Title: Camping

Author: David

Rating: T

Summary: Taking a stab a Pixie's August fanfic challenge.

Category: Complete and utter fluff. H/M

Completed: August 14, 2005

Harm lurched, half asleep, swatting the mosquito that had chosen that moment to feast on the flesh of his right temple. It was the heat that brought them out. Damn it, why could those things drink water instead of blood?

The stunningly beautiful, and utterly naked, Marine Colonel draped across his chest sighed softly. Her arms wound their way around his neck, and her legs tangled with his own inside the sleeping bag they shared. "Harm? What's the matter?" She mumbled into the hollow of his neck.

He and Mac were roughing it in a tiny tent at the foot of Mount Rainier in Washington state. The camping trip was kind of a honeymoon within a honeymoon–that he had managed to swing it to get time off so soon after taking over a new command was a feet in and of itself–as they spent their leave-time after their wedding traveling from B&B to B&B down the Washington and Oregon coast.

"Something bit me," he replied, still not quite fully awake. His arms slid down her back, pulling her tight against him. She sighed in contentment and placed a feather-light kiss onto the base of his throat.

She smiled, and nuzzled in closer. "Did you kill it?"

A tremor of laughter rumbled through his chest as he placed a kiss on her forehead. "Terminated with extreme prejudice," he replied, and she giggled.

"Good. I'd hate to have to apply my Marine training to protect you from malcontent insects in the middle of the night."

She was rubbing one of her legs against his own; the silky smoothness of her skin contrasting with the hairy roughness of his.

"And just who's going to protect me from you?" He asked slyly. Harm slid his hand down until it rested on her bottom, stroking the skin softly with the pad of his thumb.

She tensed at his touch and then nearly melted into him; their bodies touching from head to toe. "I'm not so sure it's YOU who needs protection from ME," she whispered.

Harm laughed. "Worried about your virtue, Marine?"

Mac's hand found his face in the darkness, and she pulled his head down, capturing his lips with her own. Harm drank her in, savoring the taste, the smell, the feel of her body against his.

His lungs were burning from lack of air when she finally ended the kiss. Her voice was breathless when she spoke. "My virtue is safe with you, Harm. It's always been safe with you."

Harm felt slightly overwhelmed by the absolute trust she placed in him. She was everything to him; his life, the breath that filled his lungs, the radiant sunshine that burned away all the unhappiness that had plagued him his entire life.

"I love you, baby," he said. His voice was low and soft, and filled with the expansive love for the woman he held in his arms. "For now and all eternity."

Mac shifted slightly so she was staring down into his eyes. "I love you, too..." She paused. "Do you think eternity will be long enough?"

Harm chuckled, kissing the end of her chin. "I doubt it, but we'll just have to make do, I suppose."

"Deal," she replied, and then she was kissing him again. Stoking the fires of passion between them that they were never quite able to quench.

Much later, sated and spent, Harm pulled Mac close; savoring the feel of her warm, sweaty skin against his own. He dropped a kiss onto her temple as her own arms tightened around his neck. "I don't think I'll ever get enough of that," he said quietly.

She ran her hands through is hair; smoothing out the tangles from their lovemaking. "That makes two of us, Sailor."

Harm snuggled down further into the slightly disheveled sleeping bag, taking the love of his life with him. Mac laid her head on his chest as he reached for the zipper, sealing them inside the warm cocoon. "We should do this more often," he said, rubbing small circles between Mac's shoulders with the palm of his hand.

"Yeah, this is nice." She kissed his chest and reached for his hand, taking it in her own. Lacing their fingers together, she tucked their joined hands up under her chin, kissing his knuckles.

"Night, Harm."

"G'night, baby," he replied, his arm tightening across her shoulders.

Harm closed his eyes when he felt Mac relax into slumber, and soon followed her, content in the knowledge that he held everything he needed to survive, right there in his arms.