Title: SNEAK

Author: Misty Flores

Fandom: Women's Murder Club/Popular Crossover
Genre: Lindsay/Cindy, Sam/Brooke, and an assortment of fun.

Teaser: Murder, Pride Parades, hot brunettes and ill-fated hookups: like Lindsay Boxer didn't already have enough to deal with.

Notes, etc: The version of Sam used in this story comes from another embarrassingly long Brooke/Sam saga I wrote a while ago called 'Just a Little Insight'. But you don't have to read that to get this. I just used Sam because... it's Sam. And Carly Pope is hot.

PROLOGUE

---

Lindsay Boxer

Things had changed, and she hadn't meant them too.

Things didn't sneak up on Lindsay, but this ... thing had. Lindsay counted on Cindy now. It was a weakness that, in those dark moments when she found herself alone and unable to stop her brain from sneaking in a coherent, introspective thought, she discovered she hated.

It wasn't just Cindy's extreme resourcefulness; her ability to look at something everyone had already looked at ten thousand times and discover something everyone else had missed. It was in her eagerness, her dogged determination to find a solution, get the bad guy, solve the crime. Her energy and her passion actually matched Lindsay's; and that was new. Instead of telling her to step back, take a break, to just not THINK, Cindy was the best kind of enabler. She found leads; she literally couldn't stop. In her obsession, Lindsay discovered Cindy understood her in a way no one had.

She also finally understood just how god-damn frustrating it could be to try and rein a person like that in.

And still, she earned Lindsay's respect, and she had done it the hard way. Pushing past scathing glares and angry quips and threatens of arrest and obstruction, Cindy won her place in the ‘club' that hadn't wanted her, and now Lindsay couldn't imagine it without her.

That notion brought with it so much fear, because despite herself, Lindsay was falling in love, and God-dammit, she just couldn't handle that.

Not with Cindy. Not now.

--

Cindy Thomas

If you asked Cindy Thomas, it had never happened. She was living in a grand state of denial, where she lived and breathed her job, and never once thought of what did or did not occur one late night when it was just her and Lindsay and her friend inexplicably straddled her lap and proceeded to give her the most acute set of metaphoric blue balls ever.

Cindy had a problem. She was a nosy busy body, and she knew the only reason she could get away with it was because she just happened to be a CUTE nosy busybody. For that, she thanked her parents. As a child she had been extremely annoying and asked way too many questions, and thankfully her father found it damned endearing and encouraged it. This won her no friends in junior high. In high school, however, she developed the tiniest bit of a censor, and some pretty awesome breasts. Her hair mellowed out, thanks to the introduction to hair products. She was little and petite and just cute enough to be interesting, maybe even sexy, with the right stylist. People found her less annoying with the awesome breasts and the hair.

It wasn't conceit that brought up Cindy's assessment of her characteristics, but rather, a taste for the logical. She loved to dream, but was all too aware that in her job – what she needed were facts. She knew what she had to work with, and what she had was a stubborn streak and that damned ‘cute' factor that made people want to pat her on the head and call her ‘kid'.

She had learned to live with it. Whenever Jill crossed her arms and squinted and snarked about ‘Backstreet Boys' or "N'Sync' she just rolled her eyes and changed the subject. Claire seemed a little more thoughtful about it, but that was because Claire had to deal with two kids who kept insisting they were almost teenagers and Claire had no choice but to humor them. Still, nothing was as annoying as when Lindsay Boxer made some crack about her age. That made Cindy Thomas nearly homicidal.

"God, you're young," she'd hear, and it would cause the most embarrassed flush, which she couldn't even hide because being a redhead meant you had incredibly pale skin that showed the slightest blotch. She wasn't a kid. She was a damned good member of the club and she worked hard to be in good standing. She worked hard to be counted on, and she was NOT A KID.

Okay, maybe she wasn't ever going to be sexy in that sultry bombshell way that Jill had, but she was damned attractive.

Still, as frustrated as it made her, Cindy supposed there was some sort of security in that, because it meant her crush could stay nice and manageable and one-sided.

Having Lindsay Boxer grind into her, stick her tongue in her mouth and her hands down her shirt had shattered that to all hell.

Or it would have, if Cindy Thomas dwelled on it. Which she didn't.

She didn't think of it at all.

--

Lindsay Boxer

She could have slept with Cindy.

The opportunity had been there, on the tail end of one of those particularly long days that had become so frequent lately.

She had been tired, a little drunk and that reckless feeling, combined with the close proximity of a suddenly intoxicating little redhead with doe eyes who couldn't do subtle if her life depended on her, made it all too easy to kill what little inhibition she had.

Listening to Cindy ramble on, one hand buried in Martha's fur, the other curving along the pale, elegant curve of the reporter's nape, Lindsay had been caught up in the moment. There was no Claire to stare with reproach (because Claire had a bit of a protective streak when it came to the young reporter, and she knew as well as Lindsay did that she was in no shape to mess with a heart that open). There was no Jill to eye them warily (because Jill knew her better than anyone and understood that a person with genuine good character and idealism both fascinated and repulsed her, and ultimately, won her over. I.E: Tom).

At three in the morning, things were frighteningly uncomplicated, and there was nothing but the simple occurrence that Lindsay really wanted to shut Cindy up.

So she did.

She didn't ask Cindy for permission. She knew Cindy would kiss her back. She knew the moment that she methodically pulled the wine glass out of Cindy's fingers and straddled the smaller woman on that couch that Cindy would never say no. With black locks tenting the younger woman's face, Lindsay ignored the brief look of shock and lowered her head, capturing wine soaked lips hungrily.

Cindy was a good kisser. Lindsay knew she would be. She caught up quickly, and without apology or hesitation opened her mouth, grabbed hold of hips astride her and bucked into the curve of her hips.

Cindy's palms pressed possessively against her waist, one palm moving up instinctively to dip under Lindsay's shirt, spreading over sensitive skin. Her lips moved passionately against Lindsay's, gently but firmly probing with her tongue, never giving an inch, pushing back every time Lindsay pushed forward, a rhythmic duel. She knew what to do with a woman, Lindsay could taste it, could feel it, in how Cindy handled her.

The fact that it was going to be fantastic sex on a night she desperately needed that kind of relief was enough reason to get more frantic; pulling buttons out of holes, sinking teeth into that soft, sensitive skin just under Cindy's jaw.

If Lindsay had kept going with what she herself initiated, she would have had a damned good one night stand.

She knew it. She expected it.

What she didn't expect was the burst of actual emotion that overtook her when she paused long enough to stare into colored eyes. She didn't expect her heart to actually fucking flutter the moment Cindy breathed her name into her ear. She didn't expect to get so wet so fast, to want this so badly, to care so much that it was Cindy she was kissing.

She panicked. Tearing her mouth away, she scrambled off Cindy's lap, pushing the younger woman's hands away like they had seared her.

-End Prologue