A New Definition
by lsquared

Note: This picks up during the scenes in Alexis' office on 2/29.

“So you want me to believe this is all for my benefit?”

Jerry regarded Alexis carefully. The space between them, the clutter of her desk and the air rife with tension, seemed to cave in even more. “Believe whatever you’d like, Alexis,” he said. “But, yes, it is in your best interests to trust me.”

She laughed with deliberate but forced contempt. Alexis pushed back from the edge of the desk and moved to the window.

He swallowed a grunt when he stood from the desk and felt a searing pain in his side. Jerry held his hands up, defeated, and said, “I realize the words ‘trust Jerry Jacks’ are a bit of an oxymoron, but-”

Alexis spun around. “But nothing, Jerry,” she interrupted. She shook her head. Alexis’ lifted her shoulders up toward her ears, her entire body tightening into a fed-up shrug, and then relaxed when she exhaled loudly. “I don’t want to talk about the piers or Ric or the ridiculous struggle for power among Port Charles’ finest. Not right now.”

He nodded once and struggled into his coat, recoiling against the pain. “I’ll go then.”

“Wait. You were shot. I hope you’re leaving to go to the hospital?”

Jerry smiled at her show of concern. “No. It’s not that bad. I’ll be fine.”

Alexis rolled her eyes. “I know you’re made of steel, Jerry, but you can’t ignore the fact that blood is soaking through your shirt. If you won’t go to the hospital, at least let me…” Her voice faded as she searched for the right words. Alexis wasn’t exactly Florence Nightingale and it was likely the only Band-Aids she had in the house were of the Little Mermaid.

“I’ll survive.”

“Let me patch you up,” she said, wincing inwardly.

His smile broadened. Jerry nodded and watched Alexis gather her things. He walked with her out into the hallway. The throbbing in his side was dulled by the way her hand rested gently on his back.

She had carefully helped Jerry out of his coat and ordered him not to sit on her sofa or any of the chairs. “The kitchen,” Alexis said. “Wait for me in the kitchen.”

“You have a kitchen?”

Alexis made a fist and looked pointedly at the red stain on his shirt.

“The kitchen, good idea,” Jerry said, leaving his coat and scarf draped over the arm of the couch.

He felt along the wall for the light switch and was surprised to see that Alexis had a large, gleaming kitchen. He was warmed by the quaint, butter cream walls and pale wood cabinets. Jerry walked the perimeter of the tiled floor, inspecting everything from the children’s drawings on the refrigerator to a memo pad near the phone that still read buy wedding gift for Jax.

Jerry was about to call out to Alexis when he heard overlapping female voices filtering down the hall. He padded quietly out of the kitchen, concealing himself against the wall. At some point Diane had arrived, and he had come into the middle of a heated conversation. He quickly gathered all the necessary details: Diane was berating Alexis for her association with him.

“… and he’s in your house!” Diane shouted.

“As my client!” Alexis retorted.

Diane slammed her hand down. “Ha!”

“Ha? Why ‘ha?’ The only relationship I have with him is professional.”

“You know what they say,” Diane sing-songed, “there is a thin line between professionalism and lust.”

Jerry inched closer to the corner of the wall. There was a long stretch of silence and then the shuffling of papers before Alexis responded. “I do not lust after Jerry Jacks,” she stated, and he clearly envisioned a hand on her hip, the tight set of her jaw, and wild eyes that betrayed her declaration. He didn’t want to immerse himself in the middle of their argument, but when Jerry chanced peeking around the edge of the wall, he saw that he’d been right about Alexis’ stance. He also saw that she was working hard to hide a First Aid kit under a mess of loose papers and books.

“Oh, really?” Diane prodded.

“Not at all. He’s … well, he’s just … Jerry is … maddening!” Alexis sounded breathless as she drew the word out.

The rest of the women’s exchange was garbled to Jerry. His mind was too occupied with evaluating Alexis’ use of the word to pay attention to the rest of their verbal spar. He knew that if he were to look up the word in the dictionary he would find something along the lines of to annoy, or infuriating, or to drive insane. And it was that – to drive insane – that stretched a thin but pleased smile across Jerry’s face. To drive insane with lust.

There were very few terms a woman could use to describe Jerry Jacks that he hadn’t heard before. Words such as liar, asshole, and womanizer came to mind immediately. He was certain former paramours had described him as untrustworthy, shameless, and dangerous at one time or another. But there was something about the way Alexis said maddening that sounded new and thrilling.

“Think what you want to think, Diane, but if I did ever have feelings for Jerry, they’re gone. I only agreed to remain his attorney as a favor to Jax,” Alexis said. “And he’s here as my client. So you should go.”

“Where is your client?” Diane inquired.

“Using the bathroom. Now, please, I have a lot to do. I need to go check on Sam after I deal with Jerry.”

Diane murmured something and then Jerry heard the click of heels on the floor and the door sealing shut. He scrambled back to the kitchen, waiting for Alexis at the round wooden table.

She looked at curiously him from across the room. There was something in his posture, and something about the slight smile on his face, that seemed both calm and boastful. He looked so casual standing in her kitchen, his hand braced over the back of one of the chairs. “I found this,” Alexis told him, holding the kit up.

Jerry remained quiet, watching Alexis search through the contents of the kit, spreading supplies across the table. She removed a role of gauze, a package of large bandages, tape, cotton balls, ointment, and then studied it all with a kind of sneer.

“Considering how many people I know who have been shot,” she said, “you’d think I’d be an expert at this.”

“Do you have a towel? We should clean the wound first,” Jerry told her. He reached across his stomach and rolled the fabric of his sweater up, his face twisting at the pain.

Alexis gently pushed his hand away. She eased the material up, lifting it over his good side first, and then peeled the soft cotton down his other arm so that he didn’t have to lift it. Having Jerry suddenly shirtless, and his bloodied sweater in her hand, seemed to throw Alexis. She looked at him, puzzled, and then at the shirt. “Okay,” she sighed, setting the balled-up sweater on the table. “Towel. Water.”

Jerry followed her to the sink. She fished a rag out from under a pile of dishtowels and ran it under warm water. His breath was a slow hiss between his teeth when she dabbed at the wound and wiped the blood from the surrounding area. “Sorry,” Alexis said, patting carefully at the tear in his skin.

“It’s fine,” he told her. “Quite nice, actually.”

Alexis applied pressure, feeling him quiver under her hand. She dropped the bloodied towel into the sink and went to the table for cotton and antiseptic. She poured some onto the cotton and, anticipating the sting, Jerry gripped the edge of the counter. Alexis used tender strokes to disinfect the wound. His eyes fluttered; the pain was tolerable, but the way Alexis’ fingers tended to his bare flesh, and how he felt the heat of her body against his skin, was maddening.

“So what did Diane want?” Jerry asked when Alexis had begun taping a bandage to the sore.

“Diane?”

He nodded. “I heard her voice.”

Alexis put all of the supplies back into the kit. “Oh, nothing. I’ll wash this,” she told him, taking his soiled sweater.

“Thank you. Do you have anything to drink?”

She opened the refrigerator. Jerry could see milk, an assortment of juices, and what appeared to be a pitcher of a red, sugary cocktail only children’s taste buds could appreciate.

“Something strong?” he added.

Alexis opened a cabinet and removed a glass. She opened another cabinet, reached far back, and left a bottle of scotch on the counter.

Jerry sank into the soft comfort of the sofa cushions and cradled the scotch in the palm of his hand. The amber liquid sedated him, slowly dulling the discomfort from his wound to a mild ache, and then just the memory of pain. He savored the burn down the back of his throat, the spread of warmth in his belly, and the overall feeling of calm that came over his body. It seemed there could be nothing more perfect than sitting, half naked, on Alexis Davis’ sofa with a glass of scotch. And then she came back into the room, having changed into jeans and a rather tight red sweater, and Jerry amended his definition of perfection.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

He leaned his head back against the cushion. “Wonderful. You did a wonderful job, Alexis.” He patted his bandage. “The only thing that would have made it better is one of those little, naughty nurse outfits.”

Alexis bit her lip to hide the smile there. She could tell the combination of blood loss and alcohol had made Jerry more susceptible than usual to the drink in his hand. She sat on the opposite end of the couch, drawing her knees up to her chest. “I’m cutting you off,” she said, grabbing the empty glass from him. “You’re definitely not sleeping here, so you need to sober up.”

“That would go against the confines of our strictly professional relationship, I suppose,” he said.

She nodded firmly in agreement.

“Like you told Diane, I am only here as your client.”

Alexis nodded again. Realizing that Jerry had listened to their conversation, she searched her memory for anything inappropriate that he shouldn’t have heard. “No matter what you’ve done, I couldn’t let my client bleed to death,” Alexis explained.

“Especially since you find me so maddening.” He winked and stood up, wobbly at first.

Alexis clenched her jaw. “Excuse me?”

“You told Diane that I am maddening.”

She stood up, staring at his bare back. Faced with the expanse of bare skin over taut muscles, it took Alexis a while to find her voice again. “You were listening in!”

He turned around, his tongue sweeping across his bottom lip, tasting the remnants of scotch. As Jerry stepped closer to Alexis, she began to back away. He paused and she paused. “You claim to have no feelings for me, darling, but you feel that I am maddening.”

“You are. You’re infuriating. You’re annoying and irritating and you drive me crazy.”

Jerry sucked his bottom lip under his teeth, his eyes two hungry slants that held Alexis’ gaze. He slowly released his bottom lip, his teeth scraping the tender flesh. “You say it like it’s a bad thing.”

“It is!”

Jerry sat down, angling himself on the sofa so that he could rest against the corner, one leg hanging half off the cushion. “I think you and I have different definitions of the word, Alexis. You say it and think you mean to anger and to annoy, but I hear to get under one’s skin. To madden with desire.”

His voice was slow and deep. Alexis felt pulled toward him and found herself falling clumsily onto the other end of the couch. “Well, you’re wrong.”

Jerry shrugged. “We can agree to disagree. You see, Alexis, I think you see me sitting here, a little drunk, a little wounded, and bare-chested, and you want to take advantage. You want to kiss me. But you’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

She laughed, throwing her head back melodramatically. Alexis maneuvered on the couch, sitting up a little on her knees. “You must be really drunk, Jerry. You’re delusional. The last thing I want is to kiss you.”

“Prove it.”

She tilted her head. “What?”

Jerry let his arms fall to his sides, exposing his muscled abdomen, his entire body rigid with excitement and tension. “If I’m so infuriating, if I’m just a constant source of annoyance, then you could kiss me and not feel a thing. You could stop. And then I’d know you don’t want me.”

“This is ridiculous,” Alexis said, growing feverish under the sudden uncomfortable weight of her clothes. With Jerry’s wanton taunt hanging in the small space between them, she felt a rush of heat from her stomach to her chest to her cheeks, pulsing through her veins.

He shrugged. “Then I’ll go on believing that you want to kiss me but can’t stand to admit it.”

Alexis inched closer. “You’re a fool.”

“I’ll go on believing that you have too much pride to admit you’re attracted to me.”

“A completely ridiculous fool,” Alexis said, so close that her knees pressed to his leg.

Jerry smiled, an expression that turned to surprise when Alexis’ hand reached out toward him. Her fingers hooked around the waistband of his pants, her knuckles pressed hard against his stomach. Her left knee covered his thigh and her mouth covered his. It started as just the dry press of her lips to his, but Jerry’s satisfied groan urged her on. Alexis opened her mouth, meeting the wet warmth of his tongue. She crawled even closer, both losing sight of the fresh wound on his side.

His hands gripped her hips and Jerry leaned forward. There was something about the feel of her denim and soft cotton sweater against his bare skin that stirred something in him, and Jerry deepened the kiss, lifting his hand to the back of her head.

Alexis shoved his shoulder, breaking the contact. She panted heavily, tangled around his leg, straddling his thigh. “I stopped. See?”

Jerry grinned up at her. “Right. You proved me wro-”

Both of her hands framed his face and Alexis kissed him again. The weight of her body against his pushed Jerry back against the cushions. He murmured at the way she rocked her hips against his. He let his hand wander up the back of her sweater, tracing the line of her spine.

Alexis lifted only her head. Looking into his glazed, rapturous eyes, she forgot how it had started in the first place. She only knew that one minute she was tending to his wound and the next they were on the couch, tangled and breathing heavily. She only knew that one minute she was talking, and then she tasted Jerry’s mouth, her hand gripping his pants, feeling the rigid muscles of his stomach as he breathed hard into her mouth.

“Oh,” she squeaked.

He smiled. “Indeed.”

“This doesn’t prove anything,” Alexis insisted. Though her words denied any amorous feelings for Jerry, her mouth seemed to have a mind of its own. Her lips brushed across his, teasingly, and then she kissed the corners of his mouth, his chin, his temple, and finally, his hungry lips. “It means nothing.”

Jerry nodded and fingered the loose strands of hair that framed her face. He let the soft tendrils fall between his fingers.

“Absolutely,” she said, drawing one lingering kiss from his mouth, “nothing.” Her hand briefly latched onto his hip, applying pressure to the wound. Jerry yelped and she leaned back. “Oh, God, sorry!”

He shook his head and leaned onto his good side. “It’s all right, darling,” he whispered.

Alexis peeled back from him. The loss of contact was more than physical – the void between their bodies was hot and palpable, a low hum in the air between them. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said, spots of blood seeping through the bandage.

“It hurts in the best way possible.”

She shivered and stood up. “I’ll get more bandages.”

“Alexis,” Jerry called out. He eased himself off the couch and caught up to her on the other side of the room. “I’m fine, really.”

“You and I have very different definitions of fine. You’re bleeding.”

Jerry shrugged. “I’ve never felt better,” he whispered, his face mere inches from hers. He grabbed his coat and scar and carefully put them on.

“Your shirt is still in the washer.”

“I’ll be fine without it. I’ll get it from you later.”

Alexis followed him to the door. “You should just wait, Jerry.”

“I can’t. Thank you, though, for everything.” He opened the door and stepped outside. Jerry turned back toward her, to her face washed in moonlight. She looked confused and sultry and beautiful under the pale light, her hair mussed and her lips swollen. “Alexis, any time you want to prove how uninterested you are in me, please, go right ahead.” He leaned forward, kissed her cheek tenderly, and turned away.

Alexis touched her face where she still felt the warm scratch of his skin on hers. She thought back to finding him in her office and it felt like a different day, a different time completely. She thought about Diane’s visit and warnings, and how Alexis had insisted Jerry was nothing but an annoyance. And she realized that if asked to use one word to describe Jerry, she would still say maddening. It was true – he was irritatingly attractive, annoyingly charming, and under her skin.