Variation 3: Connecting by Candlelight

Laura Roslin hummed softly as she organized the folders and papers and set them aside for the morning. She’d made a good deal of headway earlier, taken care of the most important things, but wasn’t quite caught up yet. She wasn’t going to work on them any more tonight, though. After her shower with Bill and their subsequent supper, she just wasn’t in the mindset necessary to focus on the more mundane reports. She felt good, tired but good and all she really wanted to do was climb into bed with Bill.

Once the folders were settled into three stacks — completed, questions for Tory, and yet-to-be completed — Laura shut off the lamps around the room and made her way to the rack. She pulled back the covers and fluffed the pillows then slipped off her robe, draping it over Bill’s desk chair as he exited the lavatory clad in boxers and tanks. His dog tags sat center of his chest, catching the light from the desk lamp, at least until he reached over and flipped it off, leaving the room bathed in the faint, cool glow from the display panels behind his desk.

His shadowy form met her beside the bed. “Do you want to read?” he asked, reaching for the lamp in the alcove of his rack. She shivered at the question, reached out and caught his hand, stopping him from turning it on. There was something about the sound of his voice in the relative darkness that made her…

“Can we just…?” The question went unfinished as Bill reached for her, his hands spanning her hips, fingers slowly gathering the satin of her gown, drawing it up, up. She lifted her arms and let him strip her of the garment.

“Whatever you want.” Bill’s voice was a soft rasp as he resettled his hands on her hips. They were so hot against her skin, so…

Laura was breathless. She hadn’t planned for this, wasn’t even sure what she wanted, but she wanted, was positive of it as his thick thumbs slowly traced the curve of her pelvis. As he stepped up to her and kissed her lips softly, then her cheek and brow, murmuring, “Whatever you want.”

Gods, his tenderness was so damned intoxicating and brought to mind those many nights during the occupation she’d spent longing for it in the face of the insanity that had become life on New Caprica. But she wasn’t on New Caprica any more. She was with Bill on Galactica and he was bathing her in that tenderness, weaving a web of quiet intimacy with whispered words against her skin and the gentle caress of his hands. She reached out for him with a wordless moan, hands alighting on his chest as she nuzzled into the touch of his lips.

“This,” she breathed. “I want this.”

Bill kissed his lover’s temple. He knew she wanted. He’d sensed the shift in her, heard the sudden quickening of her breath just moments ago. Something had triggered it. He wasn’t sure what but it didn’t really matter. It was enough just to know that she wanted. It didn’t matter that he was an old man either, or that he was tired, or even that she was tired. The need to be with someone, to connect with another person sometimes defied all other circumstances. His and Laura’s relationship was a testament to that. They shouldn’t have, never should have, but they had, did and would simply because what was between them could not be ignored. Delayed, yes, but never ignored.

And there was no reason to attempt either at the moment. She was not president. She was not vice president. She was just Laura and she was here. Her body was warm and trembling, her breaths gentle but uneven, her lips … they were touching his.

Bill’s heart quivered and eyes fell shut as she kissed him, her mouth moving over his, delicately. She stole away his breath and made his head spin. But this wasn’t about frakking; the heated eroticism of earlier was missing and in its place was something infinitely more special, something quieter but no less intense. It was winding around them, slowly, easing them, uniting them. It was desire, emotional more than physical, a specific needing of a specific nature, one he recognized.

Taking Laura’s head in his hands, Bill pulled his mouth gently from hers and met her eyes in the darkness. “I know what you need,” he murmured.

“Yes,” Laura whispered, her hands moving to assist his as he stripped off his tanks. His dog tags clanked back to his chest and he started to remove those as well. She stopped him, fingers caressing the metal. “Leave them,” she breathed, smiling gently up at him.

In response, he pursed his lips and smiled in that way that said he was touched. She would have wondered why had he not confessed one night on New Caprica that his ex-wife had grown to hate his chosen career and everything associated with it, even wearing his tags when he was home on leave.

It had been a rare admission on his part, since they generally didn’t talk about past lovers. But that night, when Laura had stopped him from taking them off before they made love and told him she liked them, he’d shared that with her. His voice had been hushed and there had been pain in it, but he’d smiled at her, exactly as he was now. And Laura knew now, just as she had that night, that she could never hate that he was a soldier. It’s who he was, what defined him and the sense of duty and responsibility that she shared with him. She would never ask him to be anything else, not even in times of intimacy, because she adored him, her soldier … her admiral.

She wanted to see him.

Running her hands over his chest, Laura leaned in and kiss him yet again then eased away. “I’ll be right back.” She smiled at the look of confusion on his face, but continued moving away, but only long enough to retrieve her prayer candles and lighter from the other room. He took the candles when she held them out to him, held them steady while she lit the wicks. She then placed one candle on the shelf above his bed then put the other on the small table beside his desk.

She smiled as she gazed at the flickering flame. “If there’s one thing I miss about New Caprica,” she said softly, “it’s firelight.”

Bill’s voice was a rumble from behind her, thick and deep … sensual, making her tremble and flush. “I’ve missed seeing you in the firelight.”

Turning, Laura found him sitting at the edge of his rack, his eyes moving appreciatively over her body. She felt it like a tangible caress, took a steadying breath that quickly fled when he met her gaze, murmured, “You are so beautiful.”

“You make me feel beautiful,” she told him, the words little more than a breath as a fluttering sensation filled her insides.

He gave her an affectionate smile, held out a hand. “Come here.”

Matching his smile, Laura eased her fingers into his palm and let him draw her the short distance to him. She took up position between his knees, her heart skipping a beat when he immediately drew her hand up to his mouth and pressed a tender kiss to her knuckles. There was something about that gesture … it was pure Bill. The intent sweetness of it made her realize what a gift the gods had given her in him.

Lifting her free hand, Laura ran her fingers through his hair. He looked up at her and released her fingers, slipped his into the waistband of her panties and drew them downward, past her knees. From there, he let them fall to her ankles and she stepped out of them. He held her gaze the entire time, those blue eyes of his intent on her, completely unguarded. It was impossible to look away from him when he looked at her like that. She always felt like he was looking into her, saw all of her. It always made her feel exposed but not in a way that unsettled her. On the contrary, she was comfortable with him seeing her, wanted him to see her, as much as she wanted him.

Stepping as close as she could to him, Laura gently cradled his face, bowed until her lips were touching his forehead. “Do you … have any idea … how much … I want you … right now?” she breathed as she dropped kisses from his brow to his chin.

“Show me,” Bill challenged and she accepted, descending on his mouth in slow, sleek, loving kiss that made him ache in a variety of places, that had his hands seeking out her skin. He smoothed and stroked her, adoring her body as she laid claim to him with her lips and tongue. He touched her legs, loving every lovely inch of the elegant limbs he could reach. He sank is fingers into the rounded softness of her behind, glided his hands them up over her back then around to her belly, up then to her breasts. He cupped the soft mounds and kneaded them, groaning at the feel of the pebbled peaks piercing his palms. Frak but he loved how she responded to him, how quickly, loved that she desired him as much as he did her. He loved … her.

Pulling his mouth from hers, he reached for her hips and urged her to join him on the bed. She did, moving astride him. An arm around her, he lay back on the mattress, bringing her with him. He caressed her face with his other hand, brushing her hair back so that he could see her in the candlelight. She really was beautiful, the marks of age taking nothing away from her. Her eyes were so expressive and watched him now with a mixture of wonder and desire and…

“Gods, Bill,” she breathed and he watched a smile blossom across her lovely face. Seeing it in the candlelight, the happiness in her eyes reminded him of those nights on New Caprica, when she had been carefree, a woman reveling in the joys of life. She was that vibrant now and Bill felt, just as he had then, as though he was the luckiest man to ever live because he knew her and loved her. The only thing missing at this moment was the sound of her laughter.

Smiling up at her, he teased, “Think your gods will approve of using the prayer candles for this?”

The question netted the giggle he expected. “I don’t see why not,” she quipped, eyes sparkling. “It is usually something of a religious experience.”

Bill brushed his thumb across her cheek. “It’s good to hear you laugh.”

“It’s good to laugh,” Laura confessed, her eyes moving over her lover’s face. Slowly, she brought a hand up and touched his mouth, fingertips skimming across the easy, curling line. He kissed them. She whispered, “It’s good to be here.”

“It is.” His smile broadened and the expression, as always, was devastatingly handsome on him, stealing her breath away. Gods, but he was sexy when he flashed that brilliant grin. She imagined he’d stolen many a heart with it over the years. It had never failed to affect her whether it was on a dance floor, under a tarp on Kobol, in a tent on New Caprica, or here in his quarters, in his bed. Always, always, it made her heart do acrobatics.

“Let’s make love.”

The breathy whisper slipped from her lips and charged the air between them, raising gooseflesh and sending a rush of anticipation through her flesh. She felt him tremble under her and watched his smile dissolve into a mask of loving desire.

“Yes,” he murmured as he slipped his hand to the back of her neck and drew her down into a kiss that was all heat. It seared her, threatened to melt her bones, filled her with a burning need that only he could quench.

And quench he did, with his hands, his mouth, his whole body. He touched and kissed every inch of her, from the soles of her feet to the top of her head, making her moan and gasp and hum. She lost herself in the web of desire and love he wove, let her hands and mouth rediscover every part of him, delight him as he delighted her until they were both gasping and trembling with need. He joined their bodies then, easing into her with a gentleness she would have thought impossible. A just-as-gentle kiss followed and she wrapped herself around him, fingers pressing against his sweat-slick skin, curling around his solid shoulders as he began to move.

Laura moved with him, body undulating in perfect counter to his, prolonging strokes and infiltrations in the dance of lovers. Intense blue eyes sought out hers in the swirl and eddy. She met them boldly, met him, and did not look away as their bodies collided again and again, harder, faster and deeper, until they were groaning and gasping with each meeting of hips. Until ecstasy finally took them in a quaking of flesh and bone, joyous cries and pounding of hearts, leaving them little more than a quivering mass of limbs atop his rack, sweat-soaked and sated.

< Variation 2: What Is Unspoken | Variation 4: For The People >