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“What’d you do with the dress?” he asked from the depths of the fridge.
Scully, on the couch, sat up. “What?”
“The dress, the uh…the one he got you.” He bumped the door closed with his hip, heading to the living room with two IPAs.
“It’s in my closet.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
Mulder settled next to her and opened the beers. “No reason. I just wondered, I guess.” He passed her a bottle.
She watched him, his studied casual demeanor. She thought they had finished with this topic yesterday, but it would seem otherwise. Anger tightened her chest. “You never just wonder. You think I should have gotten rid of it, don’t you?”
He shrugged, taking a long sip. “None of my business.”
“You’re damned right it’s not. I don’t have the luxury of tossing an expensive item just because I don’t like the source of it.”
They sat in unhappy silence for a time, Mulder rolling his beer bottle between his palms, Scully taking fierce sips.
“It bothers me,” he began. “Thinking of you with him, of him…touching you. I thought seeing yourself in some gown that he chose would bother you, too.”
She put her drink on the table and gave him a hard look. “For Christ’s sake, Mulder. Not everything is about you. You think I like the thought of him undressing me? You think I got off on swanning around in formalwear with his eyes on me? You think I don’t feel violated by that? Because I do. But the dress is not the act. If it represents a perceived betrayal on my part, then that’s another issue and it’s your issue. The nature of our relationship does not supersede my own agency to act as I see fit.” She put a very slight emphasis on relationship.
Mulder finished his beer. “You never should have gone.”
She rose at that, stalked to her bedroom. Scully shed her clothes, down to her underwear, and tossed them in the hamper. From the back of her closet she pulled the dress, still smelling of strange shampoo, the wrong soap and deodorant. She slipped it over her head and it whispered along her body, the silky lining cool on her skin. Standing barefoot, it was too long on her and so she put on her one pair of strappy sandals, feeling stately again at 5’6”.
She looked at herself in the mirror and she liked what she saw.
Scully walked to the living room, her shoulders back. “This is the dress, Mulder. This is the dress that has you so upset. I thought you should see it in person, and see that it isn’t poisoned, or tainted or marked. It is an article of clothing and I would like, sometime, for you to take me somewhere in it.”
He stood, his expression closed, and stared at her. “Turn,” he said, and she did, giving him the full expanse of her bare back.She met his eyes again, said nothing.
“It looks good on you,” he said flatly. “It looks incredible, actually. But I still hate it. Get rid of it.”
A surge of adrenaline in her bloodstream, her heart pounding at his audacity.
“You think because we’re sleeping together now you get to make these decisions? You do not tell me what to do.”
He moved closer, eyes dark and unreadable. His height was a sudden presence. “I always got the sense you liked men telling you what to do. At least sometimes.” He pressed a finger to the underside of her chin, pushed her head up. “Ed Jerse. Jack Willis. I heard about you in med school too, Dana Katherine.”
Shocked, she stepped backwards and bumped into the wall. “How dare y-”
He grasped her chin. “I think you need it, is what I think. You are always in such tight control, Dr. Scully, and you don’t know how to let it go. I think you need, on occasion, to have someone take over for you.”
He leaned down, breath hot in her ear. “And I think you really get off on it.”
She knew she could end this. That she could walk away and he’d go home. Things would be tense for a few days but they’d stabilize. She knew that.
She knew it, and she kissed him.
Mulder pulled back. He let go of her face and her jaw ached. When she reached up to rub it, he grabbed her wrist and pinned it to the wall, just beside her head.
Scully felt endorphins this time, the beginning of a dopamine-serotonin loop. She was aware of her pupils dilating and her cheeks flushing. She was aware of a liquid rush low in her pelvis, the base of her spine.
“I thought so,” he murmured, and she saw herself reflected in the hot dark of his eyes.
He leaned down to kiss her and she pressed against him, tugging at his bottom lip with her teeth. When she put her free hand to his chest, he swatted it away. Stung, she broke their kiss.
Mulder gathered the fabric of her dress, slowly bunching it in his right hand until he had worked the hem up to her thighs. He let the material fall over his forearm, pressed the flat of his hand to her underwear. Plain black satin.
“He buy you these too, Scully?”
She shook her head, feeling half-drunk from far more than the beer.
“Good,” he said, and slipped his hand inside them. He cupped her in his palm.
They were still learning how to touch each other, long nights in bed exploring and redirecting. He knew where she liked his fingers now. Scully’s breathing quickened, anticipatory. He didn’t move.
“Mulder,” she breathed, and pushed herself against him. Against the wall, her wrist was beginning to hurt.
He cocked his head, blinked. His hand was still.
“Mulder,” she said, sharply. Unamused.
He smiled. Sweat was beading on her forehead, her back clammy against the wall. “Please,” she hissed.
He teased her open slightly with a forefinger.
Scully groaned, canting her hips forward, and he stopped. Her head banged against the wall in frustration, her wrist twisting under his grip.
“Stay still,” he said, and slipped his finger inside her. A second, and there was no resistance.
Scully clenched her teeth when his fingers curled upwards, searching for the rough tissue behind her pubic bone. His thumb at her clitoris and she sighed, grinding herself against it.
“No.”
“This isn’t funny, Mulder, come on.”
She heard desperation in her voice and hated him a little. She’d been afraid of this when the sex started, this raw need for him.
“No,” he repeated.
Her eyelids fluttered closed and she held herself rigid. Scully chewed the inside of her cheek; she gathered herself together and focused on the origins and insertions of her musculature. She envisioned the warp and weft of her body as Mulder held it in thrall, heard the rustle of her dress with the rhythm of his fingers inside her, against her. Sweat trickled along her jaw.
Her eyes snapped open when his tongue grazed her ear.
“I’m letting go of your wrist,” Mulder said, his voice low. “But don’t move it.”
She nodded, panting, anything he said as long as he never stopped touching her like this. The air was cool on her arm. Mulder felt for her nipple through the dress, and his touch was rough. He had always been gentle with her but this time he pinched, hard, and she cried out. A buzzing began in her sacrum.
“No?”
“Yes,” she rasped, and cried out again when she felt his teeth on her throat. She was lost now, and her hips were moving again, underwear soaked and hurting the insides of her thighs. Above her head, her nails scrabbled at the wall. “God, Mulder,” she hissed, and he bit her neck, sucking at the sharp corner of her jaw. She was covered in sweat now, her mouth swollen, eyes clenched. His thumb was perfect, perfect right there, just so, and she dropped her hand to his waistband.
Mulder pulled his hands away from her, the dress covering her again, and her knees almost buckled from disappointment.
“Don’t,” she gasped, her thighs trembling. Her nipples ached.
“You said you wouldn’t move it.” His erection twitched against his trousers. He clearly was aroused by his game, but nowhere near her frantic state.
She grabbed his hand, the one slick from touching her. “Bed, Mulder. Now.”
He shook her loose. “You said. You wouldn’t. Move it.”
Scully gazed up at him, her body still humming, still burning for him. Mulder was breathing through his nose, his lips parted. He wanted her, he was burning too. But he’d deny himself, and her along with him.
She swallowed, ran her tongue along her lip. Part of her was furious with him, but not the part making decisions right now. Slowly she raised her right hand back beside her head.
Something flashed in his eyes, something hungry, and it made her wetter.
He unzipped his fly and she saw the gray of his boxers tented against the opening. Mulder kissed her and she didn’t touch him this time, didn’t drop her right hand to stroke his hair or wrap her left arm around his waist. His breath was coming more quickly, and he worked himself free of the fabric between them.
He tugged her underwear down about four inches, as far as he could reach without kneeling. She didn’t dare risk any adjustments, even with the thin fabric cutting into her.
Mulder lifted her easily and her legs went around his hips as though she’d done this a thousand times. Frustrated, he tugged at the folds of her dress until she felt the head of his erection pushing against her. Her head dropped to his shoulder when he thrust into the liquid heat of her body, groaning her name.
She gasped when he hit her cervix, wriggling for a better angle, and nipped at the tender place behind his ear. It didn’t take long for her to catch back up to where he’d left her, aroused by thump of her body against the wall, by Mulder’s ragged breathing, by the bruising rhythm of his body.
“You like this.” It wasn’t a question, and she felt no need to respond.
Scully fumbled with his collar in order to taste the hollow at the base of his neck.
“I know you,” he panted into her hair. “What you want.”
He did, he did and she hoped she could forgive them both for how much she wanted it. She shifted her hips again, shuddering around him, the black dress drenched and sticking to her like wet feathers. She called his name, her teeth fretting at his earlobe, his hands sliding over her slick back.
Mulder’s stubble scraped against her face when she nuzzled against it, still riding out the surge in his arms. He gripped her hard when he came, pushing her tight against the wall. He thrust up into her once, twice, and slumped forward.
His hands braced against the wall to keep her steady. They stayed like that for a moment until she eased herself to the floor, thighs sticky and sore. She felt spent. Languid.
Mulder looked down at her, his chest still rising quickly. He smoothed her hair with his hands, cupped her face in them. He touched the front of her dress, just at her cleavage.
“It’s not his anymore,” he said, and walked past her to the shower.