The first time she was with Ray was awkward. She was a babbling, stuttering mess, self-conscious and clumsy at the start. Ray just found it endearing, and he lessened the pain of her mortification. It was nice after that. That man knew his way around a bedroom, and it felt good to let loose and feel good for a while. She wasn't awkward with him after the first time.

But it never quite felt…right.

There was a part of her that always held back. She always closed her eyes at the moment of her climax, or pulled him down for a kiss, or buried her face in his neck when she was on top. She couldn't quite let herself cross over that line into true intimacy, and over the months, he started to notice.

At first, he joked about it, thinking she was shy. It turned into deep meaningful conversations, and she blamed it on her fear of abandonment. He seemed to buy it, and things were good for some time after that. He tried to be supportive, understanding, and patient. She thanked him often for being so good to her, and she tried to reassure him that all she needed was time.

Near the end, it slowly drove a wedge between them. His patience was wearing thin, though he didn't overtly show it. She could tell, though. He would get really quiet afterwards, near the end. They stopped talking about it.

The last time they were together, he begged her to look at him when she was close. And she tried. Really. She almost made it, too, but as her orgasm overtook her she squeezed her eyes shut reflexively. That was the first and last time Ray had looked away. He had pulled away from her after that, storming off to the bathroom and slamming the door shut. She had closed her eyes and cried, feeling terrible for hurting Ray, feeling angry at herself for being unable to cross that final line, and feeling guilty that a small part of her felt relief.

They took a break after that. He said he needed some space, and he asked her to work out her issues. She wasn't sure what he meant.

She had started showing up at the Foundry at night again. Diggle offered to talk to her, but she turned him down. She would rather bury herself in work. Oliver noticed the change in her personality, and she would often catch him staring at her with those damned moony eyes. He had tried, in the beginning, to talk to her, but she brushed him off as quickly as she did with Diggle. He gave her a brief look like she had kicked his puppy, but he nodded, brushed her shoulder, and walked away. He didn't ask anymore after that.

Nights were hard. She had trouble sleeping. She missed having a warm body next to her, to snuggle with, to wake up to. After a couple of weeks, she wasn't ashamed to admit that she missed the sex. After suffering a drought for years and then feasting for months, it was quite an adjustment.

After a proper mourning period, she started thinking about her issues, and Ray's suggestion that she deal with them. She thought long and hard about them. She thought about her past relationships, and she didn't remember having this issue back then. So this was a new issue, and she thought about the factors in her life that had changed recently. And then, like turning on a light switch, she knew.

The next time she was in the Foundry, she was alone with Oliver. Diggle and Roy had already gone home for the night, Oliver was working out, and Felicity was finishing up some code for a program she was writing. She thought about her epiphany. As Oliver dropped down from the salmon ladder and reached for a towel to dry off his sweat, she decided to test her theory.

She shut down her computers for the night, and walked slowly and hesitantly toward him, her heart racing in her chest. He saw her approach and looked at her curiously, asking what was wrong. His eyes widened with alarm as she stepped into his personal space, and he tried to protest when she ran her hands over his muscled torso, grabbing her hands, asking her to stop. He asked what she was doing when she stood up on her toes and pulled him down by the neck to kiss him, but his attempts to resist her ceased soon after.

As she jumped up to wrap her legs around his waist as he moved to lay her down on the cot, she decided that this, feeling this man's body moving over hers and his tongue battling with hers, this felt right, right in a way that being with Ray wasn't.

And this time, when she was close, when her muscles clenched and fluttered around him, she couldn't tear her eyes away from his.