A/N: Wrote this in about 40 minutes this morning while listening to Ellie Goulding's song that gives this story its title. Hopefully you'll like it - let me know your thoughts! The narrative style is different from what I'm used to writing, and intimacy is a fascinating theme to write about, so here you go - hope it won't be too bad. Thanks Terrie for editing! :)

Love Me Like You Do

He sweeps me off my feet, quite literally, when we have a glimpse of intimacy right there on the staircase. We have spent too many months apart, too many times, and I simply can't take this separation anymore - even if everything still looks so uncertain for us.

We don't look for certainty anymore - life has taught us to live in the present and not dwell on the past. That's what we do now.

Still, in our years of marriage - almost six years now - I have never felt like this before. For the first time, I feel the same thrill I felt before we were married. His eyes send my heart on fire every time our gaze meets - it is harder and harder to concentrate in the presence of others nowadays.

And the nights - we have never enjoyed them more.

I let him set the pace, which is not something we had been doing recently, in light of the fear I might have felt before. I don't, not anymore - ever since our last Christmas night together, I want him, in any way possible, to consume my body and my soul - I am his, and I don't ever wish to be apart from him again. He heals me every time his hands run over my body, every time his lips are on my skin. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, they say - we don't need distance for that to happen.

We made it to the bed that first night - just barely. I had never felt my body respond like that to him before, not even after he returned home after prison, not even when we were first married, not even after that long trip to London that he took with Lord Grantham. I never knew that it could be that intense - to feel his eyes on me when he touched me low, to mingle our breaths together, to exchange so much more than sweat and passion. It was never simply physical for us, no. But in light of everything that has happened, it means so much more.

Every innocent touch seems to set me on fire; a kiss on the back of my hand, a soft stroke on my knee while we have tea with the other servants. I am out of my mind but I am his.

Other times, we can't seem to make it to the bed in time. Sometimes I can barely contain myself to not kiss him on the way home; other times, I haven't even closed the door yet and he's pulling me closer, his possessive hands around my hips and I feel the familiar sensation in the pit of my stomach. I hear rather than see when we are joined, as wet as I am, as hard as he is. He takes me against the wall, with an agility that so few are aware that he has.

But he's gentle - ever so gentle. He moves within me with care and attention, kissing all the right spots and touching all the right places. His whispers are never anything but full of devotion.

I love you.

And I love him too, so much, but it seems that I lose my words when his lips catch one my nipples, and he quickens his pace. My moans fill the narrow corridor of our home, the home we created together, but that it simply wasn't home without him.

Together, like this, I am home.

We rarely have opportunities to lie in and have a lazy morning, but waking up earlier doesn't seem so bad now. He wakes me with kisses, and I respond to them almost instantly; my body awakens before my mind does. He says we can't take too long, that we need to get going, but sometimes I simply can't pay his words enough attention. I want him.

I move confidently until I'm on top of him and I know he won't resist me - he never does. He has mentioned more than once that I make him a weak man, but I like to think that this only makes us stronger together. Soon he is the one taking off my nightgown, and his night clothes are pushed away, if they hadn't been already, on the night before.

And we are one again.

He always rushes me to the point of no return, and more often than not I finish before him, but when I'm in control like this I have the opportunity to drive him a little over the edge - our lovemaking isn't always emotional, it isn't always slow, and I am sure it is not always sensual - but I giggle every time I accidentally hit a ticklish spot on him, and it seems that every time we change positions it takes us a few seconds to get used to it. But it's fun, and it's intimate, and it's us, just like we were always supposed to be.

I sometimes wonder if perhaps I'm pushing him too hard; he might not always be in the mood, he might grow tired of me. But a part of me knows that he won't, not ever, not when he takes the opportunity to kiss my neck in between excerpts of a novel that we have been reading to each other before sleep. Not when his hands slide up my nightgown and he pushes my underwear to the side, kissing me lower and lower. Not when he sucks at my sensitive spots like he does, not when he loves me like he does. His hands and his lips make a fine act, take me to the edge like I never knew before.

I can't see clear anymore.

It's been five months since our last reunion and while life still holds surprises, we are together - and that's all that matters. We are a bit more tentative in dreaming, but not all surprised are bad. I did tell him that it just takes some people longer - and when I tell him my latest news, he sweeps me off my feet again, and I simply know where this will lead once more.

We are healing, each in their own way, and healing the other in return. We are different now, and yet we're the same as before.

And we'll be three in a few months.