Because I needed to know what happened during the commercial break. ;)

"Now?"

There was a small, dangerous hint of a smile on his lips. Wyatt tilted his head and waited for her answer, hope and fear and want mingled in those should-be-illegal eyes.

A fiercely swooping something Lucy was sure she'd never felt before sparked in her core. She couldn't verbalize her answer, so she took his hand and led him into the guest house.

He followed her inside and it was unavoidably awkward, even though the room was ridiculously lovely – glowing with firelight, plush and romantic in all the right ways – but still she remained silent, even when she felt his hand on her arm. She felt breathless and uncertain, emotions she couldn't name making her eyes well slightly as he drew near.

Wyatt's expression was pure desire. The sight of him looking at her like that fanned the spark into a steady flame that grew with each passing second.

Lucy swayed a bit when he angled her mouth toward his own, placing his fingers under her chin. He paused for half a moment and then led her forward, their lips finally – finally – meeting again.

The kiss was sweet and relentless and tinged with bourbon. Something snapped into place inside her when she felt more than heard Wyatt's soft groan of pleasure, and she pulled away, hands on his shoulders. Where uncertainty, doubt, and anxiety had once taken residence in her head, they were now all replaced by something strong and almost savage; something that scared her with its strength.

He sighed deeply and smiled in a very small way, and she felt like she was looking at a different man. She could only stare at him, more tears blurring her vision. She wasn't even sure why she was crying, but it only took one more squeeze of his hand before she was flinging herself off the mental cliff, giving herself completely over to whatever this was.

He caught her, of course, because he was Wyatt and that was his job. His arms encircled her completely as one hand pulled her body flush with his own and the other cupped her neck as their mouths continued to learn each other. When he nipped gently at her bottom lip, she was grateful that his hands had migrated to her lower back, keeping her steady, because her knees slightly gave way.

Two ardent kisses later, her back was against the wall and Wyatt's lips were trailing down her neck, into the hollow of her collarbone. The sensation drew a soft moan from her throat and his grip tightened at her hips when he heard it.

"Jesus, Luce," he whispered against her skin, and the low, needful timbre of his voice made her shudder.

She felt his hands trail down her body, over the cloth of the dress of her dreams, and when he pulled down the side zipper and slid a hand into her panties, the back of her head hit the wall with a thump she didn't even feel.

Wyatt's eyes blazed dark indigo as he watched her. She was pinned to the wall by his gaze and his calloused hands - the fingers of one hand threaded into her hair, the others exploring her in a way no one else had ever taken the time to.

Wyatt Logan was a soldier, but he observed her reactions like a scientist - with patience, curiosity, and method. When she made a sound, he paused and repeated whatever he had just done until he had memorized the action, successfully driving her more and more insane. When he finally slipped a finger (and then two, three) inside her, she cried out in embarrassing, desperate need, and he finally seemed to finally run out of tether.

Wyatt dropped to his knees and shoved the skirt of the dress behind her. He lifted her right leg and placed it on his shoulder and Lucy briefly wondered if this was actually happening. Everything - the room, the dress, the firelight, how they came to be there, and this firebrand of a man whom she had once considered a jackass, kneeling before her like she was some kind of pagan goddess. She didn't have time to entertain the thought any further, however. Wyatt was was too impatient even to rid her of her undergarments - he simply moved them aside - with his teeth, God damn him - so that they bunched in delicious friction against her.

Here he stopped, one hand cupping her ass and the other holding her hip still, looking up at her where she was limp against the wall, chest heaving.

"Wyatt, I swear to God, if you don't -" she began to threaten, but he just grinned devilishly and interrupted her with one long, sure caress of his tongue.

"Fuck," she whimpered, fingers clutching in his hair, hips arching forward. He chuckled lowly and the vibration made her breath catch and sputter in her throat.

"Gettin' there," he murmured into the skin of her inner thigh. He was still grinning and she could feel it against her skin, along with the pleasant harshness of his stubble.

His tongue began to repeat the same actions his fingers had earlier learned and she tried, really tried, to be still, but it was impossible. He didn't seem startled by her reaction or the way her body jerked as he more insistently focused his efforts on the sensitive bundle of nerves. He shifted her leg on his shoulder again, more widely and unashamedly opening her up to find an angle she didn't even know she needed. She tried not to moan his name too much, but it wasn't easy when he seemed determined to drive her mad.

Gasping, she chanced a look down at him, and the sight of his eyes fixed on her face made her implode. The room grayed out as an all-encompassing roaring filled her ears, stole her breath; as sparks shot down into her fingers and toes in waves.

When she could see again, her underwear was gone and Wyatt was holding her up as he murmured half-formed thoughts against her lips.

"Luce...Lucy...God, you're gorgeous..."

He was enticingly rough as he undressed her. Her dress and bra were thrown blindly across the room and it wasn't until she felt herself being laid back on the bed that she realized he was still fully clothed. Still mostly numb, she sat up and divested him of suspenders, collared shirt, and undershirt, a button popping off in her clumsy, lust-filled haste. She caught his hands and, grinning saucily, put them on the mattress on either side of her.

"Those stay put," she whispered into his ear, planting a hot, open-mouthed kiss on his neck as his head dropped forward into the crook of her shoulder.

"No promises," he murmured as she grabbed him by the belt buckle and made quick work of that and his pants, which dropped to the wooden floor.

Here she stopped and pulled his head back so she could look at his face. It was flushed, with swollen lips, eyes glazed, and his hair was standing on end. Lazily, she grinned and traced his mouth with her fingers as she simultaneously slipped her other hand beneath the waistband of his boxers.

Wyatt's breath hissed in sharply when she grasped him. Her grin widened, feeling quite pleased with her growing sense of control, and he noticed. Trying to wrest the upper hand back from her, he playfully narrowed his eyes and caught her pointer finger with his teeth as she re-traced his lips almost mindlessly. He bit down just hard enough to make her gasp, and her surprise made her other hand tighten around him.

He grunted and his hands became fists, balled in the coverlet. She realized with delicious satisfaction that his arms were trembling with the effort of obeying her command. Curious to see how long he would abide by it, she took the chance to taste the skin just under his clavicle.

Wyatt snapped. He pushed her up the mattress, growling, and settled himself between her legs. His hands were everywhere, memorizing every plane of her body, and his mouth found one of her breasts. She wheezed slightly as he laved it, a sharp re-sweep of need overtaking her.

"Are you," he panted against her breast, not even able to modulate his voice into a question, "on birth -"

"Yes," she huffed. "Are you -"

"Yes," he murmured.

They both paused, taking in one another. Wyatt was hovering over her, his face full of wonder and love and need.

"Lucy," he whispered, and she nodded, desperate, smiling.

He stared at her for another long moment, pupils completely blown, and then bent to kiss her. It was somehow deeper than any other kiss he had given her - it felt like some kind of gentle, inexorable warning - and then he slid home.

Lucy's body reacted without rational thought: she bowed and arched and gripped him tightly as every inch of him slowly sank in. Still, he didn't release her mouth, instead swallowing her moans and returning them back to her. Only when he was fully seated inside her did he relinquish her lips.

"L-Luce," he rasped, but at the same moment, Lucy wrapped her legs around him.

"Holy...fuck," he groaned, and began to breathe very deeply in through his nose and out through his mouth, eyes closed, like he was running long-distance or concentrating very hard on something.

"Wyatt?" she breathed, faintly, trying to keep still, feeling how he tensely he was holding back.

"Can't," he lamented hoarsely, eyes still shut. "Can't take - this slow...'m sorry..."

In response, Lucy locked her ankles and rolled her hips punishingly. Wyatt cursed again. His jaw was clenched and she could feel him shaking with the effort it took to hold back.

"I don't care," she panted into his shoulder. "I don't care; I just want you."

Without a word, he nodded against her forehead. He seemed to steel himself before withdrawing and then thrusting forward with more force than she had thought possible.

"Oh," she exhaled.

He braced himself on one hand and threaded the other into her sweaty hair, looking down at her with more naked emotion than she'd ever seen before on his face. Eyes locked on hers, he drove inward again, and Lucy saw stars.

Again, and again, and again, he thrust hard and fast and fiercely unforgiving. Her name was a guttural litany on his tongue as he shifted his grip to her hips, bringing his knees up under her ass. Dimly, Lucy realized the headboard was loudly slamming against the wall; she was sliding upward across the bed and just managed to place her hands against the wood before her head knocked into it. She used the leverage to push herself down, to grind up into him, and oh, God -

Lucy's orgasm caught her off-guard this time, a stunning, breathless robbery of vision and sense. She came back to herself in time to feel Wyatt drag her upward into a sitting position so that she was straddling him, his arms wrapped around her, hands behind her neck, pulling her head downward toward his face, not a single centimeter left between them. His rhythm suddenly stuttered and froze, and he pressed his open mouth against hers in a scorching, not-quite kiss as he followed her over the ledge. He exhaled words she vaguely recognized as not her name, but she was too far gone to understand them.

They simultaneously collapsed. The pre-dawn night was startlingly quiet as they lay there blissfully together, their pulses slowly returning to a resting rate. Without speaking, Wyatt got up and retrieved her slip and a couple pool towels from a wardrobe in the corner. He returned to the bed and cleaned her up, the terry cloth sliding slowly up her thighs in such a way as to make her core clench in sore memory. It was an extraordinarily sweet gesture, and he smiled somewhat bashfully at her as he helped her sit up. She raised her arms, cheeks glowing, and he slipped the undergarment back over her head, settling it into place against her torso. She started to reach behind her neck to take off her necklace, but Wyatt's hands stopped her, lightly turning her shoulders so she was facing away from him.

"I got it," he told her softly, and she shivered a little as he moved her hair aside and unclasped it. He laid it on the bedside table before turning back the coverlet, getting into bed, and pulling her in with him to recline against the pillows. Then he raised a corner of the unused towel and began to gently wipe away the smeared makeup under her eyes. She giggled and used the other end to wipe away the smeared lipstick on his neck. He laughed and ducked his head slightly when he saw the scarlet residue.

Lucy frowned a little as she tried to scrub off a red mark just under his jaw, but it stubbornly remained. Then she realized it was a love bite she definitely did not remember giving him.

"Oops," she whispered, trying not to smirk. He furrowed his brow and touched it himself, then made an amused sound, shaking his head.

"Why, Miss Preston," he said in a low, scandalized voice. He grinned, wrapped his arms around her, and then settled her in at his side. Lucy fit her head into the crook of his arm and shoulder and slung an arm across his torso. Wyatt placed his lips on her hair and she closed her eyes, sated and sore.

It only occurred to Lucy as she was drifting in that area between waking and sleeping that she thought she knew what he had said to her. She opened her eyes and saw that he seemed fully asleep - more asleep than she'd ever seen him on a mission before, as he normally slept lightly if at all, poised even when unconscious to leap to action at the slightest provocation.

Lucy swallowed nervously.

"I love you, too, Wyatt," she breathed, barely mouthing the words, not wishing to wake him. He didn't stir and she shut her eyes, drifting into oblivion.

A moment later, however, Wyatt's eyes opened just a fraction and a smile stole over his lips. He glanced down at the sleeping woman in his arms and then followed her example.