Fic: Tour of Duty
Feb. 22nd, 2013 06:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
callmeonetrackTitle: Tour of Duty
Author:
callmeonetrack
Summary: Guarding the body of a pop phenom is hard, lonely, thankless work. Luckily Lee & Kara can take comfort in each other’s bodies and souls to save their sanity.
Characters: Kara, Lee, one swaggy adult
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none
Brief Description of the AU:winegums wrote a fun little piece about Kara and Lee as the private security/bodyguards to a certain unnamed boy popstar.
Link to the AU Fic(s): Swaggy Adult
Lee stared out the window of the coach and watched as the yellow line flickered past. Tonight, they were in the Midwest somewhere—Kansas or maybe Nebraska—the heart of the flatlands, and there was nothing to see for miles, just a swath of darkness outside the tour bus windows. His head pounded and he rested it against the cool glass until he heard a loud clink.
“He’s passed out. Finally.” Kara sighed as she plopped down diagonally across from him on the banquette, placing two glasses and a bottle on the black marble tabletop. She kicked off her shoes and kicked her legs up onto the bench next to him.
Tonight had been a clusterfuck. The kid had been partying before the show even started, and so had most of the crowd apparently. Lee had busted up at least two fights in the stadium, and after the show, overzealous fans had snuck into the parking lot and stampeded toward the ridiculous party bus. Two girls had been hospitalized after getting trampled in the mob, and Kara had even gotten an elbow to the face from some nutso mom who’d been trying to sneak her tween daughter onto the vehicle for a private audience. Some people didn’t deserve to be parents.
“Did you hear from the guys?”
They’d had to hustle their charge onto the big bus while Agathon, Costanza, and Tyrol stuck around to disperse the crowds. “Yeah, they’ll meet us at the arena tomorrow afternoon.” In…South Dakota? Wyoming? Shit. Ten continuous months on this tour and he couldn’t even keep the venues straight anymore.
Lee rubbed his aching head and looked over at Kara, who was pouring the tumblers full of a deep amber liquid. He looked at the bottle and blinked, his eyes shooting wide when he saw the word Macallan on the side. “Where’d you get that?”
She smirked. “I liberated it from the gift stash. Why anyone would give an 18-year-old who refers to himself as swaggy a bottle of the finest single malt scotch known to man I will never understand, but I am exceedingly grateful.” She flashed a grin at Lee and slid one of the glasses in front of him, then clinked her own against it. “Bottoms up!”
“Kara, Wait! That’s nearly $200 a bottle. You can’t just help yourself. It’s stealing!” And technically a fireable offense, thought the Head of Security.
“C’mon, boss. Relax. You think he’ll know the difference if I refill it with Jack Daniels?” She snorted. “Besides I’d say we earned it today, and it would be downright criminal to let a scotch this good go to waste.” Her eyes sparkled even under the dim running lights in the bus’s interior and Lee found himself caving as he always seemed to do when Kara was involved. He just couldn’t say no to the woman.
He shook his head, even as he lifted his glass. Her mouth—the perfectly shaped lips that his eyes had been tracing for months now—curved into a wide grin, and she clinked the glasses together gently again, before they both, in unison, tilted back and downed the shots in one straight swallow. The rich liquor burned its way down Lee’s throat and to his gut, warming his insides.
“Whoo.” Kara said, blinking. “Now, that is some quality booze.” She reached for the bottle again and refilled their glasses, and Lee didn’t protest.
Instead, he stared guiltily at the purpling bruise around her left eye. “You should probably put some ice on that.”
She touched her cheek with tentative fingers, but just shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
When she’d joined the tour four months ago, Lee hadn’t known what to make of Kara Thrace. Not a lot of women went into private security. She was tough—tougher than probably all the rest of his guys combined—but she wasn’t just muscle like a lot of the bodyguards he’d worked with. Kara was quick to temper, but didn’t hold a grudge. She had a good head on her shoulders and a talent for out-of-the-box thinking that frequently led her to pointing out the flaws in all his carefully laid plans, often coming up with a better way to secure a perimeter or move their client safely from one location to another. Lee had quickly come to rely on her most, treating her as an unofficial second in command of the team.
And on a personal level, well, she simply fascinated him. Kara was dynamic, the kind of person who lit up a room, quickly becoming the center of attention, just by entering it. She wasn’t pretty or beautiful, but strong and striking. Sexy. She had this laugh—a full-throated, unrestrained whallop of a sound that made the blood rush right out of his brain on the rare occasions she let it fly.
With the kid passed out in the back and the driver in his own world up front, the bus was quiet. Lee realized with no small amount of wariness that this was the first time he’d ever been alone with Kara. He reminded himself firmly that she was his employee and shifted in his seat, toying with his empty glass, and trying to stop wishing he was with her somewhere else, under wildly different circumstances.
“Hey,” her sock-clad foot poked his hip. “What’s with the face?”
“Face?” Lee raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, face. We have a 60-year-old bottle of scotch and at least eight, possibly ten totally free hours before we have to deal with the little tyrant’s bullshit, and you look like someone just shot your puppy! What’s the problem?”
He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just too old for this shit.”
“Is this about the mob tonight?” She frowned. “Lee, you couldn’t have done anything about that. Don’t kick yourself over it.”
“No. Yes. I don’t know, I just-” Lee sighed. “Maybe I should have anticipated it. Maybe I’m slipping.”
“Nah, teenage girls, man, they’re vicious. I should know I was one once upon a time.” Kara wiggled her eyebrows at hiim and nudged his arm. “Let’s just be glad that we both came back alive, alright?”
Lee attempted a smile, but his bad mood lingered. He twirled his glass absently on the table.
Kara watched for a minute and then her hand shot out, stilling the guess. “OK, clearly it’s not just about tonight. What’s up with you?”
Lee sighed, feeling sheepish and unsure how to even put this vague yearning sense he’s been feeling for months now into words. “It’s just... I’ve been on tour with this kid on and off for three years, and sometimes I just think to myself: Is this really it? Isn’t there anything... more?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh man. You getting philosophical on me, Lee? We’re gonna need some more booze for this conversation, I can already tell.” She poured the liquor again, sloshing only a bit over the side, then licking the droplets over her hand. Lee watched the motion of her tongue and swallowed hard. “Come on,” she beckoned with one hand. “Tell Dr. Kara all of your problems.”
“I don’t know,” he said, raking a hand through his hair. “Maybe it’s stupid but I’m almost 30 years old and what do I have to show for it? A life lived out of a suitcase, eating bad food and babysitting some overprivileged, undertalented brat.”
Kara rolled her eyes. “OK, so you hate your job. Welcome to the 99th percentile, Lee.”
He shook his head, wondering why he’d even attempted to talk about anything serious with Kara. She was a cool customer, and let pretty much everything roll off her back. “Forget it, it’s probably just the headache talking. I should just get some sleep.”
“Wait, don’t go!” Kara said, as he shifted, reaching a hand out to grab his arm. “I wasn’t trying to be flippant. It’s just....you know, a gift.”
He huffed a laugh in spite of himself. “Nice gift.”
“Everyone’s got a skill,” Kara said, grinning wryly as he sat back down. She left her hand on his arm and the warmth of her palm was nice. “Look, you’re right. This gig’s not the cakewalk I expected and life on the road gets old pretty fast. But it is good money, and it’s not forever. We’re done in what? Eight more weeks?”
“Until the next one.”
“Well if you hate it so much, why stick around? You could quit.”
“Yeah, right.” Lee grumbled and pointed to the patch on his shirt that read “Adama Security.”
“Your old man would be mad?”
“Not mad, disappointed. Which from him is worse somehow.”
Kara didn’t look like she believed him on that, but then she didn’t know his father. “So what, you followed him into the family business out of duty?”
“Only partially. I started working for him--well, more like tagging along on jobs--when I was fifteen.”
She whistled, low and long. “That is a really long time to be doing something you can’t stand, Lee. There has to be something about the job you like, something that keeps you going day after day.”
He paused before answering, rejecting the first answer that came to mind. “I like security, knowing that what I’m doing...helps people. Keeps them safe. But this... this dog and pony show. It isn’t what I signed up for.”
“Ah, an idealist.” She grinned, pouring more scotch into their glasses. Lee was starting to feel slightly blurry around the edges. She lifted hers and leaned closer, eyes sparkling at him over the rim of the glass. “So Lee Adama, what do you want then? if you had your choice of anything in the world, what would you be doing right now?”
A few completely inappropriate flashes of Kara naked and writhing beneath him came to mind. Lee swallowed hard. He was her boss, he shouldn’t be thinking like that. But lately, it seemed like it was all he could think about. He rubbed at his forehead as if he could push the dangerous images out of his brain and tried to focus.
“God, I don’t even know. I’ve been doing this so long, I never really considered anything else.”
“Well how about when you were little? You must’ve wanted to be something?”
He grinned a little. “An astronaut?”
Kara laughed. “Okay, getting into NASA’s flight program might be a tough one. Anything else?”
There was one crazy idea that he’d always kind of had, but Lee deflected, feeling too embarassed to talk about it. “I don’t know, Kara. What about you? What would you be doing if you weren’t here?”
Kara stretched, folding her arms behind her heand and leaning back against the banquette. “Point guard for the Lakers?” She grinned and he shook his head. “No, but for real... if I didn’t have to worry about shit like, earning a steady paycheck so I could eat? I’d probably try to be an artist.”
“Really?” His eyebrows rose in surprise as he looked at Kara. Lee wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to choose---lion tamer? tightrope walker?--but it wasn’t that. She just nodded though and got up, walking over to the bunks, and pulling a large notebook out from under her mattress. Kara handed it to him and Lee opened the cover and started flipping through it.
“Kara, these are amazing!” The sketches filling the pages were finely detailed, somehow expertly capturing the three-dimensionality of their subjects in a one-dimensional medium. Lee slowly paged through portraits of the pop star, the crew, some landscape vistas, all rendered in stunning texture and clarity. He flipped another page and then stopped and stared.
“Is this how you see me?” Lee frowned at the dour-faced sketch of himself in uniform, his jaw clenched, eyes narrow, brow furrowed as he surveyed a crowd
“Sometimes,” Kara admitted blythely and then reached out a hand to flip the page. “And sometimes like this.” In this one, he was grinning so broadly his dimples were showing, clutching a beer bottle and sitting at a picnic table, thick foliage in the background. He recognized the location. Last month, some of the security crew had gone hiking at Yellowstone on a rare day off between stops. The weather had been fantastic and the company had been even better. He studied the drawing and could practically feel the cool crisp wind on his face and the smell of fall--burning leaves and smoky wood--that had been in the air. Kara had been telling some story, he couldn’t remember what about now, but he remembered her animated faces and her hands gesturing wildly. He didn’t remember her having a notebook with her. “You did this from memory?”
She nodded. He reached for the corner of the notebook, eager to see more through her eyes, but Kara tugged the book back towards her. “I think that’s enough show and tell for one night.” She chuckled at his disappointed protest and winked. “Hey, a girl’s gotta keep some secrets, doesn’t she?”
He shook his head, still in shock, as she walked back to the bunks and shoved her book under hte mattress again.“You’re really talented, Kara. You could seriously do something with that. I mean, the portraits of the kid alone--”
“--could get my ass sued.”
“Okay, true, but you could sell the others, the landscapes. They’re fantastic.”
“They’re not bad,” she allowed, as she sat down next to him again, close enough this time that her thigh pressed into his. “I like painting more than drawing, but...kinda tough to haul canvases and brushes with you on a tour bus.”
“Can I see them? When we get back.” He blurted, then blushed furiously, as if he’d just asked her out on a date. Which maybe he kind of had. “If they’re even half as good as those, you could probably get a showing. In fact, I have a friend who owns a gallery in Santa Monica. I could call him...”
“Yeah?” Excitement and anticipation flashed briefly on her striking face, but then she shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll see.” Her cheeks were flushed, almost as if she were embarassed, and maybe she was, because then Kara was poking his chest as she abruptly attempted to change the subject. “Hey, weren’t we supposed to be figuring out your future? Aside from moonwalks, what gets your engines running, Lee?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say you, but he caught himself in time. Technically that could count as sexual harassment, and aside from a few suggestive comments and the occasional touch that lingered too long, Kara hadn’t given him any indication that she’d welcome such sentiment.
He had enough confidence now though, after she’d shown him her artwork, to voice that crazy idea in the back of his brain. “It sounds stupid, but I guess maybe politics? I’ve always been kind of fascinated by that stuff, and....I like the idea of doing something that makes a difference.”
“Senator Adama, huh?” She grinned broadly. “It has a nice ring to it.”
He smiled. “It’s probably just as much of a pipe dream as astronaut.”
“Nah, you could do it. When we get back to LA, you should run for something. City council, Mayor, Congress.”
Lee shook his head. “I don’t have any experience, unless you count high school class president.”
Kara waved a hand dismissively, then ticked off on her fingers as she spoke. “You’re smart, you’re sexy, and you give good speech. You’ll get votes by the truckload.”
“Well I don’t-” He broke off, grinning widely. “Wait, what was that middle part again?”
Bright spots of red flared on Kara’s cheeks and she studied the bottom of her empty glass with an intense curiosity suddenly. “Hmm. What do you mean?”
“Did you just say I was sexy?”
“I don’t know, Lee. Did I?” The casual tone was belied by a crack in her voice when she said his name.
“I distinctly heard--”
“You’ve had a lot of scotch, you know. You must be dreaming it.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” although he was feeling a bit overheated and lightheaded suddenly. Their faces were just inches apart now. Lee was mesmerized by the rings of green and brown around her pupils. “You definitely just said I’m sexy.”
Kara shook her head, a slow smile curving on her mouth, then turned her face to him. “OK, so maybe I did,” she murmured, her eyes half-lidded as they flickered down to his mouth then back up again to meet his shocked gaze, making his stomach clench like a gut punch. “What are you gonna do about it, Lee?”
It was practically an engraved invitation, and the booze and the confessions and the heat of her body and the burning, too-long-unfulfilled desire to feel her lips against his, made Lee forget duty and decorum entirely. He lifted a hand to her cheek, cupping it, and those green-brown irises flared as he leaned in to press his mouth to Kara’s.
Her lips were firm but yielding as they molded to his. Kara’s hand clutched at his shoulder, fingers fisting in the fabric of his shirt as she tilted her head and opened her mouth under his. In seconds the kiss went from chaste to deliciously dirty, tongues licking and sliding over and between lips and teeth. Kara shifted, swinging a leg across his thighs, so she could straddle his lap, and Lee groaned and curved his free hand around her hip. She wound her arms around his neck, leaning into him until their bodies were stretched tightly together.
They kissed, hungrily, decadently, endlessly, making out like the teenagers they were constantly running interference on. Kara was sucking on the skin under his jaw, and Lee’s hands were already under her clothes, thumbs skimming the taut muscles of her abdomen, when he somehow recovered enough sense to remember why they shouldn’t be doing this.
“Kara-- Oh god, Kara wa-wait. Stop. We shouldn’t- ungh-- we shouldn’t be doing this. I’m your boss.”
“So?” She breathed into his skin, barely pausing to answer.
Lee took a deep breath, wanting to kick himself already, but needing to do the right thing here. He grabbed Kara’s shoulders, pushing her back and holding her there so he could see her face. “I shouldn’t be doing this. We’re on duty, and--
“He’s sleeping, dead to the world!”
“And I can’t be taking advantage of you like this. It’s--” he had to stop, because she shifted on his lap and his dick went from half-mast to fully hard, and Lee’s voice squeaked as he forced out the rest. “...an abuse of power!”
Kara stared down at him like he’d suddenly suffered acute brain damage. “Taking advantage? Are you kidding me? I’ve been waiting weeks for you to make a goddamn move!”
“You have?” Lee was so shocked his jaw nearly hit his chest.
“Uh, yeah,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Didn’t you ever notice how you and I would always be the last ones to clear the perimeter? That it was somehow always me, not Agathon or Tyrol on your six?
He’d been completely oblivious. “Oh. Oh.”
“Mmmhmm,” Kara murmured, titling her head down so their foreheads pressed together.
“But Kara, wait, I just- I don’t know if we should do this. I mean I want to--God, do I want to, but... I’m your employer. And this blurs the lines-- It makes things more complicated”.
“I like complicated,” she whispered, rocking into him slightly to nip his earlobe with her teeth.
His eyes fluttered shut for a second and Lee fought to keep his very important train of thought from getting derailed. “Well, yeah, but--”
Kara groaned loudly, straightening to look him in the eyes.. “Goddamnit, Lee, fine. Ok? Fine. Fire me... tomorrow,” she darted down, crushing his lips in a soul-searing kiss.Then Kara reached down, fingers pulling at his belt buckle, and commanded him on ragged breath: “Just fuck me tonight.”
Lust speared through his body at the words and Lee’s last shred of resistance snapped. He pulled her tightly to him, kissing her fiercely even as he stood, carrying her over to the bunks. They dropped down into his lower one, and he wondered briefly how they were going to do this in such a narrow space. The bunks weren’t made for double occupancy. But Kara’s fingers were already scrabbling to undo his belt. They pulled off their clothes quickly, urgency fueling them and when they were nearly naked, Lee rolled onto the mattress and pulled Kara down on top of him.
It had been more than a year since he’d had sex. He didn’t sleep around on the job, or in general and his last relationship had ended months before he’d headed out on the tour. As Kara pushed his briefs down and curled her fingers around his dick, Lee moaned. She clearly took it as a sign of encouragement because she tightened her grip, pumping her hand around him. He reached out to still her, gasping. “Stop! Stop, If you keep-- It’s been too long.”
Hovering over him, Kara just grinned and winked. “Ah, guess we’ll have to take the edge off first.” And then she was twisting around, her knees against his torso and he felt her hand tighten and then wet heat enveloping his dick.
Lee hissed out a breath, nearly coming on the spot. He searched for a distraction, trying to hold out at least long enough to keep some dignity, and he grasped Kara’s hips, pulling them back to align with his mouth. The motion tugged on his cock and he groaned, but focused on pulling down the thin band of lace Kara was wearing. It surprised him somehow (he’d imagined this on more than one occasion, with fabric far more functional than frilly) but then a lot about Kara was surprising him tonight. Carefully he slid his fingers into her cleft, pushing the wet pink flesh open and pressing his face to her sex. Kara moaned around his cock as he licked into her. Salt and tang and some undefinable essence that seemed unmistakably Kara met his tongue and it was Lee’s turn to moan, the sound muffled by her flesh.
It was almost like a filthy game of oneupmanship. Kara sucked harder, letting her teeth gently graze him as she bobbed her head over him, and Lee laved her clit with his tongue, determined to give as good as he was getting. But the relentless motion of those perfect lips turned out to be no match for his self-control, and in minutes, he was coming, gasping into her body as Kara swallowed around him. When he recovered, he started again, sucking and licking and spearing into her with his tongue and then his fingers, until Kara broke too, her hips bucking wildly over him and into him as she shuddered to completion.
After a minute or two, Kara twisted again, crawling back up his body then collapsing against his chest. They were both still breathing hard from the comedown, and Lee kissed her sweaty temple, curling an arm around her back, his palm molding affectionately to her ass. “Damn. That was--” His brain couldn’t formulate an adjective superlative enough for what that was.
“Round One.” Kara finished for him, a smug satisfaction in her voice that made him smile. Her hand slid down his belly, reaching again for his still recovering dick. She stroked him lazily with one hand, while she reached down over the side of the bed with the other, fingers grasping for her jeans. She straightened a second later and dropped three foil packets on his chest, then grinned. “Those are for round two, three and four.”
Lee raised his eyebrows, the only part of him that could manage to stir at the moment, though his cock was definitely thinking about it. “That’s pretty ambitious, don’t you think?”
Kara shook her head, a wicked smirk on her face. “Hey, you know what they say. Go big or go home, Lee.”
He just laughed, staring at her bright-eyed face and wondering how he’d managed to resist her for four whole months. Lee already knew, that professional or not, duty be damned, there was no way he’d be able to for the remaining two.
“You know before when you said there’s gotta be something that makes this job worth it, keeps me from quitting?” Kara looked at him expectantly and Lee took a breath, gathered up his courage, and smiled at her. “You. You’re my reason.”
He held his breath after the words rushed out. Even he knew the sentiment was probably a little too much. Lee had only known Kara four months, after all, and just because he no longer seemed to be able to imagine a life without her, that didn’t mean she felt the same.
But Kara just smiled back at him. “Well, maybe after the tour’s over, when we get back to LA....” she said, as she reached out for his hand, twining their fingers together. “Maybe we can look for that something more together.”
Her voice was tentative, the phrasing tending more towards a question than a statement. And Lee didn’t hesitate, wrapping both arms around her to pull her closer, dropping a softer, sweeter kiss on her lips. “I like the way you think, Kara Thrace.”
She winked at him. “Oh, you should see the way my brain works sometimes, Lee.”
He was looking forward to it.
-fin-
Author:
callmeonetrackSummary: Guarding the body of a pop phenom is hard, lonely, thankless work. Luckily Lee & Kara can take comfort in each other’s bodies and souls to save their sanity.
Characters: Kara, Lee, one swaggy adult
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: none
Brief Description of the AU:
winegums wrote a fun little piece about Kara and Lee as the private security/bodyguards to a certain unnamed boy popstar. Link to the AU Fic(s): Swaggy Adult
Lee stared out the window of the coach and watched as the yellow line flickered past. Tonight, they were in the Midwest somewhere—Kansas or maybe Nebraska—the heart of the flatlands, and there was nothing to see for miles, just a swath of darkness outside the tour bus windows. His head pounded and he rested it against the cool glass until he heard a loud clink.
“He’s passed out. Finally.” Kara sighed as she plopped down diagonally across from him on the banquette, placing two glasses and a bottle on the black marble tabletop. She kicked off her shoes and kicked her legs up onto the bench next to him.
Tonight had been a clusterfuck. The kid had been partying before the show even started, and so had most of the crowd apparently. Lee had busted up at least two fights in the stadium, and after the show, overzealous fans had snuck into the parking lot and stampeded toward the ridiculous party bus. Two girls had been hospitalized after getting trampled in the mob, and Kara had even gotten an elbow to the face from some nutso mom who’d been trying to sneak her tween daughter onto the vehicle for a private audience. Some people didn’t deserve to be parents.
“Did you hear from the guys?”
They’d had to hustle their charge onto the big bus while Agathon, Costanza, and Tyrol stuck around to disperse the crowds. “Yeah, they’ll meet us at the arena tomorrow afternoon.” In…South Dakota? Wyoming? Shit. Ten continuous months on this tour and he couldn’t even keep the venues straight anymore.
Lee rubbed his aching head and looked over at Kara, who was pouring the tumblers full of a deep amber liquid. He looked at the bottle and blinked, his eyes shooting wide when he saw the word Macallan on the side. “Where’d you get that?”
She smirked. “I liberated it from the gift stash. Why anyone would give an 18-year-old who refers to himself as swaggy a bottle of the finest single malt scotch known to man I will never understand, but I am exceedingly grateful.” She flashed a grin at Lee and slid one of the glasses in front of him, then clinked her own against it. “Bottoms up!”
“Kara, Wait! That’s nearly $200 a bottle. You can’t just help yourself. It’s stealing!” And technically a fireable offense, thought the Head of Security.
“C’mon, boss. Relax. You think he’ll know the difference if I refill it with Jack Daniels?” She snorted. “Besides I’d say we earned it today, and it would be downright criminal to let a scotch this good go to waste.” Her eyes sparkled even under the dim running lights in the bus’s interior and Lee found himself caving as he always seemed to do when Kara was involved. He just couldn’t say no to the woman.
He shook his head, even as he lifted his glass. Her mouth—the perfectly shaped lips that his eyes had been tracing for months now—curved into a wide grin, and she clinked the glasses together gently again, before they both, in unison, tilted back and downed the shots in one straight swallow. The rich liquor burned its way down Lee’s throat and to his gut, warming his insides.
“Whoo.” Kara said, blinking. “Now, that is some quality booze.” She reached for the bottle again and refilled their glasses, and Lee didn’t protest.
Instead, he stared guiltily at the purpling bruise around her left eye. “You should probably put some ice on that.”
She touched her cheek with tentative fingers, but just shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
When she’d joined the tour four months ago, Lee hadn’t known what to make of Kara Thrace. Not a lot of women went into private security. She was tough—tougher than probably all the rest of his guys combined—but she wasn’t just muscle like a lot of the bodyguards he’d worked with. Kara was quick to temper, but didn’t hold a grudge. She had a good head on her shoulders and a talent for out-of-the-box thinking that frequently led her to pointing out the flaws in all his carefully laid plans, often coming up with a better way to secure a perimeter or move their client safely from one location to another. Lee had quickly come to rely on her most, treating her as an unofficial second in command of the team.
And on a personal level, well, she simply fascinated him. Kara was dynamic, the kind of person who lit up a room, quickly becoming the center of attention, just by entering it. She wasn’t pretty or beautiful, but strong and striking. Sexy. She had this laugh—a full-throated, unrestrained whallop of a sound that made the blood rush right out of his brain on the rare occasions she let it fly.
With the kid passed out in the back and the driver in his own world up front, the bus was quiet. Lee realized with no small amount of wariness that this was the first time he’d ever been alone with Kara. He reminded himself firmly that she was his employee and shifted in his seat, toying with his empty glass, and trying to stop wishing he was with her somewhere else, under wildly different circumstances.
“Hey,” her sock-clad foot poked his hip. “What’s with the face?”
“Face?” Lee raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, face. We have a 60-year-old bottle of scotch and at least eight, possibly ten totally free hours before we have to deal with the little tyrant’s bullshit, and you look like someone just shot your puppy! What’s the problem?”
He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just too old for this shit.”
“Is this about the mob tonight?” She frowned. “Lee, you couldn’t have done anything about that. Don’t kick yourself over it.”
“No. Yes. I don’t know, I just-” Lee sighed. “Maybe I should have anticipated it. Maybe I’m slipping.”
“Nah, teenage girls, man, they’re vicious. I should know I was one once upon a time.” Kara wiggled her eyebrows at hiim and nudged his arm. “Let’s just be glad that we both came back alive, alright?”
Lee attempted a smile, but his bad mood lingered. He twirled his glass absently on the table.
Kara watched for a minute and then her hand shot out, stilling the guess. “OK, clearly it’s not just about tonight. What’s up with you?”
Lee sighed, feeling sheepish and unsure how to even put this vague yearning sense he’s been feeling for months now into words. “It’s just... I’ve been on tour with this kid on and off for three years, and sometimes I just think to myself: Is this really it? Isn’t there anything... more?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh man. You getting philosophical on me, Lee? We’re gonna need some more booze for this conversation, I can already tell.” She poured the liquor again, sloshing only a bit over the side, then licking the droplets over her hand. Lee watched the motion of her tongue and swallowed hard. “Come on,” she beckoned with one hand. “Tell Dr. Kara all of your problems.”
“I don’t know,” he said, raking a hand through his hair. “Maybe it’s stupid but I’m almost 30 years old and what do I have to show for it? A life lived out of a suitcase, eating bad food and babysitting some overprivileged, undertalented brat.”
Kara rolled her eyes. “OK, so you hate your job. Welcome to the 99th percentile, Lee.”
He shook his head, wondering why he’d even attempted to talk about anything serious with Kara. She was a cool customer, and let pretty much everything roll off her back. “Forget it, it’s probably just the headache talking. I should just get some sleep.”
“Wait, don’t go!” Kara said, as he shifted, reaching a hand out to grab his arm. “I wasn’t trying to be flippant. It’s just....you know, a gift.”
He huffed a laugh in spite of himself. “Nice gift.”
“Everyone’s got a skill,” Kara said, grinning wryly as he sat back down. She left her hand on his arm and the warmth of her palm was nice. “Look, you’re right. This gig’s not the cakewalk I expected and life on the road gets old pretty fast. But it is good money, and it’s not forever. We’re done in what? Eight more weeks?”
“Until the next one.”
“Well if you hate it so much, why stick around? You could quit.”
“Yeah, right.” Lee grumbled and pointed to the patch on his shirt that read “Adama Security.”
“Your old man would be mad?”
“Not mad, disappointed. Which from him is worse somehow.”
Kara didn’t look like she believed him on that, but then she didn’t know his father. “So what, you followed him into the family business out of duty?”
“Only partially. I started working for him--well, more like tagging along on jobs--when I was fifteen.”
She whistled, low and long. “That is a really long time to be doing something you can’t stand, Lee. There has to be something about the job you like, something that keeps you going day after day.”
He paused before answering, rejecting the first answer that came to mind. “I like security, knowing that what I’m doing...helps people. Keeps them safe. But this... this dog and pony show. It isn’t what I signed up for.”
“Ah, an idealist.” She grinned, pouring more scotch into their glasses. Lee was starting to feel slightly blurry around the edges. She lifted hers and leaned closer, eyes sparkling at him over the rim of the glass. “So Lee Adama, what do you want then? if you had your choice of anything in the world, what would you be doing right now?”
A few completely inappropriate flashes of Kara naked and writhing beneath him came to mind. Lee swallowed hard. He was her boss, he shouldn’t be thinking like that. But lately, it seemed like it was all he could think about. He rubbed at his forehead as if he could push the dangerous images out of his brain and tried to focus.
“God, I don’t even know. I’ve been doing this so long, I never really considered anything else.”
“Well how about when you were little? You must’ve wanted to be something?”
He grinned a little. “An astronaut?”
Kara laughed. “Okay, getting into NASA’s flight program might be a tough one. Anything else?”
There was one crazy idea that he’d always kind of had, but Lee deflected, feeling too embarassed to talk about it. “I don’t know, Kara. What about you? What would you be doing if you weren’t here?”
Kara stretched, folding her arms behind her heand and leaning back against the banquette. “Point guard for the Lakers?” She grinned and he shook his head. “No, but for real... if I didn’t have to worry about shit like, earning a steady paycheck so I could eat? I’d probably try to be an artist.”
“Really?” His eyebrows rose in surprise as he looked at Kara. Lee wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to choose---lion tamer? tightrope walker?--but it wasn’t that. She just nodded though and got up, walking over to the bunks, and pulling a large notebook out from under her mattress. Kara handed it to him and Lee opened the cover and started flipping through it.
“Kara, these are amazing!” The sketches filling the pages were finely detailed, somehow expertly capturing the three-dimensionality of their subjects in a one-dimensional medium. Lee slowly paged through portraits of the pop star, the crew, some landscape vistas, all rendered in stunning texture and clarity. He flipped another page and then stopped and stared.
“Is this how you see me?” Lee frowned at the dour-faced sketch of himself in uniform, his jaw clenched, eyes narrow, brow furrowed as he surveyed a crowd
“Sometimes,” Kara admitted blythely and then reached out a hand to flip the page. “And sometimes like this.” In this one, he was grinning so broadly his dimples were showing, clutching a beer bottle and sitting at a picnic table, thick foliage in the background. He recognized the location. Last month, some of the security crew had gone hiking at Yellowstone on a rare day off between stops. The weather had been fantastic and the company had been even better. He studied the drawing and could practically feel the cool crisp wind on his face and the smell of fall--burning leaves and smoky wood--that had been in the air. Kara had been telling some story, he couldn’t remember what about now, but he remembered her animated faces and her hands gesturing wildly. He didn’t remember her having a notebook with her. “You did this from memory?”
She nodded. He reached for the corner of the notebook, eager to see more through her eyes, but Kara tugged the book back towards her. “I think that’s enough show and tell for one night.” She chuckled at his disappointed protest and winked. “Hey, a girl’s gotta keep some secrets, doesn’t she?”
He shook his head, still in shock, as she walked back to the bunks and shoved her book under hte mattress again.“You’re really talented, Kara. You could seriously do something with that. I mean, the portraits of the kid alone--”
“--could get my ass sued.”
“Okay, true, but you could sell the others, the landscapes. They’re fantastic.”
“They’re not bad,” she allowed, as she sat down next to him again, close enough this time that her thigh pressed into his. “I like painting more than drawing, but...kinda tough to haul canvases and brushes with you on a tour bus.”
“Can I see them? When we get back.” He blurted, then blushed furiously, as if he’d just asked her out on a date. Which maybe he kind of had. “If they’re even half as good as those, you could probably get a showing. In fact, I have a friend who owns a gallery in Santa Monica. I could call him...”
“Yeah?” Excitement and anticipation flashed briefly on her striking face, but then she shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll see.” Her cheeks were flushed, almost as if she were embarassed, and maybe she was, because then Kara was poking his chest as she abruptly attempted to change the subject. “Hey, weren’t we supposed to be figuring out your future? Aside from moonwalks, what gets your engines running, Lee?”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say you, but he caught himself in time. Technically that could count as sexual harassment, and aside from a few suggestive comments and the occasional touch that lingered too long, Kara hadn’t given him any indication that she’d welcome such sentiment.
He had enough confidence now though, after she’d shown him her artwork, to voice that crazy idea in the back of his brain. “It sounds stupid, but I guess maybe politics? I’ve always been kind of fascinated by that stuff, and....I like the idea of doing something that makes a difference.”
“Senator Adama, huh?” She grinned broadly. “It has a nice ring to it.”
He smiled. “It’s probably just as much of a pipe dream as astronaut.”
“Nah, you could do it. When we get back to LA, you should run for something. City council, Mayor, Congress.”
Lee shook his head. “I don’t have any experience, unless you count high school class president.”
Kara waved a hand dismissively, then ticked off on her fingers as she spoke. “You’re smart, you’re sexy, and you give good speech. You’ll get votes by the truckload.”
“Well I don’t-” He broke off, grinning widely. “Wait, what was that middle part again?”
Bright spots of red flared on Kara’s cheeks and she studied the bottom of her empty glass with an intense curiosity suddenly. “Hmm. What do you mean?”
“Did you just say I was sexy?”
“I don’t know, Lee. Did I?” The casual tone was belied by a crack in her voice when she said his name.
“I distinctly heard--”
“You’ve had a lot of scotch, you know. You must be dreaming it.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” although he was feeling a bit overheated and lightheaded suddenly. Their faces were just inches apart now. Lee was mesmerized by the rings of green and brown around her pupils. “You definitely just said I’m sexy.”
Kara shook her head, a slow smile curving on her mouth, then turned her face to him. “OK, so maybe I did,” she murmured, her eyes half-lidded as they flickered down to his mouth then back up again to meet his shocked gaze, making his stomach clench like a gut punch. “What are you gonna do about it, Lee?”
It was practically an engraved invitation, and the booze and the confessions and the heat of her body and the burning, too-long-unfulfilled desire to feel her lips against his, made Lee forget duty and decorum entirely. He lifted a hand to her cheek, cupping it, and those green-brown irises flared as he leaned in to press his mouth to Kara’s.
Her lips were firm but yielding as they molded to his. Kara’s hand clutched at his shoulder, fingers fisting in the fabric of his shirt as she tilted her head and opened her mouth under his. In seconds the kiss went from chaste to deliciously dirty, tongues licking and sliding over and between lips and teeth. Kara shifted, swinging a leg across his thighs, so she could straddle his lap, and Lee groaned and curved his free hand around her hip. She wound her arms around his neck, leaning into him until their bodies were stretched tightly together.
They kissed, hungrily, decadently, endlessly, making out like the teenagers they were constantly running interference on. Kara was sucking on the skin under his jaw, and Lee’s hands were already under her clothes, thumbs skimming the taut muscles of her abdomen, when he somehow recovered enough sense to remember why they shouldn’t be doing this.
“Kara-- Oh god, Kara wa-wait. Stop. We shouldn’t- ungh-- we shouldn’t be doing this. I’m your boss.”
“So?” She breathed into his skin, barely pausing to answer.
Lee took a deep breath, wanting to kick himself already, but needing to do the right thing here. He grabbed Kara’s shoulders, pushing her back and holding her there so he could see her face. “I shouldn’t be doing this. We’re on duty, and--
“He’s sleeping, dead to the world!”
“And I can’t be taking advantage of you like this. It’s--” he had to stop, because she shifted on his lap and his dick went from half-mast to fully hard, and Lee’s voice squeaked as he forced out the rest. “...an abuse of power!”
Kara stared down at him like he’d suddenly suffered acute brain damage. “Taking advantage? Are you kidding me? I’ve been waiting weeks for you to make a goddamn move!”
“You have?” Lee was so shocked his jaw nearly hit his chest.
“Uh, yeah,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “Didn’t you ever notice how you and I would always be the last ones to clear the perimeter? That it was somehow always me, not Agathon or Tyrol on your six?
He’d been completely oblivious. “Oh. Oh.”
“Mmmhmm,” Kara murmured, titling her head down so their foreheads pressed together.
“But Kara, wait, I just- I don’t know if we should do this. I mean I want to--God, do I want to, but... I’m your employer. And this blurs the lines-- It makes things more complicated”.
“I like complicated,” she whispered, rocking into him slightly to nip his earlobe with her teeth.
His eyes fluttered shut for a second and Lee fought to keep his very important train of thought from getting derailed. “Well, yeah, but--”
Kara groaned loudly, straightening to look him in the eyes.. “Goddamnit, Lee, fine. Ok? Fine. Fire me... tomorrow,” she darted down, crushing his lips in a soul-searing kiss.Then Kara reached down, fingers pulling at his belt buckle, and commanded him on ragged breath: “Just fuck me tonight.”
Lust speared through his body at the words and Lee’s last shred of resistance snapped. He pulled her tightly to him, kissing her fiercely even as he stood, carrying her over to the bunks. They dropped down into his lower one, and he wondered briefly how they were going to do this in such a narrow space. The bunks weren’t made for double occupancy. But Kara’s fingers were already scrabbling to undo his belt. They pulled off their clothes quickly, urgency fueling them and when they were nearly naked, Lee rolled onto the mattress and pulled Kara down on top of him.
It had been more than a year since he’d had sex. He didn’t sleep around on the job, or in general and his last relationship had ended months before he’d headed out on the tour. As Kara pushed his briefs down and curled her fingers around his dick, Lee moaned. She clearly took it as a sign of encouragement because she tightened her grip, pumping her hand around him. He reached out to still her, gasping. “Stop! Stop, If you keep-- It’s been too long.”
Hovering over him, Kara just grinned and winked. “Ah, guess we’ll have to take the edge off first.” And then she was twisting around, her knees against his torso and he felt her hand tighten and then wet heat enveloping his dick.
Lee hissed out a breath, nearly coming on the spot. He searched for a distraction, trying to hold out at least long enough to keep some dignity, and he grasped Kara’s hips, pulling them back to align with his mouth. The motion tugged on his cock and he groaned, but focused on pulling down the thin band of lace Kara was wearing. It surprised him somehow (he’d imagined this on more than one occasion, with fabric far more functional than frilly) but then a lot about Kara was surprising him tonight. Carefully he slid his fingers into her cleft, pushing the wet pink flesh open and pressing his face to her sex. Kara moaned around his cock as he licked into her. Salt and tang and some undefinable essence that seemed unmistakably Kara met his tongue and it was Lee’s turn to moan, the sound muffled by her flesh.
It was almost like a filthy game of oneupmanship. Kara sucked harder, letting her teeth gently graze him as she bobbed her head over him, and Lee laved her clit with his tongue, determined to give as good as he was getting. But the relentless motion of those perfect lips turned out to be no match for his self-control, and in minutes, he was coming, gasping into her body as Kara swallowed around him. When he recovered, he started again, sucking and licking and spearing into her with his tongue and then his fingers, until Kara broke too, her hips bucking wildly over him and into him as she shuddered to completion.
After a minute or two, Kara twisted again, crawling back up his body then collapsing against his chest. They were both still breathing hard from the comedown, and Lee kissed her sweaty temple, curling an arm around her back, his palm molding affectionately to her ass. “Damn. That was--” His brain couldn’t formulate an adjective superlative enough for what that was.
“Round One.” Kara finished for him, a smug satisfaction in her voice that made him smile. Her hand slid down his belly, reaching again for his still recovering dick. She stroked him lazily with one hand, while she reached down over the side of the bed with the other, fingers grasping for her jeans. She straightened a second later and dropped three foil packets on his chest, then grinned. “Those are for round two, three and four.”
Lee raised his eyebrows, the only part of him that could manage to stir at the moment, though his cock was definitely thinking about it. “That’s pretty ambitious, don’t you think?”
Kara shook her head, a wicked smirk on her face. “Hey, you know what they say. Go big or go home, Lee.”
He just laughed, staring at her bright-eyed face and wondering how he’d managed to resist her for four whole months. Lee already knew, that professional or not, duty be damned, there was no way he’d be able to for the remaining two.
“You know before when you said there’s gotta be something that makes this job worth it, keeps me from quitting?” Kara looked at him expectantly and Lee took a breath, gathered up his courage, and smiled at her. “You. You’re my reason.”
He held his breath after the words rushed out. Even he knew the sentiment was probably a little too much. Lee had only known Kara four months, after all, and just because he no longer seemed to be able to imagine a life without her, that didn’t mean she felt the same.
But Kara just smiled back at him. “Well, maybe after the tour’s over, when we get back to LA....” she said, as she reached out for his hand, twining their fingers together. “Maybe we can look for that something more together.”
Her voice was tentative, the phrasing tending more towards a question than a statement. And Lee didn’t hesitate, wrapping both arms around her to pull her closer, dropping a softer, sweeter kiss on her lips. “I like the way you think, Kara Thrace.”
She winked at him. “Oh, you should see the way my brain works sometimes, Lee.”
He was looking forward to it.
-fin-
