Archive of Our Own

He’s always found CJ Cregg attractive.
He’ll never openly admit to it but he takes second, third, sometimes even fourth looks when she walks into the room, appreciating the sway in her hips, the line of her legs, her bright smile. Let CJ walk into a room that he’s in and he will always notice she’s there. His eyes will follow her through the room, watching her take it by storm.
She isn’t conventionally sexy like Ainsley Hayes; she will never share Ainsley’s Georgia peach features and sun bright hair. She doesn’t have Donna Moss’s pale Nordic beauty, either, or Abby Bartlett’s understated elegance. CJ has an indefinable beauty and femininity all her own that has always made Toby sit up and take notice. So even though it’s just a little before 9am on a Tuesday, and he’s just walked in the door, his eyes move toward her when she calls his name and he can’t help but note, yet again, how damn beautiful she is.
He doesn’t even have his coat off before CJ calls his name. He turns and is greeted with his best friend’s sparkling eyes and vibrant smile; she is obviously wildly amused.
She half sings and half chants the lyrics to some vaguely familiar tune as she walks toward him: “I’m too sexy for my shirt. Too sexy for my skirt. Too sexy for …” She loses the thread of the song, unable to remember the next rhyme for “shirt” and “skirt” and instead improvises with “…the other things.”
She accompanies all of it with an awkward little dance step that lands half a beat shy of where it needs to be in the song. It’s both endearing and sexy as hell.
“What in god’s name?” he asks, trying incredibly hard not to laugh.
“He got the question!” she enthuses.
“Who?”
“The majority leader!” She’s practically bouncing with excitement.
“When?”
“Last night. Local news. Cleveland, Ohio. Oh-mi-o, oh-mi-o, oh, Cleveland, Ohio! He got the question!”
“What’s the question?” Bonnie asks from behind CJ.
“Why do you want to be president?” he replies, eyes still on CJ. This must be a MAGNIFICENTLY bad answer if she’s so excited.
“And what’d he say?” Bonnie presses, clearly not entirely sure why CJ’s very nearly vibrating with excitement.
CJ holds up the transcript page and reads, “The reason why I would run, if I were to run, is that I have a great belief in this country as a country and this people as a people that go into making this country a nation, a nation with the greatest natural resources and a country full of people, educated people.” She pantomimes holding a rifle, cocking it, and firing it. “Chk-chk … BOOM!”
BEYOND magnificently bad. STUPENDOUSLY bad, even. Bartlett’s answer will be better by a factor of several billion. It’s a small victory but any victory is better than none at all, so he understands the reason for her joy.
He smiles and lays an affectionate hand on her arm. “I’ll spread it around.”
CJ flashes him another thousand watt grin, turns on her heel, and heads off in the direction of Josh’s office, singing again: “I’m too sexy for my shoes … too sexy for the blues …”
He watches her go, never taking his eyes off of her until she’s around the corner.
***
She’s still in a good mood by the evening so it only takes a little persuading from Josh to get her to agree to do “The Jackal” once they’ve called a full lid for the night. So once the press have left the building and the President is back at the residence, they all congregate in the press room with a boom box (the song is so old CJ only has it on tape), cold drinks, and whatever food is still floating around to watch CJ perform the spoken word favorite from Ronny Jordan.
“The Jackal” is one of Toby’s sacred rituals, with several rules contained therein:
1) No one talks to him during “The Jackal.” (Josh has tried numerous times, clearly unable to remember the rules, and Toby could cheerfully throttle the Deputy Chief of Staff for interrupting).
2) He smokes a cigar if one’s available. (Today there are none—he’s been too busy to go to the tobacco shop).
3) He drinks a bottle of beer-- and he always holds whatever CJ’s been drinking. (How that particular ritual came about he can’t quite remember, but he’s always been her designated drink-holder, whether it’s at a bar or a party).
4) He never takes his eyes off CJ.
She takes off her navy blue blazer and drapes it over the back of a chair, careful not to spoil its tailored lines. The silvery blue blouse underneath is raw silk and flatters every contour of her torso. The blue pencil skirt hugs her hips, perfectly curves around her ass, and manages to make her legs look even longer.
She doesn’t dance, per se, when she performs “The Jackal,” just incorporates a lot of movement, hand motion, and facial expressions. Every performance is a little different. She’s in a good mood and it’s a Friday night, so this is one of her funnier, more energetic versions. When the original seven and a half minute piece finishes, Josh rewinds the tape and starts it again, joining CJ on the floor and improvising his own gestures and movements. He drags Donna up, who laughingly brings along Carol. Suddenly everyone wants to learn their own version of “The Jackal” and hilarity ensues.
CJ extricates herself from the group once it’s clear that Josh has made the thing his own and crosses to Toby, flushed and laughing.
“Gimme, gimme,” she requests, pointing at her drink. He obligingly passes it to her and she takes a gulp of beer. “Whew! I haven’t done that in ages! How’d I do? I feel like I was on. Was I on?”
Toby grins. “You were on.” He jerks his head at Josh and Company. “They are NOT on.”
“Josh wants to be cooler than he is. I’m the only person in this room hip enough to do ‘The Jackal.’” At his smirk, she socks him in the shoulder. “I am and you know it.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” He notices how flushed her face is and offers, “You wanna step outside? It’s getting hot in here.”
Picking up his drink and hers, he heads for the nearest door that opens on to the lawn and gardens. CJ sighs with relief when the cooler outside air hits her overheated skin.
“Oh, that feels so much better.” She takes her drink from him and lays the cool bottle against her forehead. “Today was a good day; we had no major fires to put out at any rate.”
“That’s always a win.” He walks away from the building and out into the gardens. CJ follows, close at his elbow. “I don’t know if the NEA will keep its budget. I tried.”
“There are always going to be people who don’t think art’s essential and don’t want the government to fund it.” She stops at one of the benches along the garden path and sinks down onto it. “Heels don’t work terribly well on cockle-shells, Tobias. Let’s sit here and talk.”
He settles next to her, getting a waft of her perfume when the breeze blows. She’s so beautiful sitting there that he can’t keep a satisfied smile off his face.
“What is it?” she asks, a little smile of her own tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“You are … an exceedingly lovely woman, Claudia Jean Cregg.”
An astonished look breaks across her face. “Well … thank you. What brought that on?”
“Watching you do ‘The Jackal.’ And dance to that ridiculous song you were singing this morning.”
“You think I’m lovely when I make a fool of myself?” she asks, smirking a little.
“That would be you that dropped the word fool into this conversation, not me.” He returns the smirk then shrugs. “I just think you’re lovely. That’s all.”
She gives him a rather uncertain smile. “You don’t normally say things like that to me.”
“Well, maybe I should start.” He wonders fleetingly what she’ll do if he touches her then after giving her a rare endearment, so he brings his hand up and lightly brushes his fingers across the back of her neck.
She casts him a questioning look but allows the touch and then encourages it by relaxing into his hand. He slides his fingers up into her hair and she gives a little hum of pleasure. He increases the pressure, his fingertips massaging the hollows at the base of her skull. She groans a little and his fingers still.
“Want me to stop?”
“If you stop, I’ll kill you,” you murmurs.
He chuckles and keeps rubbing. “Looks like I found your sweet spot.”
Her sly smile is visible even in the half-dark. “I’ve got sweeter spots than that.”
Just the way she says it, laden with entendre and innuendo, makes his groin tighten. He leans closer and whispers, “Any you’d care to share?”
They don’t flirt this boldly; everything between them has always been stated in looks and gestures. There’s never been sexually charged repartee before … and when CJ turns to him, her eyes glittering with barely contained desire, he finds himself wondering why the hell they’ve never tried it.
“Right here, right now?” CJ’s voice is both amused and aroused.
He tugs her insistently toward him and kisses her warm mouth, his hands tangling in her hair. She eagerly parts her lips and meets his tongue with her own.
He’s kissed her before—friendly kisses on the cheek, quick brushes of his mouth across hers. But he’s never let himself kiss CJ like a lover, never learned the warmth and pressure of her mouth. Experiencing it now, finally, he wants to pull her fiercely into his arms and kiss her until neither of them can think straight.
The kiss spins out longer and longer, growing more heated with each second that passes. Her hands come up to rest on his chest and the hand that isn’t tangled in her hair lands on her thigh. She moves closer on the bench and he has a sudden vivid fantasy of her straddling his lap.
CJ breaks the kiss and leans her forehead against his, breathing hard. He strokes her hair and works to catch his own breath.
“Whose place is closer, yours or mine?”
“Yours,” he replies. “Are you okay with this?”
“You’re asking NOW?” She laughs unsteadily and stands, straightening her skirt. “You can’t kiss a woman like that, Toby, and then ask her if she’s okay with it.”
“Duly noted.” But then, just to make sure, he asks, “You are, aren’t you?”
“What do you think?” She grabs him by the lapels of his jacket, pulls him to her, and kisses him again. The heat of her body sears into him. His arms come around her and he pulls her flush against him, his hands on the small of her back. They fall rapidly into another series of kisses, hot and hard and demanding, breaking only when CJ grabs his hand and says, “For god’s sake, get your stuff and let’s get out of here.”
***
He drives them both to her place. He’ll bring her back for her car in the morning—it won’t be the first time senior staff member’s cars are in the parking lot overnight. If they’d brought both cars he’d have had to worry about street parking and he can’t think of anything more likely to kill the mood than having to look for a parking space.
She takes his hand and gently tugs him up the front steps to the door of her building. She fumbles with the key, too turned on to be coordinated; he’s sure it doesn’t help that he’s kissing the back of her neck as she’s trying to open the door.
Once inside her apartment, he shuts the door and then pushes her back against it, kissing the long line of her throat while a hand slides up under her skirt.
“God, Toby!” CJ gasps. “I … Christ, I can’t even think straight.”
“You don’t need to think,” he replies, nipping gently at the curve of her neck.
Her arms come around him, fingers finding a hold in the hard muscles of his back. She gives herself over to it, arching her back as his fingers brush against her inner thighs and start questing upward.
“Not here,” she manages. “My bedroom.”
“Show me.”
CJ considers doing a striptease of her jacket, skirt, and blouse, but decides that she’d rather have him undress her instead. She does, however, slide his jacket off his shoulders and reach for his tie, pulling it off with a motion born of practice. She throws it on the bed and, at his questioning glance, says brashly, “For later.”
His eyebrows go sky high before he grins wolfishly. “Kinky.”
“If you’re lucky.”
“I’m very lucky,” he murmurs, his eyes meeting hers, gaze warm and sincere. “Come here.”
He pulls her to him and kisses her passionately, intensely, the deepest kiss he can muster, kisses her until she loses her breath and she clutches at him to hold herself up.
“I want you, Claudia. I always have.” He lays a hand on her cheek. “Make love with me.”
“Yes,” she whispers. “Absolutely.”
***
They take the time to undress each other slowly, though they’re both turned on fiercely high. She’s particularly turned on by his strong chest, by the muscle that speaks of a workout regimen that she never would have guessed. His arms are well-defined too … she rarely sees him in anything short sleeved or tight fitting so she never would have guessed that Toby would be so well-built.
He draws her up against him by cupping the curve of her hips, then settles his palms low on the small of her back, molding her to him.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, running his hands up and down her back, dipping down to her hips and over the curve of her ass. “God, CJ, why have I waited this long to get my hands on you?”
“Because you’re ridiculously stubborn,” she replies affectionately, kissing his neck. “I’ve seen the way you look at me, Toby.”
“Which way is that?” he asks, pulling her shirt over her head.
“Like you’re starving and I’m a buffet table.”
Toby laughs. “Not the best metaphor in the world … but it is apt, I’ll give you that.” He slides the strap of her bright red bra down her arm and kisses along her shoulder. “I want to taste every inch of you.” He walks her back toward the bed. “Do you want my mouth on you?”
“You know I do,” she murmurs, reaching for his belt, brushing her fingertips across the growing hardness at the front of his trousers. “And I can feel how much you want me.”
“I want you so much I don’t have words for it.”
He lowers her to the bed and kneels in front of her, his hands sure and skilled as he strips off her silk panties. He gently kisses and licks his way along her inner thighs toward her core. She runs shaking fingers through his hair as he teases her with kisses and caresses before finally slipping his tongue between her folds.
“God, Toby!” she gasps, immediately and enormously aroused. “You’re going to make me come!”
“That’s the idea,” he murmurs, sliding his hands up and down the outside of her thighs. “Lie back and enjoy it.”
He licks and sucks at her with gentle urgency, trying to walk the fine line between tenderness and desperation. Her hips start to jerk and he lays a hand across her belly to keep her still while he delves deeper with his tongue. She moans helplessly and her fingers twist into the sheets. He slides his free hand into hers and her fingers twine with his, squeezing as he works her up higher and higher.
He brings her to a sharp climax, one that makes her cry out helplessly. He nearly comes himself when he hears his name in between her soft, panting moans. He moves up to lay next to her on the bed while she gets her breath back and rests his hand familiarly on her hip.
“Ready for more?”
“Not until I can get a coherent thought back in my head.” She pushes her hair away from her forehead. “You didn’t warn me you were planning on blowing my mind.”
“Thinking is overrated.” His hands slide up and over her torso until he reaches her breasts.
“You don’t play fair,” she teases as he leans over to run his tongue around the swell of her breasts. “I haven’t had my way with you yet.”
“You will,” he replies, moving to straddle her hips. “As soon as I’ve finished having my way with you.” He brushes his thumbs over her nipples. “Tell me what you want to do to me,” he says, continuing to caress her. “Paint me a picture.”
“I want to suck you off,” she replies, running her fingers up and down his chest. “I want to put your cock in my mouth and lick and suck you until you’re so hard you can barely stand it.”
“I’m so hard now I can barely stand it.” He pushes his hips against her to prove it then goes back to caressing her breasts, working his way downward in slow increments, touching every inch of her torso with his fingertips. “What else are you going to do to me, Claudia Jean?”
“You’re going to slide inside me and I’m going to wrap my legs around your waist to keep you right where I want you, which is so deep inside me I can feel you in my belly. You’re going to make love to me, deep and slow, until we both come.” She reaches up and cups his cheek, brushing her thumb across his cheekbone. “Does that sound good to you?”
He kisses her forehead tenderly. “That sounds amazing to me.” He climbs off of her long enough to pull off his trousers and boxer-briefs while she turns down the covers. “We’re going to need to skip the oral sex though—I’m not going to last if you put your mouth on me.”
CJ’s lips quirk into a smile. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should.” Rather than climbing back on top of her, Toby lies on his side next to her and strokes her hair away from her face. “I’m not trying to be indelicate here but … how long has it been? If it’s been awhile I want to give you some extra attention.”
She gives him a warm, grateful smile. “It’s been awhile,” she admits. “I wasn’t sure whether or not to ask you for it; I know you’re turned on.” She brushes her fingers over his cock, which twitches in response.
“I’ve finally got you naked in my arms, Claudia. It doesn’t matter how turned on I am; I’ll give you as much foreplay as you want as long as I get to eventually come inside you.”
He slides his fingers between her legs, slipping in first one finger, then two, then three, flexing them gently to stretch her out. She sighs contentedly, letting her hips move in response to his fingers, occasionally grabbing for the pillow behind her head when the pleasure becomes more than she can handle. He takes his time, exploring all of her, whispering suggestions both tender and outrageous in her ear, kissing her cheeks, her forehead, her lips.
He wants her to be comfortable both with the sex and with the fact of the sex. It’s imperative that she understand that the two of them finally falling in bed together is what he wants, what he NEEDS, and isn’t a convenient itch to scratch or void to fill. So he pours all of his desire for her, all of the tenderness and warmth he feels when he looks at her into his fingers and lips and tongue, ready to prove to her that this night is more than a one-shot, more than a fluke.
“Are you ready for me?” he eventually whispers in her ear.
“I’m more than ready,” she replies, giving him a smile that’s both eager and a little nervous. “Just go slowly.”
“As slowly as you want.” He slides just the tip of his cock in between her wet folds then locks his eyes with hers, reading the trust and warmth in them.
“I’m fine,” she assures him, stretching up to place a kiss on his mouth. He moves forward a bit at a time, letting her guide him. She tenses, he pauses, and when she relaxes he thrusts forward again.
Finally he’s all the way inside of her and he kisses her as he rocks slowly between her legs. “You feel amazing,” he murmurs. “Absolutely incredible.”
“You’re not so bad yourself,” she jokes, more comfortable now that they’re joined and the anticipation is past. She arches her upper body up so she can lay a kiss on his shoulder. Then, sincerely, she says, “I never imagined it feeling this good.”
He arches an eyebrow at her. “You’ve imagined this before?”
“Of course I’ve imagined this with you-- hundreds of times.”
“Hundreds?” Toby laughs. “I’m flattered.”
“Maybe fifty times. Okay, thirty. A dozen. The point is you’ve been on my mind for a long time, Tobias Zachary Ziegler.”
“You’ve been on my mind, too, Claudia Jean Cregg, for longer than I care to admit.” He pushes a little deeper into her, watching her face to see if it’s too much. “And this is exactly what I imagined.”
He’s got a good idea of how deep he can thrust now so he starts to move more quickly. She’s warm and relaxed, her legs falling open wider to accommodate him, her hands gripping the hard muscles in his shoulders. He kisses the side of her neck, nipping hard enough to turn her on but not so hard as to leave a mark—she’ll give him hell if she has to go into the press room on Monday with a suck mark on her neck.
“Toby,” she gasps, her breathing shallow. “God, I’m so close!”
“I know.” He grinds his hips harder against hers. “I can feel how much you want it.” He slides his mouth down her neck, across her collarbone, further down to take her nipple in his mouth. “Come for me, CJ. Come for me now.”
She clutches at his shoulders, his back, as he thrusts into her, urging her toward the climax she so desperately wants.
“Give it to me, Claudia. Come for me, honey; let me feel you come for me.” He slides his fingers between her legs and plays his fingertips across her swollen clit.
That’s all it takes; Toby’s fingers and his coaxing words make her climax so intensely that she briefly loses her voice. She sinks her fingers into his back and arches off the mattress, able to scream out the intensity of her pleasure once she’s through the initial hard rush of the climax. He holds her through it, his voice a steady murmur in her ear, urging her to come again. His fingers keep moving, his cock keeps thrusting strongly, and a second wave of hot pleasure rushes over her, battering her from the inside out. She screams his name this time, over and over, as she pushes her hips against his hard enough to bruise.
She’s barely aware of Toby’s yell as he comes hard on the heels of her second orgasm. She can only lie there, breathing hard, heart trying to pound its way out of her chest. She becomes cognizant of Toby lying on top of her, also breathing like he’s run a marathon, his cheek resting on her collarbone.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I’m too heavy on you.” He starts to roll away but she wraps her arms around him to keep him there.
“No, stay, I like feeling you on top of me.” She strokes the back of his neck until he relaxes.
“You okay? Was that too much too fast?” he asks, his concerned, caring eyes meeting hers.
“No, it was amazing.” She sighs contentedly. “I feel so much more relaxed.”
“Three orgasms will do that.” He runs his fingers through her hair. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
She casts him an amused look. “I’m not going to break.”
“No, I mean about all of it.”
“All of what? This? Us?” She gives him a warm, affectionate kiss. “Do you REALLY think you could make me do anything I didn’t want to do? I’m a very happy, very willing participant in this … whatever this ends up being.”
Toby smiles and lays his head back down on her shoulder, content to lay there until his breathing gets back to normal.
“You called me honey,” CJ says out of the blue a few moments later.
Toby rolls off of her and onto his back. He turns his head and gives her a long, considering look. “Did I?”
“When you were talking me toward a climax, you said ‘come for me, honey.’”
He gives her a sardonic smile. “Sorry. I won’t make a habit of it.”
CJ leans over and gives him a playful pinch. “You’d BETTER make a habit of it. No one’s ever called me ‘honey’ before.”
He shoots her an odd look. “No one? Ever?”
“No one. Ever. The guys I date either call me “sweetheart” or “babe” but usually in that ‘hey, get me another beer, babe’ sort of way.”
Toby laughs. “You need better taste in guys.”
CJ stretches out across his chest. “Not now. I’ve got you.”
Toby gives her the half-grin that she finds alternately infuriating and endearing. “Like I said, you need better taste in guys.” He flinches back when CJ elbows him in the ribs. “Watch the merchandise, woman!”
“I’ve been watching it,” CJ replies cheekily. “I finally decided to take it for a test drive.”
Toby laughs and rolls on top of her, pinning her down. “How’d you like it?”
“Smooth handling. Good acceleration. I might need to try it again, though, to see how it does with repeated trials.”
Toby kisses her gently. “As many as you want.”
END