A/N: Because I needed to stretch my writing muscles. And because someone asked me very, very nicely. :)

Interlude

When the harsh, life-affirming grip of the orgasm finally releases its hold, he falls, just like he always does, to the softness of the bed and her body on top of it. Her arms slip away with ease despite the harsh vice they had been mere moments ago.

In the darkness of the room, they both catch their breaths. Even with his every cell singing with remnants of pleasure only now beginning to ebb away, it doesn't once escape him: this is momentary. He knows that this is just a pause, a single breath before the world comes rushing back. But for now at least, he's content to revel in these few, precious seconds.

And it is enough.

Sex between them is first. It comes before words, real words that he knows he needs to share with her. It comes before his future is certain, before he knows where he stands with her, before he thinks to even doubt. Before he can stop it.

And it is a flurry of movement, of hands and lips and skin, miles of brown skin that he has to learn every inch of with his fingers, with his tongue. It is him lifting her into his arms, broken lamps and the unfamiliar scent of an impersonal hotel room; it is his fingers finding too many goddamn buttons on her shirt. It is him watching as she slowly steps out of her clothes for him. It is him utterly captivated, spellbound, nervous as he sets her body on the bed and kneels above her like a starving man being given permission to feast after years of gnawing, desperate hunger.

It is her looking up at him like he's a god, rubbing one sinewy-silk leg along his naked torso and smiling as his hands fumble with the buttons on his own shirt. It is, god, that skin all against his own, her body molding against his like a puzzle piece he never knew he had been missing; it is her gasping and clenching her fingers into his scalp as he licks and suckles and bites and kisses and devours her alive; it is her hand against the back of swollen lips to muffle the sounds as he works his way down, down, down until there—

And then, as good as it had been before, it gets even better, because now she is winding and writhing and squirming against sheets that he wishes with all his might were his fucking own, and she is gasping and mewling and keening as he tongues her, sucks and licks and presses and circles and plunges and then it is her voice, strained and hoarse saying, "Oh my god, Fitz—"

And after that it is all touch and sensation and feeling and blown pupils and his own gasp ricocheting throughout the room as her hand wraps around him and guides him into her and then bliss, pure and utter bliss, and him wanting so badly to go slowly, to take his time with her, to savor this because this is the first time. But desperation riddles up his spine and his sanity is going, going, going with every single cant of his hips against hers and he is sorry because he can't be slow and gentle, not the first time. Then she is moaning and squeezing tight all around him as he thrusts into her and they both realize that it doesn't matter, because this will not be the last time.

But it isn't always like that. Sometimes there is no time and it is frantic and unplanned and hurried in the darkest, tightest corners and she tries to be so quiet but he fucks her so hard and so fast that it forces up bubbled little misfires of sound that he craves and has to hear more of. He loves those times, when it's tight and quick and so hot that he knows with absolute certainty what it feels like to burn, when he's taking her fast and relentlessly, doing everything he knows how to do to make sure she reaches her peak before him because he's not going to last, god, how could he when she is pressed against him like an extension of his own body, grinding hard and holding her breath and twisting her head and tilting her face up, seeking out his lips blindly with her own?

Other times there is what feels like all the time in the world and he does go slow, very slow, taking his time with every curve of her body. Then, it is overwhelming and deep and she looks right at him as she moves astride his body and they are eye-to-eye, pressing noses and lips together and he can't seem to get enough fucking air and she is everywhere and watching him and kissing him and urging him on and God in heaven, it is so deeply intense that he can't speak evenly for hours after.

It's not always like that either, though. Because sex between them isn't just the act itself; it is so much more. It's her standing in front of him, unafraid and unabashed, telling him everything he's doing wrong. It's the way that she looks at him when she thinks he isn't watching, in her smiles and in her laughter. It's her looking up at him as she slips a tie over his head, all coyness and deft fingers against his throat and can she feel this too, this want and desire and urge to possess and take, take in the way his throat works with a thick swallow when she gets just a little too close? It's her silent, steel-hard support as she watches him with his father. It is in the warmth in her voice, in every word she speaks and in all the words she doesn't allow herself to say. Everything about her is seduction, temptation, passion. Everything with her is foreplay because she is pleasure incarnate.

And even as good as the sex is, it is what comes after that he waits for.

"What were you thinking when you first saw me?" he asks her one night, looking down at where she is draped over his body like a blanket. Like a shield. It is not their first time, but it's still new enough to be personal and raw and necessary in a way that scares the hell out of him.

"You first," she says decisively, just like he knew she would, because she doesn't like treading ground like this first. He knows it's nothing that he's done and does not take it personally because this is just the way she is: cautious, careful, ever mindful of all that she risks with everything she does—especially with what she does with him.

He is more than happy to take the plunge. "I thought you had a mouth made for smiling."

And god, watching her smile then is like watching the sunrise over the ocean back in California. She buries her grin in his chest and mutters, "Jesus."

"What?" he rumbles, the word a mere breath across her skin.

"You," is her reply. "Every single word you…" The smooth pad of a thumb glides the length of his bottom lip. She shakes her head and he knows that feeling, when there simply isn't words.

"Your turn," he urges softly. "What were you thinking when we first met?"

"That my boss was staring at me too long," she replies with a remarkable amount of aplomb, lifting her head. Not one of his finest moments, he'll admit. He laughs ruefully and runs his hand over his face, but she pulls it away, not letting him hide. "Have you ever seen footage of the moon landing?"

"I'm not that old," he says petulantly, even though he is, just because he wants to watch her reaction. She rolls her eyes and he drops a kiss on her forehead, pleased. "What about the moon landing?"

She waits a moment before speaking again. "There's a moment after Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the surface, when he looked around and really saw the moon for the first time. He described it as 'magnificent desolation'." She looks up at him. "That's what I was thinking when I first saw you. Magnificent desolation."

His chest clenches. "I looked lonely?"

"I think you're the loneliest person I've ever met in my life," she admits quietly, thumb smoothing over his brow now. "Almost as lonely as me."

He kisses her, and then it all begins again.

He expects this to fade with time. He tries to talk himself out of what he knows is happening between them by assigning it—them—lies in the form of words: lust, infatuation, desire. Things like that can be explained away; this is spur-of-the-moment, haphazard, a crime of passion. He expects the danger to become too great, the risks too much, and he expects her to pull away and tell him no and mean it.

But she doesn't. He isn't sure if it's a blessing or a curse. Because with every passing moment this grows, transforms, becomes bigger than both of them and far too much to control. If anything, he thinks that his need for her only gets stronger with time, becomes more undeniable and unquenchable. It scares him, just how much he needs her—to keep him thinking, to keep him sane, to keep him alive and breathing.

The way he thinks about her changes, too, because before it had all been sex and sweat and the way she looked in gowns and the titillating sharpness of her mind. It was the curve of her ass in jeans, the enticing hollow of her throat that just begged to be mapped by his tongue, the satiny flow of her hair and those endless brown eyes.

But now…now, he is fixated by other things. He finds himself imagining having her like this every day, the simple pleasure of waking up next to her and the privilege of knowing that they have nothing to hide. He imagines holding her hand in public, introducing her to everyone as his other, better half, of parties and celebrations and dancing with her on nights that are endless.

He imagines her all in white, walking towards him with certainty as he waits for her and tries not to fall apart. He imagines their kiss and the roar of applause, of champagne and cake and dancing, more dancing; he imagines peeling away every layer of ivory white that hid her body from him. He imagines giving her children, half a dozen honey-brown little miracles that he can call sweet baby.

He imagines, and he aches.

"Do you think this is all novelty?" she asks him, in a different hotel on a different night. There is nothing between them except air; the bedding is somewhere on the floor, well beyond his realm of caring.

"What do you mean?" he asks, nosing the back of her neck, only half aware that he's speaking.

"That the reason this is all so…strong is because of the novelty. Of not being able to be together."

He stops then and pulls away a bit, waiting for her to turn to face him and explain.

"Maybe," she starts softly, "the only reason we want each other is because we can't have each other. If there was ever an opportunity to make it real—"

"It is real."

"You know what I mean. If you weren't married and we could—do you think this would fade?"

He stares at her. Even though her words reach his ears, all he can hear is what she doesn't say.

If you could have me, would you still want me?

Twenty minutes later, after he has hooked his arms under supple thighs and buried his face between her legs and licked and sucked and ravished until she is a shivery, quaking mess beneath him, dangling on the edge of orgasm and begging him to take her all the way there, he gives her his answer:

"You are insane."

He's often thought of how to explain this to people when they ask. And they will ask, because this isn't going to stay a secret forever, not if he has his way. And even if it did, at the very least he'll have to explain this to his children one day. And Mellie. After everything that's happened between them, all the resentment and intense distrust, she is still his wife and he is still her husband and he betrayed her and she deserves an explanation.

He tried explaining it to Cyrus once, standing on the great seal of the U.S. in the middle of the Oval Office with a scotch dangling loosely in his hand, but at the time the words had been too marred by pain to come out clearly. Even if there had been no pain and no alcohol in his system, he wonders if it's possible to make someone else see.

She is made for him. She is the other half of his soul. She is the love of his life. He runs the words over in his head sometimes when he lies with her in the darkness, letting the world come creeping back in and he shouldn't because this space is theirs and it's sacred, but he can't help it. She isn't the only one with doubts.

He thinks about scandal, about the press and the public and approval ratings and the name of his family. Then he thinks about his family, his son and daughter and his eyes on their faces looking at him the way he used to look at his own father.

And then he thinks about her, about what would happen to her if she were ever put in a position to explain this. She, who is intensely private and strong, attacked with judgment and glares and words that he knows would hurt her, would destroy her career and her credibility and her spirit, and how can they do this, how can they risk this, how can he risk her with his own selfishness—

"Hey," she calls to him another night, when he is curled up against her and tight with tension. She strokes his face. "Come back to me."

"I'm here," he whispers, pushing sense and rationality and morality and the world away the moment she beckons him back. Just for a little longer.

He wants to give her more than this. She is better than this, than being a secret that he has to keep hidden away in closets and between the stiff bed sheets of hotel rooms. She deserves to be pampered even though he knows she'd protest, she deserves public displays of affection and to have a place in his family. She deserves to have all the mornings after the nights before.

But he can't give her everything. He isn't sure that she would let him, even if he tried. The thing that frightens him more than the thought of discovery, the thought of just how much he needs her is the thought of what will happen to him the moment she decides that this isn't worth it.

Because he knows what heartache is, what it is to yearn and desire and need and to not have it returned. He grew up with it taking the form of his mother, watching his father say and do horrible things and put his fingers up the skirts of so many other women and then eventually watching him walk away. And watching his mother love him through it all.

The thought is misery, wretched and consuming and insidious, striking him as he watches her when she is with other men, with lawyers and lobbyists and politicians who are handsome and smart and single, as he watches her dance with Billy Chambers with a look of pure delight on her face. He wants to pull her away from the hands of all the other men because he knows in his soul that she is for his hands only, even though he can't say it or act on it.

And that thought truly kills him, the thought of her finding what she needs and deserves from a man who can love her beyond closed doors because he knows that were it to happen, he couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. He doesn't have the right.

But oh, how he wants it.

"Tell me a secret," she says to him in the darkness.

He considers her request for a long time, peppering her fingers with absent-minded kisses as he thinks.

"You make me hate God," he settles on finally. The fingers against his lips grow stiff. He brushes his lips against them again as he continues. "To have you in my life and know that I can't…that you aren't mine," he amends through the tightness in his throat. When he is certain his voice is steady, he makes a bitter sound. "God's a cruel son of a bitch."

She doesn't speak. He doesn't expect her to, not after that. She doesn't pull away and he presses a soft, forgiving kiss against the knuckle of her ring finger. "You tell me a secret, now."

And then she is moving, snaking down his body until they are face to face, eye to eye, so close that their noses almost touch.

"I am yours," she whispers.

He clutches at her waist. She pulls him towards her and lets him bury his face against her neck.

He knows that this can't last forever. The world outside of their space is waiting; the sun will rise and they will have to put on their clothes and their smiles and stand apart in public. He will have to endure sleepless nights and the maw of emptiness that spreads inside of him like a plague every second she's away. He will go back to counting down the minutes until they can both escape together again.

And maybe it's nonsensical to think of their moments together as little interludes, things to be raced towards and valued and never taken for granted. Maybe it's his way of coping. Maybe it dulls the pain enough so that he can breathe.

But this isn't just a pause, a single breath before the world comes rushing back. This is life, this is him and her and what they are together, holding their breaths and trying to live in between the cracks of their lives.

And even though it kills him, he knows it's not enough, that it will never, ever be enough.

But it will have to be. For both of them.

FIN