A/N: Timeline - set after "The Touch of Rain". If you missed that one, it's post-"Here and There", after the honeymoon.

Bobby POV

I woke up to the sound of the rain.

That was my first realization.

My second was that I was alone in the bed, and that was completely unacceptable.

I rolled out of bed and walked quietly through our new home.

When we'd arrived back in New York from St. Thomas on Thursday, Alex had a message waiting from her dad.

Actually, we had quite a few messages waiting for both of us because neither of us had taken our cell phones with us. Logan knew the name of our hotel in St. Thomas so if there had been an emergency, he could've found us. But anything short of a major crisis, we didn't want to be bothered.

Alex's dad had called and left an interesting message. He said that while we were gone, he'd found us the perfect place to live.

I had my doubts, but we agreed to meet him to do a walk-through.

Once we saw the place I decided that maybe he was trying to make things right with me and with Alex. He'd obviously put a lot of thought into the search.

The current owners had already moved out, so we were able to arrange to rent the place while we waited for the bank to process the mortgage. That way we could go ahead and move in. It was the ideal situation.

Of course, we had no furniture at the moment. Well, we did have a bed, but that was about it. And most of our stuff was still in boxes. But that was okay.

The place was small, but it was always only going to be just the two of us, so it was plenty big enough. It was fairly modern, and only about ten blocks from Mike and Carolyn, but the selling point had really been the balcony. Although it was too cold for it now, I had no doubt that we would be spending a lot of time on it in the warmer months.

The price had been a little higher than I'd been hoping for but considering the location, it was worth the money. Alex had received a generous check from the insurance company after her place was burned down by that nut job Masarro, so we were able to make a sizeable down-payment.

And since I'd be earning retirement wages in addition to the consulting fees that we'd both be pulling in, I thought we'd be okay.

I never dreamed that I would own a condo in Brooklyn, but in another month it would officially be ours.

After wandering down the hall, I found Alex exactly where I'd expected. She stood in front of the large living room window watching the rain. She had a blanket wrapped around her otherwise bare body.

"It's not fair that it would do this today," she commented, sensing my presence even though her eyes never left the window.

"Rain?"

Personally, I loved the rain now. I would never look at it the same way again. Every time a drop fell from the sky, I would be picturing Alex out on that patio in St. Thomas.

"Yeah," she answered wistfully. "On our first day back."

Ah. Work.

"We only have two more weeks," I reminded her. I went up behind her and wrapped my arms around her. "Or we could call in sick."

"How is it," she began as she leaned back into me, "that the most work-driven man I have ever known has managed to make me care so little about work?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?" I asked as I shifted against her in an effort to get her to loosen her grip on the blanket.

And yeah, we were in front of the window, but the room was dark and it was dark outside…and I just didn't care.

"I'm serious," she laughed. "Think back to a year ago."

"I don't want to. A year ago I was still only dreaming about you," I whispered into her ear.

"I mean think back to how you felt about work," she clarified, although at the same time, she tilted her head so that I could have better access to her neck. "It was everything to you. To me, too. And now we can't wait to get out of there."

"It was all I had, and it was my only connection to you," I replied simply. She sighed and closed her eyes as I continued kissing along her throat.

She let the blanket fall to the floor.

She kept her back to me and I was mesmerized by the visual in front of me. I could see her reflection in the window coupled with the water droplets streaming down the glass.

"How much time do we have?" she asked me in a low tone.

"Enough," I assured her as I eased her against the glass. She inhaled sharply when the cold pane touched her skin, but she didn't step back.

I ran my hands down her back, alternating light and strong pressure in just the right places. She sighed heavily and turned her face so that her cheek was flush against the glass as well.

I idly wished that I had the camera so that I could capture the lovely tableau but it wasn't worth stepping away from her to get it. I didn't really need it anyway.

The image was burned into my mind.

"I think we call in sick," I whispered as I continued to work my hands over her, expertly building up her arousal. I was confident in this area if nowhere else. I knew how to please her.

"Bobby," she forced out, her breath coming faster.

The way she said my name…I could remember too many times before we'd gotten together, how easy it was for me to drift off into a fantasy just from the sound of my name on her lips.

"What do you think?" I continued casually simply because I knew she liked me to talk to her. "Take another trip? Maybe this time somewhere cold? We'd have to snuggle together by the fire to keep each other warm…"

She didn't respond, but I didn't expect her to.

Her face was flushed, her eyes were closed, and her lips were parted. She kept whispering my name over and over and if I wasn't careful, this whole thing was going to be over before it even began.

Her voice began to get louder and I knew she was oh so close but I wasn't ready to let her go yet. So I stopped.

She groaned her disapproval, but then I pulled her back from the window and down onto the floor with me.

"That was just wrong," she told me, although she had a smile on her face.

I returned her smile as I rolled her underneath me and then I pushed inside of her as deep as I could.

We were both still for a moment, relishing the feeling of being together again.

"I won't leave you hanging," I whispered. "Work with me here. We'll get there together."

"Always," she agreed as she slid her hands down my back. Her fingertips were cold from where they had rested against the window and they conversely felt like trails of fire on my sensitive skin.

I had planned to make it slow. Really, I did.

I wanted to bring her to the edge again and again. I wanted to make her scream my name. I wanted it to last so long that we both collapsed from physical exhaustion.

But then she did this thing…I had to find out what the woman was reading in her down time. It had to be a book about sexual secrets. I didn't want to think that she just knew these things from experience.

But nonetheless, she did this…thing, and I was a goner. Slow and steady was out the window, kicked in the ass by fast and frantic.

And I was the one screaming her name rather than the other way around.

Not that I'm complaining. All's fair in sex and love.

"Where the hell did you learn that?" I asked her when I was finally able to speak again.

Several long minutes had passed, and I was mildly afraid that I was crushing her since my limbs had turned to jell-o, but I couldn't gather up the strength to move.

And I know Alex. If she wanted me off of her, I'd be off.

"You liked that?"

"I did. My heart…I'm not so sure. We may need to add a defibrillator to the first aid kit."

"Are you okay?" she asked quickly.

"I'm fine," I laughed. "I'm better than fine. I'm not sure if I'll be able to move anytime soon…"

I was cut off by the ringing phone.

"If you think you can roll in one direction or the other, I'll get the phone," she teased.

I moved, and she hopped up to answer the cell. It was mine, but it wasn't like we cared anymore.

"Goren," she answered. I looked up at her from my spot on the floor and watched as she took the call.

From the sound of her end of the conversation, it was clearly Ross. It had to be a body if he was calling us now when we were due into work in another couple of hours.

"Thank you, Captain. We'll meet you there."

She hung up and looked down at me. I still hadn't gotten up.

"We've got a body."

"Yeah?"

"A jumper. He went out of his fortieth-floor office window about two hours ago."

"Who is it?" I asked as I sat up. It had to be someone big for us to get the call.

"Carlos Medina."

The name rang a bell but I couldn't put my finger on it.

"Some kind of financial wizard," she continued. "Ross said that the next of kin pulled some strings. I guess our reputation precedes us."

"I always knew it did, but I figured it was in a bad way."

"Speak for yourself," she joked as she held out a hand to help me up. "The captain's on-scene now. I told him we'd be there in an hour."

"I'm moving."

I let her help me to my feet even though I would've rather just pulled her down to me instead.

We stood there together in the empty living room, both of us reluctant to start the day. Especially now that we had a case, once we left the sanctity of this moment, it would be non-stop.

"I'm sorry we had to cut our time short," she told me.

"Me, too. You know, every time I think things can't get better, they do," I told her as I gently tucked a strand of her hair back behind her ear.

"Well, eventually I'm going to run out of tricks to surprise you with."

"Maybe. But maybe I have a trick or two of my own."

"I bet you do," she said with a smile. And then she gave me a little nod. "You ready?"

"Let's do this," I agreed. And we went down the hall to get ready for the day.

See, that was the great thing.

As much as we loved our alone time together, when we did have to go to work, we were still together. And I loved the professional side of Alex, too.

I loved her quick intelligence and her deductive abilities. Declan had commented to me once that I was always three steps ahead of everyone else. Maybe that was true of everyone but Alex. She and I were always perfectly in stride.

So even though our down time was over for now, things were still great, just in a different way. How many people get to do what they love, with the one they love? I'd wager to guess not too damn many.

An hour later, we arrived at the scene on Thirty-Second Street. The block was cordoned off and uniforms were scattered about. The rain had stopped not too long ago, and the sky was just beginning to lighten.

"Detectives," Ross greeted us with a curt nod.

I hadn't been sure how he would respond to us after our latest round of bonding. The whole hostage thing and the car bomb…

But apparently it was going to be business as usual. And that was fine. He'd been nice enough to give us the time off. I didn't expect him to suddenly turn into a friend.

"So the victim," Alex began. "You said Carlos Medina?"

"That's right."

"What's his story?"

"Forty-four year old banker. He has a brother in the fire department. He's the one who insisted on Major Case. He also has an ex-wife in Murdock Woods. She hasn't been called yet. I was hoping you two could make the notification."

"That's fine. But why are we here at all? You said he's a jumper, right?"

"It looked that way at first."

"And now?"

"Now it looks like he had help."

TBC...