You're at the vanity borrowing Jadzia's hairbrush, trying madly to give your hair the impression that it had not spent the last hour or so tangled up in strong, longer fingers and hands. The very hands that were now tracing up your back and embracing you from behind.

"I wish you'd spend the night, sometime," Jadzia says.

"I have," You answer. Your tone is dismissive, but Dax knows you're too intelligent to not know what she meant.

"A planned night. One where you don't go running off in the morning without saving goodbye."

She's kissing your neck and making it hard to concentrate. No doubt a well timed and ill intentioned. You stop and give up on your hair for the moment. You close your eyes and leans back and feels Jadzia pressing up behind you. Strong bodied. There to catch you ever should you fall. This necking is becoming a habit, and she's starting to learn your weak spots. Just how to touch you to keep you there just a little while longer should she want you to stay. Or much, much longer if she has something more in mind.

"I thought we were keeping this casual." You voice is but a breath above a whisper. It's all you can manage just then.

"We are. And that's fine." Her hands move and her thumbs find places behind your hips against the small of your back and begin to dig, applying hard pressure in small, circular motion. You carry all your tension in your back. She's told you that before, and so have doctors. All the tension of the world are on your back and on your shoulders. It's not good for you, but it's the only way this body knows how to live.

That is, except, in her arms. Where if you ever gave her the time you know, full well, she'd melt all the tension away. Maybe that's what's got you scared stiff out of letting her into your arms for more than a few short hours now and again. If you don't get the chance to plan a full attack, then you'll never fully be conquered.

You turn around and expect she'll step away, but she doesn't. Instead her hands take to your hips and pull you in to kiss you softly. Mouths closed. Your decision, not hers. Just a soft peck on the lips.

"Unless you're ashamed of us, that is."

"Don't be ridiculous. There's no one on this station who's earned more respect than you, Dax." You push passed her. You avoid eye contact.

Go to the bedside table. Get your jewelry. Put it back on. Keep moving. You'll be due back at Ops any minute.

"Or with more of a reputation," she says, her voice coming up behind you and lingering a few paces back where she's leaning, arms crossed over her chest, shoulder up against the doorway.

You stop and look at her. She smiles calmly the way she always can, with her hands held as if the secrets of life lay casually within their so easily clasped together palms. Maybe that's why she usually keeps them behind her back. When they're let loose, they're nothing but trouble.

You could watch the way she moves all day. The way her motions flow and are strong but through a subtle, tamed practice. Your movements are strong too, but they are harsh, and sometimes clumsy. They are still of war. You wonder if you might ever be so beautiful if you will never be so at peace.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You think I'm beneath you."

"Haven't you been paying attention? Most is these times it's the other way round."

She hums a laugh, but you're not off the hook yet.

Go find the overshirt you threw down somewhere earlier when she pulled you into her arms. You can't remember where it was thrown because she'd caught your jaw between her fingers and hadn't let you break her stare. It feels simply, embarrassing, to have to hunt around her rooms for the piece that make you who you are. Your earring. Your boots. Your uniform. She's slowly making you realize that these items are less who you are and more who you choose to become. You feel empty without your armor.

"I mean these little one night affairs. You're afraid that if people onboard found out about them, that you're just going to seem like another notch on my belt."

You look up, halting from putting on your shoes.

"... Am I?"

"Of course not. That's what I've been trying to tell you."

She comes and sits next to you and brushes hair away from your eyes. You think she's going to kiss you again, but she doesn't.

"What we are and what we do is nobody's business but our own."

"That's how I feel."

"Then you shouldn't worry about hiding it."

You stare for a moment and you feel the way her thumb is making small circles against your temple and cheekbone. Stay like this for too long, and she might hypnotize you completely.

"I'll think about."

"That's all I ask."

You get up to go. She stays in the bedroom but calls out as you near the door. "Come back tonight."

You exit as you always do: without saying goodbye.

By the end of your shift, you're shaking. Shaking because you know the decision is already made and you will indeed go back to Jadzia's room come evening when you've been dismissed for the day. You've kept your mind so on your work that crew members have asked if there's about to be a surprise drill, or if some high up politician or Starfleet Officer was making their way to the station. You've kept out of Ops. Kept away from any of the science labs. Stayed far, far away from crew quarters. But by the time the proverbial bell tolls, there's absolutely no work left to be done. No reason to stay late or weakly comm Jadzia with some half baked excuse.

You go to your room and pack a small night bag and wonder why you feel more like you're turning yourself in for petty theft rather than going to spend the night in a lover's arms.

If Dax is as surprised when you show up at her doorstep, she hides it masterfully, casually asking you in and telling you to set your bag anywhere. You push it up against the loveseat in the living area and stand as stiff and uncompromising as a cadet, still wet behind the ears, first day on the front lines. Jadzia walks into the room from having gotten changed, takes one look at you and starts laughing.

"At ease, commander!" she teases when you fix her with a look so cold it may have registered as a very high stun setting on a phaser plasma test.

She smiles and walks up to you and cups your face between her hands. The joking is gone from her voice as she says, "I'm glad you came."

You reach up and take one of her hands in yours and your gaze falls away. I don't know why I'm making such a big deal over this. "I'm… glad I did, too. And, listen, Jadzia, about earlier. I never meant to hurt your feelings or anything. I just…"

"I know. You didn't." she says, "I just wish you would trust me, Kira."

"I do trust you. I trust you with my life. We've been in battle how many times together, now?"

"Trusting someone in battle is one thing. Trusting someone in bed is a lot harder."

You scoff and move to rebuke the statement, the words die before they reach your tongue. Maybe she had a fair point.

"This… isn't exactly…" you're saying as you go to sit down and she follows, sitting opposite of you on the settee, "how I've ever… been with someone. Before."

"You mean casually?"

"Yes. No. Well…" you sigh into your hands and try to explain, "During the Occupation… Things were just… different. Everything was different. Sex was different. It was just a need. Like anything else. Food. Water. Blankets. And you just… took what you needed and gave others what they needed back."

"Doesn't sound very romantic."

"It wasn't." You look away, "And then, when the war was over… well, for awhile, sex stayed like that. You'd see an old friend, someone who'd been in a firefight with, and you'd just… take what you need. Again. And then things changed…"

"With Bareil."

You nod. "We were in love. And we made love. And it was so different from anything else and I didn't care about what anyone else thought about us. Not the commander. Not the Kai…"

"But with us…?"

"With us…" you shrug, "it's different. We're… in between."

"In between?"

"We're not what Bareil and I had. We're not what I used to have during the Occupation. I just… I don't know what to make of this. Of us."

Dax smiles and she takes your hands in hers. "You know what I think?"

"What?"

"I think it's an excuse."

"Excuse me?" you get up and pull your hands away, outraged to have let your heart open only to have Jadzia shut the door in your face.

"Listen. Hear me out," she says and stands to follow you. "I think you're just… making something very complicated where it shouldn't be. And whether you realize it or not, I think you're doing it on purpose. Because you don't want to get close to me. You don't trust me."

"Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because, Kira, until this, you've only ever been with other Bajorans."

"I don't care about that."

"You don't want to. But that doesn't mean you don't…" she signs and puts a hand on your shoulder and you fight the urge to shrug it off. "Think about it. Until Starfleet came in a few years ago all you'd known of other alien races were either the Cardassians who were conquerors or the species that were bystanders who let it happen. I think your knee jerk reaction is to assume an alien is going to hurt you. Either directly or by not caring enough."

"You sound like a therapist."

"Well… we could use one on this station."

You each laugh a little. Could you just imagine it? Dax, as a therapist…

"So, you don't think I trust you?" Jadzia shakes her head. "Well then... what do you want to do about it?"

Jadzia pauses a moment. The way her eyes go off make you feel as though it's a question she's already given a fair amount of thought to.

"Well, there is one idea."

"Which is?"

She raises a hand, pointer finger up, a sign to give her a minute, then disappears into the darkened bedroom. She emerges a little while later, after the sound of some drawers opening and closing and general rustling around, and comes back. She holds out her hands and in them lay two, thin but long pieces of cloth. You take them in your hands and rub them between your fingers. Very soft. They felt like something Commander Sisko had once showed you. An Earth material called satin.

"I don't understand," you say, looking back up at Dax as you continue to run your hands over the glossy surface.

Jadzia just raises an eyebrow at you. Says nothing.

Then: Realization.

You jump to your feet "What? Me? No! Are you insane?"

She shakes her head and smiles like she knew this was exactly how you'd react. Because of course it is. What the hell did she expect you to say? 'Oh, you're right. I do have trust issues. Why don't I let you tie me up and blindfold me to prove it?'

"No. No way. Absolutely not."

She just shrugs. "Think about it."

"I am thinking about it. And the thought is no. So think something else."

She smiles and sits back down. "I'm open to alternative suggestions…"

You're starting to wonder if this isn't all just a joke to her. Like how far can she pull your leg? What can she make you agree to? By the gods, if word ever got out that you let somebody-...

But then there was trust. Trusting Jadzia to not be playing cruel jokes. Trusting that she wouldn't go making you the neighborhood gossip of the station. Trust that she wouldn't have suggested it if she didn't genuinely think it might actually be a good idea.

She can see the way your mind is working on the idea. She reaches over and takes one of the soft sleeves from your hands and loosely makes a bow around your wrists. You tinker with it a little, feeling how the fabric rubs against your skin gently. You can feel your heartbeat in your throat.

Jadzia gets up and stands beside you. She puts her hand against your cheek and turns your chin so you look her way and she kisses you softly. Slowly. Until you forget everything but this room and this woman and these two ridiculous scraps of cloth between your hands.

"... You can tell me to stop anytime."

Surprisingly, it's the darkness that's harder to get used to than the restrained movement. You've had sex in the dark before. Why should this be any different? But it is. Something about not being able to see a lover's movements. Being unable to anticipate the sensations before they flowed across your skin. It's unnerving. More so than the way you keep forgetting your hands are above you each time an impulse drives out a hand to hold or to touch or to react. You find yourself moving your head around, trying to get comfortable with your own lack of comfort.

She's remarkably tame with you at the start. And you're thankful her wicked side has submerged for the time being, because sitting in the dark and feeling your hands connected to the headboard while hearing the sounds of the unrestrained lover beside you, suddenly you begin remembering past incarnations of nights like these when you had been less than gentle yourself. Mad with need and longing. You didn't know if you could be so kind as she was now — laying next to you and kissing gently and softly in well-established safe zones until you begin to settle beneath her — if your positions had been reversed.

Her hands are meticulous. Methodical. Slow. They work over your skin in long, even strokes, rubbing out tension knots in time for new ones to form. You're breathing heavy before anything even begins. She's just touching you. She's touched you like this before. And much… much, more.

But it's different. You both know it is. And you're caught between anger and complete relief and gratitude that she should know you so well to force every moment from you slowly. If she'd just get on with it then what would have been the point of the exercise? She wants to make you work through what you're feeling. What she's making you feel. And that it's alright to feel those things. You know this because as she goes along she's whispering it to you. Against your ear, the hollow of your throat, the peak of your collarbone, the softness of your stomach. Each time you fear you might start to hyperventilate, she's already noticed and backed off a bit, moving to kiss or touch a higher trafficked area until your calm enough for her to proceed.

Finally, when she's made her way up and down your body several times, you're starting to get impatient with being kept in the dark for so long. You always knew you craved control but this was showing it to you in a whole new light. Who were you without that tightly wound fist grasped tight around every situation to fall your way?

"What time is it?"

"Am I boring you?"

"No, I just want to know what time it is."

You hear the mattress shift and feel her weight leave the bed. At first, you think she's gone into the other room to check the time other than just asking the computer to call it out to you. You wonder why you're not just asking the computer yourself. But instead of hearing the sound of a monitor being turned on or a comm panel being activated, you hear the replicator. Followed by her footsteps returning to the bedroom.

"Jadzia…"

"It's 0200."

"What did you get?"

She's quiet and you hear as something is set down beside you on the nightstand. Your breath and heart speed up again and your tugging slightly at the makeshift restraint, knuckles turning white as you ball your hands into fists. Damn. You really aren't one of these 'comfortable when not in control' types, are you?

She doesn't leave you in the dark too long. Maybe it's mercy; maybe she just knows better. After a few seconds of silence you hear a sound you can't quite identity as she picks something up from the nightstand. And then you gasp at the suddenness of a cold and wet sensation pressed lightly to your chest bone.

Ice. It was ice that she had gotten.

You could almost laugh, and you start to as a sort of nervous reaction when she trails it down your chest to your navel, skipping over it, and then continuing below for another several centimeters.

The next thing you feel is a warm tongue back where the ice had been, which traces the line back up, up, to stop at the base of your throat and beginning sucking until you know it'll leave a red mark. It won't show with your uniform on. She's too smart to make a careless mistake like that. And too kind to force you into a situation that, despite the way you deny it when accused, she knows you aren't yet either prepared or willing to tackle.

And it all leads back to what she first told you: she wants you to trust her. She's not going to hurt you. She's not going to take advantage of you. She's not going to push you beyond your limits.

She is, however, going to press the remainder of the ice cube to the nape of your neck without warning and laugh slightly when it startles the daylights out of you.

"Dax-!"

"Oh, hush," she teases.

She takes her mouth over the spot and leaves the ice on your skin so you can feel when she starts to move it down along the slope of your breast. Her lips are over top of yours by the time it reaches the center of the areola and you're sighing into her open mouth. You bite your tongue as not to whimper. You'd never let yourself make such a cry of need or weakness. Though, for an instant, she pauses over you and you wonder if maybe she'll make you try.

Thankfully if it was an idea in her head it's quickly abandoned and she moves to kissing the cold trail the ice has left behind until her mouth lingers on your breast and teeth start carefully working the area. You hiss a sharp breath. She's got one hand pressing against your side and the other is working your other breast similarly. You begin cursing quietly under your breath, which occasionally causes her to stop and laugh.

"You're doing very good," she cooes.

"Dax-"

"Kira."

The ice has been abandoned. It's probably melting on the pillow next to you. One of her hands is cold from having held it but the heat resonating off you quickly warms both of Jadzia's back up as she moves along you again, this time with the focus of the operation on her mouth. Lips. Teeth. Tongue. They run the gamut of your body. You can feel the places where old scars no longer afford you much sensation. And, for once, this bothers you. It never has before, but you can't remember the last time you'd been touched so persistently. Even the places on you that you've long ago started ignoring she's discovering now and refusing to deny equal if not more attention to. She runs her fingers along your scars and kisses them. Surely she can tell the harsh story written into your skin. With her science background, she knows which wounds were almost fatal.

Finally, when her lips leave the spot along your hip bone where they'd stopped to leave another mark, she takes you with an open mouth and you can feel her tongue inside you. Despite yourself you buck a little under the suddenness of the act. You can hear - and feel - her laugh up against you, and her hands run along your thighs and urge you to relax and open up.

You're gritting your teeth to keep from moaning and the tension carries through your entire body. With each motion of her mouth and tongue against you that tension builds and you start to wonder if maybe this really had been a bad idea. If she was just a little too good at this kind of thing. If a blindfold and a handkerchief loosely tied to the headboard of a bed hadn't been just a tad above your pay grade.

And then her hand slips down and her fingers slide into place to help her tongue to finish taking care of you, and her other palm is pressed flush against the skin of your stomach, providing a subtle pressure each time you feel inclined to squirm away from her touch. She's persistent. Relentless, even. But never malevolent. There's an unmistakable promise that clings in the air around the bed and you know with a single word from your lips she'd be off you, untying you, apologizing for pushing too far. And maybe that's why you're biting your tongue so hard you're starting to taste blood.

You get the distinct impression that, had she wanted to, Jadzia could have made the final throes last much longer, embellishing the build, maybe even making you beg. But she doesn't. And you know that she wouldn't. With the final spastic, reflexive jerk you give under her care, the handkerchief pulls free from its place and your hands fall forward. You could laugh if your mind weren't so otherwise occupied. For goodness sake, how loose had she tied it?

You sit up and pull the makeshift blindfold off in time to see her smiling, moving towards you. And you take her face between your hands and pull her into an open mouthed kiss, tasting yourself on her as you each decline against the headboard. You're still gasping as she holds you. You're fighting to find the words to say what you're feeling but none find their way to you. The technology of the translators has yet to evolve to decode the meaning of shallow breath gasping. But it doesn't need to be said. The way her hands move across you, you can tell she understands.

"I told you you could trust me." she whispers in your ear. And with a laugh and a general growl of playful annoyance you push her down onto the bedspread beneath you and take your lips to hers. It may take time but you've ever intention of returning the sentiment.

AN: Open to suggestions, critique, comments, etc. All feedback appreciated.