This one-shot is a special little present for BobtheFrog, who has been so incredibly passionate in her reviews and patient as she waits for me to satisfy her desires in my other stories. Maybe this little appetizer will help to tie you over as I work on the main course. ;)

I'd been lying in my bed and staring at the ceiling for the last hour. I was alone in a bedroom in Landsberg, my mind replaying the scenes of that horrid camp in my head. The prisoners were in terrible shape, but it looked like we would be able to save most of them. They were receiving the best care and attention that the Allied Forces could offer.

I was more concerned about Joe. He'd been translating for the officers, and had gotten a pretty clear description of what had been going on inside the camp. Not only that, but he'd been the one who had to look out at all those faces and tell them that we were going to lock them back up. I knew it had affected him deeply. He hadn't spoken to anyone since, including me, and we had been best friends since Toccoa.

"Well damn, baby! Somehow, I think that PT is going to be a whole lot easier to deal with now that I get to stare at an ass like that while I run up Currahee."

The first words that I had heard from Joe Liebgott were a lewd comment about my ass as I walked in front of him on the way to PT formation. I stopped and turned so suddenly that several of the guys ran into Joe's back.

"Enjoy the view. It's the closest you're ever gonna get to an ass like this… baby."

He'd smirked, but when I had crossed my arms and held his gaze with my own unimpressed stare, he'd broken out into a full-blown smile and thrown an arm around my shoulder.

"You and I are gonna get along just fine, Princess."

We'd been inseparable since. Until today.

When we arrived back in town, he had gone straight to his bunk and lit a cigarette. To my knowledge, he had not left that spot. Eventually, I had gone to my own bunk in the separate room that the guys had been so kind to set up for me. They said they knew I hadn't had any privacy in three years, and they wanted to do something nice. I'd been flattered at the time, but after the events of the day, I really just wanted to be with people. To be with Joe.

I heard the click of a door closing, and then I felt my bed shift, so I turned over and found Joe next to me. His eyes were glassy and red-rimmed. He reached up to brush a strand of hair behind my ear and I put my hand to his, holding it against my face.

"I'm…"

"Don't," he interrupted. "Don't say that you're sorry, or ask me if I'm okay. I don't think I can take any more of that." I smiled at him, running my hand down his cheek.

"I was going to say I'm glad you're here."

"Oh." He offered me a weak smile, taking my hand from his face and studying it, tracing the lines with his fingers. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else." Then, after a few minutes, "I want to feel something again, Kas. It's like I don't feel anything inside anymore. You know what I mean? I laugh. I get angry. I get sad. Because that's what I'm supposed to do. But I don't really feel anything inside anymore."

"Yeah, sweetie. I know what you mean. I used to be so passionate about things. You know me," I agreed. He nodded. We'd had many discussions and arguments that were the result of our passion over various subjects, but that was all early on. It had begun to change as the war went on, and by the time we'd gone through Bastogne, the passion had been wrung out of us. "It's necessary in some ways, I guess. Spiers was right. Emotion can cloud judgement. Feeling gets in the way in a war."

He trailed his fingers from my hand down my arm. "True. Just after that camp today…" His eyes were on his fingers as they ran up my shoulder and to my neck. "I just want to feel something… I mean, really feel something again."

His thumb ran across my mouth, and my breath caught in my throat, both from his touch and from the way he was looking at me. I saw his tongue dart out to wet his lower lip before he bit down on it. I could feel him leaning closer and my eyes fluttered closed as his lips met mine.

I felt him pull back, still so close that I could feel him breathing. My eyes met his. He was waiting for me to protest. To push him away. To remind him that we were best friends and that this could ruin everything. He was all prepared to defend himself.

"Kas, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to come in here and… I mean, I don't want you to think that I… Shit, I don't even know what I'm trying to say. I just figured that if anyone could help me feel again, it would be you. I'll just go back in the…"

I gripped the fabric of his T-shirt so he couldn't pull away from me, and leaned back into his body, pressing our lips together again. The arm he wasn't leaning on flailed in surprise for a moment before settling around my waist. As he grew bolder, he swept his tongue against mine and slid his arm up my back to tangle a hand in my hair, giving it a soft tug. I moaned into his mouth and felt a low rumble in his chest as he rolled me to my back and settled across me.

He was stroking my face as he looked down at me, and his eyes held something that I didn't remember ever seeing before. My fingers traced the exposed skin at his waist, sliding up his back and toward his shoulders, pulling the shirt with me as I went. He allowed me to pull it over his head and watched as I traced the muscles in his chest. His breathing quickened, and I could feel his heart pounding, but I tugged his dog tags down until his lips met mine again.

One arm was holding him up as he hovered above me. The other slid down to clutch my hip, pulling me against him so that I could feel his arousal. The feeling of our bodies pressed so intimately together brought home the reality of what was happening between us.

"Kasia, are you sure you want to do this?"

"You wanted to feel something, Joe. So did I. Seems like we're both feeling something now."

"But we…"

"Wouldn't want to feel this with anyone else," I finished. "Joe, stop worrying about tomorrow. We both want this right now. We'll figure out what happens tomorrow when we get there."

He watched me carefully as he slid my shirt slowly over my head, still waiting for me to panic or tell him that this wasn't what I wanted. I didn't. His lips moved down my neck, and I sighed as he trailed open-mouthed kisses along my chest and down my stomach. I felt him pop the button on my trousers and I lifted my hips so that he could slide them off.

He knelt above me as he bared my legs, and I saw that look in his eyes again. This time, I recognized it as desire. When he kissed behind my knee it sent a shiver through me, and I could feel his satisfied smile against my skin. I reached up to caress his toned stomach, unbuttoning his trousers and tugging him back down to me. My fingernails slid over his skin, pushing the trousers off as I went, and he crashed his lips to mine again. I felt him kick the trousers off and then all that was between us was the thin cotton of my panties.

He was toying with the fabric, still giving me one last chance to protest.

"Joe, please…"

"Please what, baby?" he prodded, watching my eyes. I held his heated stare, intertwining my fingers with his and guiding his hand to remove the only thing standing between us. When they were gone, his hand returned to tenderly stroke my cheek and he drew me into a long, slow kiss. His hips shifted against mine, groaning as he finally joined our bodies.

I could tell that he was trying to be gentle, moving slowly until he was fully inside me and then allowing me to adjust. I dug my fingers into his shoulder blades and whispered into his ear as the pain quickly subsided.

"I'm okay, Joe. Now, I want you to make me feel something."

He almost growled into my ear, "Anything you want, baby."

He was tender at first, but as our kisses and touches became more heated, we began to lose control. The passion we had always felt was mixing with the pain and anger of the last year. His thrusts became deeper and wilder, driving the breath from my body with every movement. I bit down on his collar bone to keep from crying out. With the sudden feeling of my teeth on his skin, he moved a hand down to pull me into him, gripping my hip so that I was sure I'd have finger marks.

Kisses and caresses. A tangle of hot skin, and a soundtrack of muffled moans and breathless gasps. We were damp with sweat, but totally in sync with our rhythm. Joe was mumbling against my skin, and I could hear the blood rushing in my ears as my body began to tingle.

"You're so fucking sexy. You feel so good. That's it, baby," he coaxed. "Just let it go."

My body was quivering and my eyes were wet as the waves of my orgasm began to roll over me. He kissed me to muffle my cries and his own.

His release quickly followed mine, and as it did, I heard him murmur, "I have wanted this for so long, Kas."

"You have?"

"Yeah. Since Toccoa. I just didn't know if…"

"I love you, Joe." His eyes snapped up to mine, and I noticed that they were wet too.

Our love-making was slower this time. There was quiet laughter and soft touches. It was tender and more deliberate as we explored each other, body and soul. When we were finally exhausted we lay, still tangled, facing each other as he traced a finger over my curves.

He kissed me again and, against my lips, whispered, "I promise you that I will love you every single day for the rest of forever."

That night, I fell asleep in the arms of the man I'd spend the rest of my mornings waking up to.