purring sound as she strokes his cock, and she wishes she'd somehow engineered this to happen in a bed, because things are about to get physically awkward. She tosses a couple of cushions off the couch to make room.
At this point Kate's skirt is around her waist, her thighs, soft and almost blue-white, spread open on the couch as he fingers her, and she's really shaking, not just those operatic little vibrations. She's biting down hard on her lower lip, and Neal's eyes on her are soft and sympathetic. It's not what she needs... it's what he does, she realizes, noticing the reverence in his face as he takes his time touching her, exploring the details of her sex. Kate may or may not need taking care of, but she seems to enjoy it just fine, if the keening sound she's making is as genuine as it sounds.
(Alex doesn't know if Neal has ever taken care of anyone, or anything, before. She gave him a potted plant, once, because she'd noticed that he loved flowers. It had thrived on his windowsill until he'd received one of his windfalls, and taken off for two weeks in Montauk without telling a soul. It had been dead when she dropped in to visit, dry petals scattered on the floor below.)
"Come on, please," Kate whimpers, arching her back like a classic pin-up. Alex half-straddles Neal as she reaches out to add her fingers to his, pressing down on Kate's swollen clit the way she's done a million times to her own, and Kate's thighs clench up as she comes ("oh, yeah, come on!"), her eyes squeezed shut and the hot pink flush of her cheeks spilling down her long neck, and Neal and Alex exchange a look that could mean any number of things. Neal is smiling, but that's more or less a given. He catches Kate mid-collapse, guiding her head to the cushion as she hums with sleepy pleasure, before turning back to Alex, his face open and honest, a little wild under his ruffled hair.
She kisses him hard, loving the way he responds when he's still just a little bit on edge, sinking his teeth into her lip. He's hot all over, heart beating fast, and she pushes past the part of her brain that's always asking why, and takes his face in both her hands, feeling the wetness of his fingers as he wraps them around her waist, pulling her back into his lap. Kate's crashed out against the arm of the couch, eyes fluttering, arms up around her head in almost innocent-looking repose.
Alex uses the solid strength of her hips and thighs (countless weekends of rock-climbing will do that) to change Neal's angle, pushing him down onto his back, his head resting against Kate's hip. She strips off her own pants, keeping her eyes on him. "Are we still on?" she teases.
"You've got it," he replies, looking her up and down as she reaches out to help him out of his trousers and climb back on top of him. She touches herself as she braces herself on one arm over him, strands of her wavy hair escaping from its ponytail to frame his face. When he looks at her like this, at the center of his vision, she can see that familiar sly glint in his eye, the challenge that's missing from his smile when he looks at Kate. It's a moment, at least. It's something. She takes his cock in the hand that isn't supporting her weight, and strokes him harder than necessary just to see his eyes widen, to hear him chuckle in that breathless way that means she's surprised him again, before guiding him inside of her.
She lowers herself onto him faster than she expected, just realizing how turned on she really was by that whole display with Kate. His hips twitch up against her, and she groans and lets her eyes flutter closed. It's almost too much all at once, but that's what she likes -- to have a little catching up to do, not to be eased in too slowly. She braces herself and finds her rhythm, riding him hard, trying to keep her eyes open, to watch his face as the sensation nearly overwhelms her. He's doing the same, she realizes; he's taking this as a challenge. She smiles, takes one of his hands, and places it on her breast, and his hips buck under her as he strokes the underside of her breast with the pads of his fingers, then takes her nipple and squeezes, hard, the way she can never resist. She scratches her fingernails down his chest, the way he can never resist -- they've been doing this for a while; they know tricks.
"We're good together," she whispers, somehow, without meaning to say anything at all.
"We're amazing," he agrees, pressing the palm of his hand to the small of her back in just the right way to change their angle by a few degrees, to adjust the pressure -- just -- enough --
They both come at the same time, or maybe she gets there a couple of seconds early. "Amazing," she repeats, practically gasping for air. "Fucking amazing." He's laughing, son of a bitch, that eyes-closed breathless laughter that means so many things, coming from him, that it might as well mean nothing at all.
Alex's eyes, on the other hand, are wide open, and she sees him lying flat on his back as if he's vulnerable, as if he trusts her, and Kate sitting there with her legs folded together now, watching, cheeks still flushed with arousal.
Neal extricates himself from Alex's lazy embrace, and rubs the back of his head as he sits up. "Mmm, excuse me, I've got to --" and then wanders in the direction of the bathroom, naked and a little wobbly.
After a moment of silence, Alex takes Kate's hand and strokes it, with affectionate, in both of her own.
"Well played, honey," she says, half under her breath. She's pretty sure Kate can read lips.
"I really like you, Alex," Kate whispers back. "I never meant to --"
"Don't worry about it." At this point Alex doesn't really care if Neal can hear them; he'll figure it all out anyway. "I should have moved on already anyway; there's a whole world out there waiting for me." When she says it, it feels true. It almost feels good.
"So this is it?" says Kate, reaching for her purse. She fishes out a packet of cigarettes and lights up, in Neal's apartment, something Alex has never seen anyone get away with before. She's about to say something to stop her when she realizes that she has no reason to care about the condition of the art on the walls.
"This is never it," says Alex, smiling as she walks to where she dropped her purse in the front hall, picking up her clothes as she goes. She fishes out a slip of paper and a pen, writes down a phone number, makes a quick paper airplane, and lets it glide over to Kate. "For both of you. You might need me someday."
"You mean, for...?" Kate's eyebrow raises as she takes in the room full of discarded clothes, the pungent air around them.
Alex laughs. "I mean if you're in trouble. You never know when you might need a friend in Europe." She dresses and talks at the same time, tugging at her blouse to smooth the wrinkles before attempting to re-create her tight ponytail.
"You're going to kick ass," says Kate.
"I better not see you wearing any more of my jewelry."
"You better stay quick, then."
"You know I will, Kate. And you better keep your eyes open while you've got that one around. He's slippery."
"Will do. See you in the morning papers?"
"Front page of the international section," Alex calls, slipping out the door just as she hears Neal coming back down the hall. "Look for headlines from Amsterdam!"