Heat Stroke (UC,Mi/L,ADULT,1/1) - [COMPLETE]

[Emily Stuns]

Title: Heat stroke: a scientific study

Author: Emily

Rating: ADULT

Summary: Liz puts the scientific method to good use.

A/N: This is certainly not what I expected to write when I woke up this morning.

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights characters within, I just happened to abuse them for a bit.

"The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them." –William Bragg, Sr.

(who would probably be appalled to find his words used thusly)

I. Observation

She tried to be scientific, detached. The physical discomfort was not caused by the wetness that defined sweat, but rather how the biological reaction made a person completely and totally aware of one’s whole body. Skin stuck and slipped, clothing clung, and perspiration gathered in every crease and hollow. Air-conditioning became both a pleasure and a torture; each stirring of air heightened the feelings that crawled through her skin, causing goose bumps and prickles in the 100-plus heat.

Her mind and body were held captive by the sensation, the cloying press of temperature and time, focused on each incremental movement. The minute interactions of the everyday were overexposed, humid with new meaning.

New possibilities within the mundane.

The moisture on his skin grabbed at the folds of his t-shirt, revealing muscle definition that she hadn’t known existed beneath the baggy fabric whose front advertised a concert long faded from memory and cloth. The same dampness bunched his lashes together, forming a dark frame around eyes that saw far more than they showed.

She found herself more aware of Michael in this state, alert to his moments, his gaze. The weather caught at her mind, reminding her of the last heat wave and her first understanding of the fact that life was changing around her; people awakening to the play of emotions and hormones. Circumstances were different now, and perhaps the off-again state of everyone’s relationships was the cause of the building the tension.

Or maybe the weather was just pushing her over the ill-defined edge of sanity and she was imagining things.

Sometimes Liz thought she felt him watching her, a tickling that started at the backs of her knees and traveled slowly up her thighs. She would still inside, falling back on the mechanical patter that appeased the customer, while her mind followed the phantom sensations under the slick polyester of her uniform. Sometimes he stayed confined to the lower half of her body, causing the involuntary clench of her stomach, the not-quite-roll of her hips. When this happened, she would sneak a deep breath, swallow down the heat, and rip her mind away from the reactions she couldn’t fight, couldn’t prove were real. A glance over her shoulder would reveal nothing more than a man busily working a stove, she knew that—he was too good to get caught—so she fought for her focus and won.

Sometimes, though, he continued his journey up her back, seeming to wrap his personality around to contract her nipples all the while brushing against the nape of her neck. On the rare occasions this would happen, she couldn’t fight her response: her words garbled into a sigh, she found herself caressing the edge of her order pad with her thumb even as she swung around to try to catch him in the act. Inevitably his attention would be on the grill, his face free from the tension she knew was caught on her own. He wasn’t watching her. He couldn’t be watching her.

His appearance gave absolutely no indication.

Face wrinkled into a smirk at whatever remark Maria threw his way, he flipped burgers and dispatched fries in a smooth, uninterrupted pattern. There were no sidewise glances, but, maybe, just maybe, his movements seemed slower, a touch lethargic, as if something had captured a bit of his attention from the job and held it in thrall deep inside his mind.

She couldn’t though. Couldn’t guarantee that she wasn’t just projecting.

Maybe she was going crazy, given to wild imaginings caused not by reality but the hormones that seemed to become more active with each rising degree.

But then again, the sensations were never present when someone else was working the grill, the awareness never as heightened when Max was watching her.

The heat was different, more intense. It overpowered the senses, took control. Not a gentle push but a dominating wave that swept her into parts of her mind that she thought she had boxed away. Sexuality distracted from her goal to get out, break free of constraints, it left ties far deeper and stronger than words and promises. So far she had managed to avoid that last step into forever with Max, had never gotten close with Kyle, but when he watched her she felt the hesitation she’d frozen herself in trickle down the back of her neck to be wiped away by the collar of her uniform.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if she controlled the situation, the outcome.

Maybe she should go take a cold shower and forget she ever entertained the thought.

Sweat slid between the valley of her breasts, wetting the cotton of her bra. Mrs. Larson stared at her strangely, her gaze hardening into a glare. When that didn’t elicit the response she wanted, she cleared her throat. Obviously Liz was not covering her…agitation very well. Frowning, the girl forced her attention back to her customers, turning to take Mr. Larson’s order. His eyes never rose above her chest.

Maybe her customer service was not what Mrs. Larson had a problem with.

II. Hypothesis

She’d discarded all other alternatives: Max, someone unknown, her own desire to be free. Each had proven impossible under intense scrutiny.

Max’s eyes evoked sadness for what they had before his destiny, and understanding of how fragile young love can be, how cerebral. Even when she’d been pulled by emotions, they had been heartfelt, not hormonal driven.

And her body was definitely doing the driving now.

As for the stranger theory, the idea of some unknown watcher held no merit after she nixed everyone outside of the optimum age group. There was no one consistently present in the Crashdown; no one who could possibly be the source of the intense focus she felt on her body.

Her own “Get out of Roswell” fund was growing at a healthy rate thanks to the larger than average tips she’d been getting lately from the older men in town, and she’d been accepted, full scholarship, into a science program at U.C. Berkeley for next summer. So what she was feeling couldn’t possibly some twisted form of her own need to escape the confines of Roswell, and find…

Well…

Release.

She was ninety-nine percent, without almost a smidgen of a doubt, positive that Michael was the one watching her, touching with his eyes. For a split-second, she’d caught their reflection in the dusty glass of the front window as she went to draw the blinds. It could be no fluke that it coincided with a lick of heat that sent her rushing to the Ladies to run cold water over her wrists, rest wet towels along her neck.

It just couldn’t be.

Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the ceiling. The heavy scent of the ylang-ylang candles that Maria had given her mixed with the citrus-sunshine of her sheets to coat her skin. The blend was hypnotic, drowning, as she watched the waver of the shadows above her. Hands danced and bodies moved as each black shade formed and reformed in accordance to her imagination.

Her own fingers traced along the scalloped waist of her panties, slipping below.

Ninety-nine percent sure.

And if she was wrong, and the lack of any reaction voided her belief in this new reality, so be it.

She would be the only one to know.

But if she was right, then maybe this was all tied in with the weather. Some kind of meteorological phenomenon.

She pressed deep, in, fingertips finding a wetness sweat could never match, and her inner tension blazed higher.

Dear God, there was a part of her that hoped she was right.

Needed it no matter how insane the idea was.

For the sake of her own sanity if nothing else.

III. Testing

She started out small, unwilling to let her plans be known to anyone, even Maria.

Especially Maria.

She was pretty sure that this violated every best friend principle in the book, which was almost enough to make her try and stop before she started.

But it was like his eyes had taken control of her body, burning her from the inside out. Her walls were the first to collapse, then her morals, falling to feed the tension flickering throughout her body.

There was only enough of her mind left to keep it subtle: a brush of their shoulders as he helped her fill the sugar dispensers; bending a bit more at the waist instead of the knees when she went to pick something up; instead of being so blatant as to open a button on her uniform, she would simply tug at the front to “circulate air” affording glimpses of bare skin and skimpy lace.

Only on her breaks, when she knew no one would see, did she let herself indulge in openness. She began to study him, tracing the swirl of damp hair against his neck, the strain of muscles beneath his clothes. A single drop of moisture running down his cheekbone could consume ten minutes or more until he finally wiped it away. She found herself wondering if it carried the same taste as the salt that beaded on her upper lip. Her imagination conjured images of approaching him and licking the remnants from the back of his hand with a quick, cat-like dart of her tongue. Sanity only reared in time for her to look away before he caught her in the act, but she couldn’t stop from sucking in her lower lip.

After a few days, Maria asked if she was on drugs. The question was jarring cold in the cauldron of Liz’s mind, and it snapped her out of the hormone induced trance. “Of course not.”

Drugs would be a whole lot easier to explain…but carried far less appeal.

“Then what’s up, Chica, ‘cause you’ve been checked out of the reality hotel for awhile now.” Her friend regarded her, face open. The multitude of butterfly clips that held her twisted hair from her eyes seemed to quiver with expectation.

What could she possibly say?

“It’s…hormones.” Okay, that sounded weak. More than weak. The only people who would possibly fall for that excuse were those possessing a Y chromosome.

“You’ve been PMSing all week?” Skepticism apparent, Maria proved once again that she was the proud owner of a pair of Xs. “Not even Isabel can make that excuse work.”

Liz ran her hand along her periwinkle lapel, nails scraping her skin. He was watching again. Damn him. “Not those kinds of hormones.”

For a moment the other girl went blank, puzzled, before understanding slid into place. “Oh.”

“Oh,” she repeated, her tone deeper, drawling. A smile—small, knowing—shaped her lips. “It has been hot lately, hasn’t it?”

“Roasting,” Liz responded. What was going on?

“Just…” Maria paused, as if searching for the right words, “don’t get burned.”

Laughter burbled, burst from her throat to shatter the tension of his gaze on her back. “Cliché much?”

“If the shoe fits…” Maria’s laughter, when it came, did not hold the same sharpness of relief. The blond glanced over Liz’s shoulder briefly before meeting her gaze. “Just be careful.”

The words stayed with Liz even after Maria’s shift was over. They circled within her mind, clashing.

What she was doing was the antithesis of careful.

But then why had Maria smiled that smile.

Maybe a girl didn’t want to be careful all the time even when she knew what was good for her.

Maybe she didn’t have to be.

Didn’t they say that the teenage years were all about experimentation and “finding yourself?” Wasn’t that what she was doing?

Besides, the circumstances were controlled. She could always change her mind. This was fine.

She canted her hips back as she cleaned the table in front of her—to better wipe down the table, of course—but the action forced Michael to twist to get by: denim scraping against her exposed leg, pulling up on her skirt.

The breath he released was a hissed swear, but he kept going.

Success.

Ducking her head, she let her hair hide her smile.

Everything was fine.

IV. Conclusion

The salt on his skin was different, darker. It sucked the moisture from her tongue and left her gasping.

Or maybe that was because of the hands, rough, that snagged on the slick cloth of her uniform as they tried to tear it away.

Who broke first was up for debate. It might have been the pulling grasp of his long fingers that led her back into the deserted stock room, but it had been proceeded by her really—quite accidental, I don’t now how I did that, I’m such a klutz—fall right up against his chest.

Was it her fault that her nipples chose that moment to stand at attention?

Another, lower, part of his body didn’t seem to think so.

Thank god.

His teeth scraped over her chin, sliding up to capture her lower lip as his shadow blocked out the light of the single naked bulb. The buzzing of the electricity was echoed beneath her skin, and she fought to help him yank the offending clothing out of the way. Part of her wanted to slow down, make a thorough study, and capture those fleeting observations of the magic his lips and hands performed in reality.

The rest of her was pushing up his shirt, and running questing hands over the muscles that the sweat had only hinted at before. The rest of her didn’t care about the reasons for starting, but about the conclusion that the rushing flood pouring through her had to reach.

Release.

Please.

“What are you doing to me?” his words were almost lost in the harshness of his breath, in the way he hooked an arm under her thigh to better press against her.

“Not me,” she moaned, shimmying her hips to notch him in the perfect…

Oh God.

Giving up on his shirt, she snaked her hand down to the front of his pants to fight the row of buttons between them. Her own moisture covered her knuckles through her underwear as she tugged at the denim. “S’you.”

She turned her hand to cup him. “All you.”

The muscles of his body locked down, freezing. For a moment she thought he was going to pull away and leave her with a smirking, “Gee, Parker, didn’t know you cared.”

Instead his hand came up to cradle her face, his thumb pushing against her chin until her features were exposed in the weak light. The shadows hid his eyes, but the intensity was there, familiar, moving over her.

His grip shifted, fingers spearing backwards into her hair, and suddenly she hauled up tight, her bare breasts rubbing damp cotton. His other hand shifted up her thigh to her hip and finally to the edge of elastic at the top of her panties.

“Must be the heat,” he rumbled into her ear, before turning her head to steal her lips, her breath.

Yes.

Fabric tore, leaving her bare from the waist down, and her own frantic fingers pulled off his last button in their haste. He stroked his penis through her wetness, a testing glide that left him coated. The smirk of his lips twitched on her cheek. “Definitely the heat.”

And then he was dipping down, pressing deep.

Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou

Filling her up even as her body contracted, grabbed. The pain was nothing compared to the sense of finally—finally—channeling all that tension under her skin. A small part of her realized that his grip on her hips would leave bruises, that they could be could be caught.

That this was completely and totally out of character.

He pulled away, only to return, harder.

Her hands shifted, nails digging to compel him to that one. perfect. spot.

There.

Head tipping back, she felt his teeth on scrap the tendon of her neck as she went over the edge.

It was most definitely the heat.


The end.