Chasing The Wind

by StarnightSam

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Jack almost pulled Sam to his truck and to the passenger side of the vehicle. He opened the door and placed his hands under her butt and lifted her into the truck. She blushed from her the top of her breasts to her hairline. He could make her feel things that no one else could, but she never wanted him to know it. She wanted to tell him off, but knew it would let him know what his hands on her butt just did to her. She was furious with him, but was trying to control her anger.

“Lock up,” he demanded as he slammed the door and moved to his side of the truck. He got in and moved out of the lane and into traffic. They sat in complete and strained silence for a long while. Sam suddenly realized they weren’t going toward the SGC.

“Sir, what if Pete’s following us? He’ll wonder why we aren’t going to work.”

“Does he make a habit of following you, Carter?”

“What?! No! Of course not. That’s not what I meant.” She hesitated a long time, then softly added, “Jack, what’s this really about?”

Jack. Jack. She hardly ever called him Jack. It did things to him. Made him want to run his tongue over her lips and down her neck, suck that sweet spot just behind her ear among other things. He felt stirrings in his jeans and shifted in the seat uncomfortably. But Sam noticed. She felt the flush of heat bloom over her chest and cheeks turning her bright red.

They didn’t say anything else until he stopped in front of his house. “I’ll be right back, I have to get something.” He left the truck running and she waited.

It was December in the Springs and really cold. Jack came back in a few minutes with a jacket for her and blankets. It looked like a picnic basket on his arm. What the hell?

Jack placed the things in the seat behind him and handed her the jacket. “If you get cold.”

“Will I need a jacket? I thought we were going to the SGC?” She asked. But he only glared at her.

He drove on for a long time around the curving roads and foothills of the mountain driving up a road that curved up the mountain. Maybe they were going to the mountain after all, Sam thought, but only to herself. She was just slightly annoyed with herself because part of her really wanted him to steal her away, make mad passionate love to her and never again let her go. But Sam knew better than to think that Jack O’Neill would just march in and sweep her away. It was too romantic and she didn’t really think of her colonel as romantic, sexy yes but not romantic. Then there were the regs and the state of the Universe to consider.

Jack stopped the truck at a ledge that overlooked the city. She could see all the lights from where they were. The Christmas lights were shining in different colors, hundreds of tiny bright red, green, blue and gold brilliantly twinkling lights. It was beautiful.

Sam wondered just how many women Jack had brought up here. It was so like him. Jack loved the stars and the outside. She could just see him having wild monkey sex with one woman after another up here. Maybe that was her jealousy seeping in.

She’d always perceived Jack as having one night stands. She knew from experience that women found him very attractive and he seemed eager to return those stares. ‘That is every one of them except me,’ she thought. But she couldn’t remember Jack ever talking about any one woman or dating at all for that matter.

“It’s not what you’re thinking.” Jack said.

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“I can read the disgust in your face.” She turned then and looked straight into his eyes. Sam saw something that she’d only rarely seen, his unmasked love for her shining as bright as the stars over them and the Christmas lights below.

He watched the emotions play across her face and knew the same ones were displayed for her.

“I love you Sam. Please don’t go out with that damn cop anymore.” Jack eyes glistened with stinging tears. How had he been able to say that? He didn’t have the right to stop her from having a life. He’d told her often enough to get one.

“I. I uh. …don’t know what to say.” She never took her eyes from his. Silent words filled both their hearts and spilled through their eyes directly from their souls.

“Why would you ask that of me? I don’t understand?” Sam managed to whisper in question. Although she did. She definitely did. She just couldn’t let her heart believe what her eyes were seeing.

Jack only gazed into her eyes. His heart was in his throat and all the things he’d wanted to say to her were stuck in a huge ball. He reached for her hand and brought her fingers to his lips. He kissed each of her fingers and then turned her palm over and kissed it softly. He continued to softly kiss up her arm and back down to her palm again. He still couldn’t say anything. Jack O’Neill had never been a man of words but of actions. But Sam could feel his breath and lips as they gently touched her hand and skin with the softness of down. Her heart rate increased and her breath hitched.

Sam was sitting close enough for him to smell the sweet scent of her perfume. Her dress was low cut, a V-shaped halter style top that fastened at the back of her neck and came down in the front below the drop of her breasts. Jack had watched her every movement, just hoping for her breasts, which were almost completely exposed to his view, to fall out of their holders for so long he couldn’t shallow let alone say anything coherent. She made him feel like a pimply faced adolescent, excitement running through his veins. He couldn’t remember the last time any woman made him feel so out of control.

“Jack, please talk to me. What is this about?” Sam tried again. His attention snapped back to her face. He moved to unlock her seat belt and then his. He opened his door, grabbed the blankets and picnic basket, and then started around to her side of the truck.

She watched as he moved from his side of the truck all the way around the front of the truck to her side. It felt like slow motion and her eyes never left him. She had lost control of this situation the minute she had accused him of being like the wind.

But it was true. He was like chasing the wind. Sometimes he was all into her, and she just knew it. Other times he seemed to have no interest in her at all, didn’t even know she was a woman. Every time Sam made up her mind to let him know how she felt, he ran, fast and far away from her. She had no words or experiences to hold on to, except the ones that “almost” happened. And almost wasn’t good enough any more.

After her experience on the Prometheus and the vision of her father, she’d wanted to tell Jack that she wanted to be with him. But he’d quickly put her in her place when she called him Jack in the infirmary. She’d taken that to mean her visions on the Prometheus were meant to let him go instead of go after him. Even that had taken over a full month for her to completely admit.

It was true, she was a little angry with him. She wanted Jack O’Neill. But Sam couldn’t bring herself to let him know. She really didn’t think he cared for her any longer. She’d teased and flirted with him for the last month. She even invited the team to her house twice hoping to be able to confront her colonel away for the SGC. But he seemed to push her away. He’d made it a point to tell her to ‘get a life’ on three separate occasions.

Wind. You can’t see it, but you sure can see and feel its effects. Hear it. That was like Jack to her. Elusive and almost invisible at times but she could always feel and sense his presence. She could almost read his mind in matters that weren’t personal. Those he clamped down so hard and buried so deep within himself that he didn’t always know how much they actually affected him.

Her feelings for him were so strong that she’d started not only dreaming about him but daydreaming too to the point that she had become uncomfortable around him. She really doubted that she could move on, but she had made the decision to try with Pete.

Jack helped her from the truck and as she slid out, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “This is about us, Carter. I’m gonna show you what it looks like to be chased, cause it’s damn sure you don’t know.”

“Jack, please.. I’m.. sorry I said that. You don’t have to do this.” His hand landed softly on her cheek. It felt warm and calloused, so Jack. He gently moved his thumb across her lips, brushing across them tenderly, then softly back, then across once more with just enough pressure to part them.

She was sure he was going to kiss her, but he didn’t. He only rested his thumb gently on her moist parted lips, covering them so she wouldn’t speak. Looking directly into her eyes with an open sincerity that he’d never offered her before, he firmly spoke in a low tone, “Yes, I do. I’m not giving you to the cop if I have a snowball’s chance in hell with you.”

She stared into his eyes, tears beginning to pool in her lower lids. “I don’t want you to do this, Jack. It’s not right.” Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it, but he knew she really didn’t mean it. Her words were in direct contrast to the silent language that screamed from her eyes. Her eyes were saying words of love and desire, fear and anger all mixed together. These he knew well.

“Right? Why Sam? Because of the regs or because you don’t care for me? If it’s just the regs, I promise I’ll take care of that. If you don’t care for me, well then that’s another thing, but I don’t believe it. You may not love me like I know I love you, but I think you care for me. He hesitated only briefly before words spoken from her past, words that were so embedded in her heart that they had become a part of her softly rolled from the depth of his heart. “A lot more than you’re supposed to.”

Their eyes locked for a few seconds, and then Jack finished his declaration before he completely lost his ability to talk. He’d already said more than was his nature, but Jack had sensed a cross roads. His gut instinct had served him well and had kept him alive. It told him now it was all or nothing with Carter. Death would come quickly if he lost her.

“Or you wouldn’t have cared that you can’t catch the wind.” He stated smugly as he turned and walked her toward the large tree that over looked the bluff. Jack O’Neill had never been as dumb as he acted.