A/N: Knock knock! Who's there? IT'S US!
DISCLAIMER: We don't own Rizzoli & Isles, but if we did, Rizzles would be canon and it would be on HBO. Holla!
Jane and Maura lay together sweaty and exhausted, bodies still touching, pressing, and yearning. Always, always on fire, Maura admitted to herself. Maura laid flat on her stomach and Jane was on her side, propped up on one elbow, a scarred hand traipsing lazy circles across Maura's back. Jane could feel Maura's heart still thudding against her ribcage.
They had been doing this dance for months, this thing that neither of them wanted to label. Still friends, best friends, only with… benefits? Jane scrunched her nose at the cliché. Is it because if we call it something, assign a name to it, it becomes real?
Maura sighed, eyes lazily blinking at the soft tickle of Jane's fingers across her naked back. The back that Jane had spent the last hour, or… two, she noticed as she glanced at her bedside clock, grinding into the mattress below her. Impressive. Maura smiled, satiated, but she tried to push the fleeting thought out of her mind, just beyond her subconscious. Just deep enough so that when she looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn't hate who she saw.
The first time it happened, it startled both women. One too many drinks, too many nights spent alone without the company of another, too much time in between having a release. Maura was sitting on her couch, wine glass in hand, her arm stretched out against the back of the couch, toying with Jane's errant curls. Jane was facing her, taking pulls from a beer bottle, legs stretched out across Maura's lap, and before Jane knew it, Maura had pressed a soft kiss to the side of her mouth. Jane didn't pull back, or away, and before Maura knew it, Jane had taken the wine glass and set it on the end table before pushing Maura down into the couch, devouring her mouth, hands roaming anywhere and everywhere. She had Maura begging for more, and Jane gave in without hesitation. She had stayed the night, and when they woke up the next morning, they both settled into their morning routine, never discussing it.
It had happened at least a dozen times since. Sometimes it was hard and fast and wherever they could manage, both seeking an explosion of release that only the other could satisfy. Maura never tired of the way Jane's hands brought her to the edge, and Jane couldn't get enough of Maura's mouth and the magic she worked over her.
Yet sometimes, it was slow, soft, and purposeful. Almost reverent, loving, like each were worshipping the body of the other without being aware of their actions.
But the one steadfast rule: It was not discussed. Ever.
A jerk of Jane's hand startled Maura from her memory, and as she felt Jane's fingertips tracing what she thought were absent patterns across her exposed flesh, she realized that Jane was writing in cursive. They were cursive letters, and Maura tried to concentrate on the slopes and loops, focus on the tips of Jane's fingers and the way they whispered across her skin.
She felt a cursive I, then a pause. Maura stilled her breathing, waiting to see what Jane was trying to tell her. She felt Jane pause a second longer and she wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to turn over and press her lips against Jane's and make Jane tell her, make Jane confide in her whatever fears it was she was suffering from.
L, O, V, E…
Maura's heart skipped a beat. Surely she was wrong. She had to be mistaken. Jane doesn't… she couldn't.
Y, O, U.
There was a pause between each word, but Maura was certain, certain beyond belief that Jane had absentmindedly, or perhaps intentionally, scrawled the words I love you on her bare skin like a branding. Maura's belly coiled with heat and she turned over abruptly, catching Jane off guard.
Maura knew from the look in her lover's eyes that Jane was showing her what she couldn't bring herself to say out loud.
"Actions, Maura," Jane had once confided in her. "Words mean nothing to me. Actions are much better indicators of how a person truly feels."
Maura placed her hands on either side of Jane's face and gently pressed their lips together. Jane responded with fervor, pouring all of the emotions she couldn't express verbally into the way her body molded to Maura's.
When they separated, Maura leaned her forehead against Jane's, eyes closed.
"I love you more." Maura punctuated the word more with a kiss to the tip of Jane's nose.
Maura could feel all the tension release from Jane's body as they snuggled together, Jane practically lying on top of Maura and Maura's arms wrapped around Jane, holding her, anchoring her, a silent promise that everything was going to be okay.