EXPOSURE

By Mala
malisita@yahoo.com

RATING/CLASSIFICATION: 'PG-13', RH/TQ, sap, physicality.
SPOILERS: "Vengeance"
NOTES: Picks up directly after the last scene in the Doc's office. This is my first QoS fic, written back in October and I'm currently working on the sequel, "Quarantine."
DISCLAIMER: I don't own the characters from "QOS" and if I owned Peter Wingfield...well, let's just not go there. *g*

~~~~~

The confines of his office were suddenly too close, too cramped. His throat tightened. His senses flared. He turned...and he knew she was there.

"You again?" he managed to grumble with relative ease.

The Queen stepped out from the shadows...and he struggled to quell the adolescent thrill that shot up his spine.

The bit of her face below the mask was golden...so golden. Her pink lips curved with amusement. "Not happy to see me, Doctor?" Her voice tripped over the words in that delightfully familiar Spanish accent.

Too familiar, he sometimes thought.

"One can't afford to be happy to see you," he offered, artfully sidestepping the question as he closed his medical bag and snuffed out the last candle.

She laughed.

He tried not to shiver.

"Did you forget something?" he asked, with as much dispassion as he could muster, casually watching as she moved in the darkness with a dancer's grace.

She shrugged, shoulders light under the black fabric that hid nothing from his imagination. "You gave me back my sword...what else could I have forgotten?"

"You tell me." Ah, he was ever so polite. Every inch the gentleman. One of his many faces.

She didn't answer, instead, asking abruptly, "Why did you help me escape Montoya?" She crossed the few feet between them, until she was close enough to brush against him.

Temptress.

"Why do you keep helping me?" he countered, feeling her breath against his cheek. And long tendrils of her hair were tickling the side of his face like the luxurious fingers of a Moorish courtesan.

His question made her falter. He watched the emotions play behind her dark eyes as she repeated it to herself. The lace that covered the upper half of her face was like delicate black webbing...sculpting the high cheekbones and the proud brow. Obscuring her identity--an identity which he was almost sure he knew--but not her feelings. Not the desire that quickened her breath and mirrored his own.

She shook her head, loosing another wave of hair against his cheek, and gasped, "I-I...don't know..."

"I do," he assured.

And he grasped her hips and pulled her full against his chest. As close as they had been on horseback earlier in the day...but with different intent. Not to ride...but to be ridden. Her sword banged his thigh and he ignored it. Her small, firm, hands came up to push him away...but he ignored them. He ignored everything but the fever he hadn't been able to cure since she'd first given it to him. The fever that urged him to kiss her until he needed resuscitation.

"D-doctor...!"

"Robert," he corrected.

And he lowered his mouth to hers and sealed their awkward alliance with the promise of infection...of an epidemic.

~~~~~

His lips were forceful...warm...and damning. She felt all her resolve crumble...every one of Marta's warnings fall by the wayside...every caution fly to the wind. Instead of pushing him away, her traitorous fingers curled into the coarse material of his coat, pulling him closer. So close that his thighs aligned with hers...telling her that yes, this was why women needed to wear trousers. For this dizzying parody of a heat she had yet to discover.

Here he was, a doctor...and he was giving her disease. Chills. Fever. Weak knees. Shortness of breath.

"Robert," she moaned, helpless to anything but the glorious sound of his given name. She kissed him back. Kissed him with the girlish dreams of Tessa Alvarado and the passionate wants of the Queen of Swords. She lifted one hand to his dark brown hair, twining her fingers in the long strands at the nape of his neck. She arched her throat and he listened to her body's plea like a true healer...traced a path down to her pulse with his mouth and counted the raging beats with his tongue.

How long...? How long had she desired this? Since his straight white teeth had sunk into the flesh of an apple she had wanted? Since he had cut her bonds at the gold mine? Since the tense instant only minutes before when he had dropped her sword lightly into her hands? Or had it taken nothing more complicated than the first glance into his sparkling, impish, dark eyes?

Her legs turned to liquid...her stomach leapt in concentric circles...she urged his head back up to hers and playfully kissed the sharp line of his nose before attacking his lips with renewed fervor. Could he tell that she wasn't as trained in loveplay as swordplay? Did enthusiasm count? He didn't seem to care...didn't seem suspicious. Their tongues dueled fiercely as he searched beneath her blouse and gently teased the dip at the small of her back with his impossibly long fingers. His cool touch against her flaming skin made her jump...and he chuckled. A warm, husky sound.

"My queen," he whispered into a kiss. "My queen of swords."

She tried to laugh...it came out a desperate murmur instead.

"Si...si...yours."

They stumbled back against a table like drunks after a fiesta...Tessa had never felt so heady, so immersed in sensation. Glass clinked. Surgical instruments fell to the floor. Chaos swept the surface clear of anymore impediments and then he lifted her up, cloaked strength coming to the fore as he deposited her below him with no sign of exertion save the gleam of passion in his eye. Just like her...he wore a mask. Just like her, he had his secrets. Just like her...he wanted this moment.

She hooked her arm around his neck and drew him down atop her. Her body was vibrating with unnamed need...her hips rubbing against his with restless intensity, aching for something...for something she had not realized she could have until now. Something brighter than the California sun. Swifter than a horse ride across the desert. Fierier than the heat of battle.

She was learning what love was.

Love?

~~~~~

He sensed the change in her even before her body went rigid beneath him. His hand stilled on the side of her face, thumb gently caressing the edge of her mask, and he stared down at the rapid rise and fall of her lush breasts beneath her shirt...at the scarlet tinge of her cheeks. His arousal strained against the front of his trousers and he willed the blinding need down to a milder buzz as he leaned hard on his elbows.

"What is it?" he whispered, softly, offering a chaste kiss on her forehead.

Panic flashed black like obsidian in her eyes, matching the desire that all ready existed there. "No puedo....I - I can't do this. N - not like this. Por favor."

And as much as it pained him, and made him throb, he understood. He understood as she pushed him away, and scrambled from the table while frantically tucking her blouse back in. He understood as she rubbed her arms vigorously and turned...heading for the door.

"Wait," he pleaded, sitting up...dragging a shaking hand through his hair.

"This isn't who I really am!" she cried, shaking her head. Her legs were unsteady...her trembling lips told him she wanted him to pull her back...to bring her close once more. But her voice was what he had to heed. Her voice. Her passionate, girlish, aristocratic voice. "This isn't who we are allowed to be."

"Why?" he demanded, coming off the table and reaching out his hand. Ignoring the vials his boots crunched into fine powder. "Why not?"

White-faced and white-knuckled, she backed up. The moonlight streaming in the window made her skin and the blade of her sword gleam the same silver. She shook her head. "Because the Queen of Swords can't afford to love."

He winced. He stumbled. He had to catch the end of the table to stay upright. And it was just the distraction she needed to flee...to run from whatever truth she had discovered.

The sound of the door slamming muffled his reply. His own confirmed discovery.

"What about Tessa Alvarado? Can she afford to love?"

Choking down the last vestiges of rampant and agonized lust, he found his flint and steel and lit a candle. As the tiny circle of light illuminated the room and he was able to survey the results of his fevered haze, one thought made his frayed nerves settle and his insides clench with anticipation.

Morning was just a few hours away.

In the daylight, he would see her without the mask. Her whole, haughty, lovely, face. And there were a thousand wicked ways to remind her of just what she could or could not afford.

He chuckled as he found a broom and began to sweep.

"Why, Senorita Alvarado...I do believe you're looking a bit flushed. Are you fevered? Would you like to come to my office for an examination? Yes...don't make a scene now, everyone knows the good doctor can cure whatever ails you."

He could cure it...or he could make it worse.

After all, there was something to be said for the benefits of quarantine.

A long quarantine.

--The End--

October 2000