A/N: Guys, I couldn't believe your reaction to the first chapter. Seriously, you're amazing. I've wanted to participate in #unofficialdas9 but I really have to bow to the whims of the muse and the tiny chunks of time that life gives me. So here's another chapter. If the first was from Richard's POV, then this one is from Isobel's. I know that I sometimes jump from one perspective to another but I've tried to keep the jumps clean. It's terribly hard to write romance without considering how one person affects the other. At any rate ... someone in my family is facing some big challenges coming up, and I've been trying to play music that encourages that person. One song we've found that really resonates is "Catch My Breath" by Kelly Clarkson. And, like many of my writer friends, I tend to find inspiration in what I'm listening to. The beginning of that song puts me in mind of Isobel, post-Reginald and pre-Richard. The rest of it speaks to me of how she's been changed by her romance with Richard. At its best, love is transformative, and if there's a theme to this chapter then that'd be it. He is her exhale, I think.

There'll be a short epilogue, most of it written in my head when the kids and I were on a road trip last week. I'm thrilled to have broken through a serious case of writer's block and I hope this all proves worth the wait. I'm long on ideas and short on time, but my better half says I'm happier (read: easier to live with) when I'm working well. So it'll be as much of a priority as it can be. In the meantime, be well, and please take a moment to share your thoughts with me.

xx,
~ejb~

He tells her that she is love, and it pleases her on many levels. She is, of course, thrilled that he can so easily see and feel the strength of her devotion to (and desire for) him. He lived so long alone, forgoing what could have passed for companionship because it would never have approached love. That knowledge makes her hurt for him. After all, she knows aloneness.

But it raises his star in her eyes. The man is so … what, exactly? There are adjectives aplenty, but they never quite reach to the heart of who he is. Quiet, for one. In a way that marks him as a true introvert; yes, but it isn't only that. His soul is quiet, too. Settled. But not in a way that would suggest that he's boring, because he's anything but. No; he's … sure. Steady; rooted; self-aware. He knows what he wants, and he simply doesn't bother with trivialities.

But back to her sorrow at his having been so long alone. It doesn't haunt her all that much now, because she has the privilege of living life beside him, but she knows he didn't see himself, for many long years, as someone who was loved.

Jess loved him. She knows that for certain from the way he speaks about the two of them. She imagines him —a younger, more carefree version of him— thoroughly besotted and instead of evoking jealousy it makes her heart glad. She reckons that, had the inevitable not separated them, Jessica and Richard would have been a lot like her and Reginald.

Ah, Reginald. If indeed she embodies love so fully, then it's thanks to him in large part. Even after all this time, she cannot believe how intense it was between them. All of it: their friendship as children; their fancying one another. She can still feel their first kiss. She can still lots of things with regard to him.

She used to feel like that was wrong. Still remembering in lurid detail what it was like to make love with him. Their first time, as wedding-night virgins. Fumbling through it once because they were both so nervous; languishing the second time, luxuriant and slow because now they knew what to expect. Their last time. He: aphasic; recovering from a massive stroke, and she: pregnant with the daughter who was going to be their redemption song. She can still feel his hands on her afterwards; she will never forget the warmth of him surrounding her as their little girl kicked him. So many in-between times, some of them tender and celebratory, others desperate and sweetly dark in that magical way that sex can be when there is so much love. When partners are natural extensions of one another.

She has no guilt about it anymore. She loved, and she was loved (and she still loves), and it was legendary. It shaped her heart and her character, taught her empathy and sacrifice and compromise. Above all, loving Reg taught her that the capacity of the heart is limitless. When love is true it is ever-expanding, ever renewing. It is a living, breathing entity. It has no end.

Loving Reg enabled her to fall in love with Richard. And, more than that, since she has been loving Richard, she's discovered that grief and joy are not mutually exclusive, and that there's no possibility of Richard replacing Reginald, because Reg did not leave a space to be filled.

She loves, she loves, she loves. And sometimes it takes up so much space that she thinks she's going to burst. The overflow leaks out in the form of happy tears; it rushes forth as laughter, bubbling like a brook in springtime. It's silent, aching; sobs that catch in her chest and scintillating dreams that, on awakening, become reality.

It still flaws her: the way that life now, beside Richard, is so easy. For one, he's self-sufficient. Benefits of loving a longtime bachelor: he can cook, and more than that, he loves to do. He has always done his own washing, too (and hers, back in London, when he'd crash at her flat even while she was on a run of back-to-back twelves). He's so considerate, she thinks. Never once has he left it for her to pick up his wet towels or to clean the sink after he shaves. In fact, at times, she feels he doesn't need her at all.

If they row, it is usually on account of her, because she is still learning to trust in the fact that things are actually that good, and that the proverbial "other shoe" is simply not going to drop.

Like tonight, when she came right out and said it to him: "I feel like you don't need me."

He was in the midst of doing the washing up after their tea at the time and he dropped the sponge and whirled around to face her.

"I beg your pardon?"

She felt at once a fool; she could see the weariness in his eyes when the words came out of her mouth. He looked like he had done after clocking fifty hours at the hospital without sleep. She ought to have simply apologised right then and left it. But she let her mouth get away from her.

"I try to fix the coffee, and you've already done it. I think I'll iron your shirts and they're already starched. Perhaps I can take the Rover in for service and surprise you, but no; it's already been. It's like I'm completely redundant!"

He was caught so very wrong-footed that his mouth opened and closed several times without a sound. "You think … I can't … what in God's name? Are you actually telling me it's a problem for you that I don't leave the seat up? That I wash my own damned dirty socks and carry out the rubbish? Because —Jesus Christ, woman!— have you any idea how much most women would give to have a man around who knows the difference between his wife and his mam?"

Oh, her ire was up now! "Most women? I thought that you were with me because you liked the fact that I'm not like most women! I'm sorry I've not been falling at your feet like most women are doing!" She watched him pace the kitchen floor, digging the fingers of his left hand into a knot in the back of his neck. What had come over her? What on earth was she saying? She knew that she was simply flailing at him, taking cheap shots out of fear, and yet she couldn't stop herself. "Dammit, Richard, I don't know what to do for you!"

He stopped pacing and dropped his hands to his sides. He came over to where she was standing by the window, toe-to-toe with her, taking her hands in his own, which were warm from the washing-up water.

"When will you get it through your head that you haven't got to do for me, Isobel? That isn't what I want from you. It isn't what I need."

"So you do need me then?" She was not trying to look forlorn. She didn't want his pity.

But she knew that was what he saw, and he looked at her sympathetically before taking a breath and delivering a measured, "Not in the strictest sense of the word; no. I don't. Now, just …" He must have anticipated her response because he put his hands up in surrender. "Just listen for a moment. I'm not comfortable saying that I need you because it sounds like an expectation, Isobel. It sounds like entitlement, as if I think I'm owed something. And love, that isn't how I see you at all. I never want to take it for granted that you're with me. I want it always to be your choice."

She interrupted, "It is, Richard! Of course it's my choice—"

He kissed her quiet, lingering a second longer than necessary. Kiss ... "Just …" kiss "... just hear me out, yeah?" He punctuated his request with another kiss.

"Mmkay," she murmured against his lips as she nodded.

"Your being here is something I still can't get used to," he told her, moving his thumb over the back of her hand. When he moved it over her wedding band he grinned and she melted a little inside. "I never want to get used to it, because it isn't ordinary, love. People don't spend the bulk of life on their own and then fall headlong into this … us. What we have. You've always been so easy for me to be with—"

She cut him off again, this time giggling. "Now wait … are you sure that's what you mean? I hardly think that my presence has made your life easy. Darling, we had a row within ten minutes of meeting!"

"No; I didn't say that you've made my life easy. I said you're easy to be with. There's a difference. I levelled with you that first time we argued. You didn't agree with me and you didn't back down. But you accepted my view of things and you didn't attempt to dismantle my reasoning. And that's why you're easy to be with. Even though —God knows— you don't make life easy."

She was about to protest, but he took her chin between his thumb and index finger and kissed her again, smiling against her lips. He continued on, lest she intercept the point he was trying to make.

"I don't know how else to say it. I don't need you in order to survive. I reckon I've got that sorted at this juncture. I … I choose your company … I welcome you —I want you to feel welcomed …" He glanced at her a bit uncertainly. She nodded her assurance and he squeezed her hands in thanks. "I want you beside me, because I'm more myself with you than I ever was without you. And I don't want you to do anything. I mean, we've just spent forty years doing. I'm happy just being. With you. I'm putting it badly …"

This time she kissed him into silence, and a few of those happy tears —love overspill— made their way down her cheeks. "Shh, no. I think that will do, Major. I think that will do."

oOo

A quarter of an hour later she was in the bathtub, reclining with her back against his chest in a froth of citron-scented bubbles.

It was wonderfully quiet, the only sounds in the room those of their breathing, the sloshing of water when one of them moved and the occasional drip from the tap.

Her head was lolling on his shoulder and she watched as he touched her, his long fingers gliding over her breasts and belly. The way he traced the contours of her body was fascinating to her, both to feel and to watch.

"Richard, I'm sorry for egging you on before," she murmured, running her knuckles softly over his thighs. "I had no reason to be so ratty."

"Oh, never mind all that," he said, as if the incident were the furthest thing from his mind. His hands settled on her belly. "I'm sorry for that bit about most women. I said it just because I knew it would wind you up. I hope you know I haven't a clue about what women do. Present company excluded, I suppose." When he was finished speaking, his hands began to move on her again.

"I know, darling," she told him, stretching up to plant a kiss on the underside of his jaw. She was quiet for a moment as she thought. "I must find a way to make peace with the notion that I get to live in a dream now, and that it's not all about to come crashing down around me." She sighed, linking her fingers through his.

"Is that what you think?" The vibration of his voice suffused through his chest and into her back.

"What; that I'm living in a dream? Or that it's going to be ripped away from me?"

"Both," he answered, taking hold of her shoulders. Lovely as it was to have her warm and naked in his arms, they needed to be face-to-face for this. She stretched out at the opposite end of the tub with her feet in his lap.

She watched with amusement as heat flashed across his eyes at the way her breasts floated in front of her. "Yes; the life we've built together and the love that we've found … it's just good. Apart from the usual squabbles —whose turn it is to get petrol or bring the lad for a midnight wee— we don't have difficulties." She paused to run the sole of her foot along the inside of his thigh, enjoying the way his eyes slipped shut. "And as we've seen I'm not even able to invent them."

It took him a minute to respond; whether because he was thinking or her actions were affecting him, she didn't know for sure. Then he swallowed hard and took hold of her foot.

She couldn't help but smile.

"Well," he said in a raspy tone, "there is the small matter of my wife constantly trying to seduce me in the middle of a conversation …"

She grinned and flicked her fingertips at him, splashing him in the face. "And the fact that my husband always responds. I mean, my mum always told me to ignore the little vexations and they'll go away. He doesn't even try." She had to work hard to tamp down the laughter that threatened to bubble out.

He met her gaze with eyes full of mischief. There was a serious discussion to be had, but he had cast the line and she'd taken the bait, and why else had he waited all his life for her, but to play a little? "You don't know how persistent my wife is. She simply won't be ignored. It's annoying." He paused for effect before continuing, "It's a real problem."

She wasn't going to be able to keep her composure much longer. "Sounds terrible," she told him. Breathe … breathe, she coached herself, her diaphragm beginning to ache. "But my husband positively begs for it …"

His head rolled against the edge of the tub. He swallowed hard once more (she resisted the urge to lean forwards and lick his Adam's apple. Barely.) and ran his knuckles along the arch of her foot. Each one knew that the other was nursing a vivid image of him begging her to—

"He's irritatingly attractive," she was saying, with a roll of her eyes that was straight out of the Richard Clarkson playbook. "I've all sorts of work to do around here, and he has the cheek to come and talk to me in the midst of it!"

"Oh, he sounds a right plonker!" His fingers were creeping slowly past her ankle, gliding towards her calf.

She shot him a look. You're playing with fire. "You see, it seems I'm powerless against his burr. I've delivered breech triplets and given keynote speeches to boardrooms full of donors without batting an eye, but that man says 'how are you, my darling,' and it's all over." She reached out with her toes and brushed his inner thigh.

His fingers were stroking the sensitive skin behind her knees now. "Right," he replied, trilling the "r" in an exaggerated manner. "What a ridiculous man. That sounds terrible. You poor dear."

"Dammit, Richard," she whispered, her eyes fluttering shut as she broke character.

He laughed wickedly, but otherwise he didn't flinch. "You ought to meet my wife," he told her, sliding his hands under her thighs and pulling her towards him, her legs slightly parted. Asking for her vulnerability; gaining it and her submission as well. "She's Mancunian born and raised, and the woman bleeds blue. Defender of the downtrodden and all that. But to hear her talk, you would swear she was a Sloane. I mean, cut-glass perfect. She could read the telephone directory and it would sound like art. So you can imagine the strain it puts me under when she says, 'I want you, my love,' or, 'take me to bed,' or, 'come and hold me' … that's it. Once upon a time I had fifty men under my command; now she says my name and I'm useless." His fingers touched her where her inner thighs met her groin.

"How terrible for you." Her voice was all rasp now, breaths coming faster. "What a world of trouble we both are asked to bear."

He was one big devilish grin. "You see what I mean? It's pure sex, that voice."

It stunned her. While she supposed he must think of her along those lines, he seldom spoke like that. She gave up the charade. "Is that what you really think?"

"Mmm," he hummed in affirmation. "You see, my darling? We've got serious issues."

She laughed ironically. Her head was spinning; he had worked her into that much of a lather. "Point taken. Love, I can't … Are we going to finish this conversation or are we going to …"

He cocked an eyebrow at her. "Are we going to what?"

She responded with a look of utter defiance, her nostrils flaring slightly. "You know what!" There was a fine line between frustration and fury, and his behaviour had her straddling it most precariously.

He would push her just a millimetre farther. "I don't like to assume; you know what they say. Now, tell me, are we going to what, love?"

She glared at him at the same time as she raised up on her knees, crawling towards him. Face to face with him, she gave him a long incredulous look. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of getting her to say it. So she leant in closer and whispered it in his ear instead.

She watched him shiver, the clenching and unclenching of his fists as he fought for control. He was unconscionably beautiful and she ached to touch him, but they'd already let things get far, far out of hand.

It was several minutes before he could speak. "What do you want to do, darling? I'll follow your lead."

"If it's all the same to you I think we'd be wise to finish talking first." It was difficult to say and even harder to imagine actually doing. But it was altogether wrong to taint sex with the angst of a row not fully resolved.

"Probably for the best," he said. She could see that he was trying to be gallant and struggling mightily.

She pulled the stopper and the tub started to drain. As she got to her feet she smiled softly at him. "I want to be present with you when we do."

He offered her a steadying hand as she stepped out. "You don't owe me an explanation, beauty. Though I do think dressing gowns might be an idea if we're to have a productive conversation."

She secured a towel around herself and handed one to him. "Are you saying I distract you?" She kissed him gently.

"Mmm," he hummed against her mouth. "In the worst way." Grinning, he added, "It's a major problem."

She rolled her eyes. "You're not going to let that go anytime soon, are you?"

"Doesn't look that way," he answered. "Unless it offends you. Then I'll be sure to do it all of the time!" His eyes twinkled.

"Honestly," she huffed. But then she caught his eye in the mirror and smiled, kissing the centre of his back. "I'll go do us some tea."

oOo

She was waiting for the kettle to boil a few minutes later when he came downstairs. He saw her standing in front of the window and wrapped his arm around her waist from behind, kissing the curve of her neck. She hummed in satisfaction and leaned into him.

"I love you," she told him, apropos of nothing. She turned to face him and folded herself against him, letting him engulf her in his embrace. Ah, the simple pleasure of holding him!

"This is just good, Isobel. There's no anvil going to fall on your head in the next frame. Or mine. Alright?"

Her mouth opened and then abruptly shut. She had been going to say, "How did you know what I was thinking?," but since when hadn't he done?

She chuckled, nuzzling her cheek against his own. "Count on you to cut straight to it. No arsing around."

"You know you love it." Oh, the man looked so smug she'd have punched him on the nose. Maybe. As a younger woman.

"Damn you; I do." She had to move away from him to fix a pot of tea, and as she was walking towards the Aga her memory was triggered. She'd set two cups on the countertop when she'd first come down, and the sight of them took her back two years to her flat in London.

Having passed a typical sleepless night, she was awake the next morning before sunrise and sorely in need of coffee. As she was heating the kettle for the French press, the strangest thought had occurred to her: It would be nice to make coffee for two again. Two mugs, side by side on the countertop. His and hers.

He'd been supposed to meet her late morning to help her find a couch suitable for her lounge. And she'd been years denying having feelings for him that extended beyond the friendly and had finally had enough of it. In a moment of either bravery or sheer lunacy, she rang and asked if he wouldn't perhaps like to see the flat first, so that he understood what she was looking for. "Oh, and if you've not had breakfast yet then why not plan on eating here."

And he'd come, and she'd shown him around, and as he was taking measurements of the lounge she had gone to make coffee for them both. When he'd finished and was helping her carry the breakfast things to the table, she turned to pour their coffee and was gobsmacked. There it was: two mugs, side by side on the countertop. His and hers. Her epiphany. It couldn't really be that simple, could it? All that I've been missing, literally right in front of me?

"You're miles away, love." His voice broke through her reverie. "Where'd you go?"

She turned to face him and handed him a cup. Their fingertips touched and it gave her the same thrill that it had done on the morning of her memory. "I suppose it's déjà vu in a way." She smiled nostalgically. "Remember that morning at mine?"

They took up adjacent chairs at the kitchen table and he sat back and watched her with a smile of his own. "You mean our first morning?"

She snickered. "You managed to make that sound awfully salacious!"

He swatted at her hand playfully. "Well it was, wasn't it? Not salacious; the start of everything."

She laid her hand on his. "Yes, it certainly was."

"If my mam could see me now. Married. Retired. Obscenely, absurdly happy. And all thanks to you."

"How are you so different from me? By that I mean, how can we both have lived through the same kind of loss, and your outlook is that good is good, and we're meant to enjoy it. While I'm always looking over my shoulder wondering when the bomb's going to explode."

He paused before he spoke. "I can't say for certain, love. You reckon that by puzzling out the why, you can course-correct moving forward?"

"Possibly." A pause and then, "Or it's all bollocks." She gave him a sidelong look and burst into laughter when she saw him doing so.

"You've really gone over," he teased. "I can't rightly say, darling. Why you're afraid. It's really more a question of why I'm not. I'm not sure where I stand on karma and reincarnation and the like, and it's probably nothing more than a feeling … I think we've got it out of our systems. Losing, dying, grieving … all of that. And that we're meant to have an easy go from here on out."

She stretched her legs and he leaned back in his chair, lifting her feet into his lap.

"A lifetime of science," she marvelled, "and now you're content to live your life on a hunch."

He shrugged. "Any practitioner worth his —or her— salt knows that good medicine rests on a sound measure of intuition." He ran his thumb over the arch of her foot and she smiled. "It's you who taught me that, as I recall."

"I can't argue with that," she told him, and then: "Oh, close your mouth! It's not that much of a rarity." She laughed, and looked at him thoughtfully. "I love the idea of it, darling. And I love your certainty."

"I'm telling you, Isobel, you'll be kicking yourself when you're ninety and we're both still going. When I'm an old pain in the arse and you still look like you're forty, and it turns out the sky never did fall."

She rose from her seat and stood before him, resting her hands on his shoulders. "For now it's enough for me that you believe." He reached for her and she dropped into his lap. "And you'll be the sexiest old pain in the arse the world has ever seen."

He kissed the tip of her nose. "Well if that doesn't say, do me, I don't know what does."

"You know I'm not easily convinced, Richard, but you've won me over to your way of thinking far more often than anybody else has ever done." She pecked his lips and he hummed against her mouth, deepening the kiss. "You see?" she said as they broke apart, "There you go again. You're very persuasive."

His fingers tangled in her hair as he drew her back to his mouth. "Then I shall make every effort …" He broke off to kiss her deeply, "... to sway you this time." Another kiss, and then, "And I do believe I'll enjoy the process."

She grinned. "Have your wicked way with me then, o persuasive one." And she sank a kiss into his lips. His hands went to her bum and he rocked her against himself.

"I rather think I'd like to take you to bed," he told her when they parted for breath.

"Best idea you've ever had." She nipped at his bottom lip as she rose from his lap. He, too, stood, and she stepped close, raising her hands to his chest, her fingertips tracing the fine musculature. His arms came around her, one hand pressing the small of her back as the other rode the curve of her bum. She watched him meet her eyes, wonderment and want smoldering in his icy depths. Then his gaze fell on her lips and she felt it blossom deep inside of her: the ache; the void within that he alone could fill. He bowed his head and she watched his eyes drift shut.

"Yes," she breathed, her lips trembling in anticipation of his kiss. His mouth on hers was insistent, and she matched his fervour. Slow and deep, tasting and tantalizing, moving together as one. Quick, hot breaths against the other's lips. Into one another. A lush, heady, palpable warmth engulfing them.

She gasped in surprise when he brought both hands beneath her bum and lifted her off her feet. "Come on," he told her in a raspy, urgent half-whisper. She wrapped her legs around his waist and moaned as he rolled his hips. He was thick and hard against her open wetness and she bit his bottom lip as a purely feral sound escaped her throat.

He began to move and she evaded his kiss long enough to protest. "Mmm, darling … not upstairs! I'm too heavy!"

He kissed her quickly, effectively silencing her. "You most certainly are not!"

"I'm not being disparaging; just practical. That's not a small staircase."

He rolled his eyes. "Will you please shut up!" He kissed her hard before she could get a word in and resumed his intended course towards the lounge.

When he paused, backing her against the wall (whether to kiss her or to give himself a break, she was not certain), she unwound one arm from around his neck and crooked her finger at him in a 'come hither' gesture. He inclined his head and she traced the shell of his ear with the tip of her tongue and whispered two words:

"Make me."

His astonished gaze locking on hers, he shivered. "You're a witch, you know. A wicked, evil temptress."

She threw her head back, laughing fully. It was pure and joyous and cathartic; for the first time in a long time she was entirely in the moment. He saw his chance; leant in; nuzzled her neck. A breathy, "Oh!" escaped her open mouth in surprise. His moustache tickled her sensitive skin, eliciting sparks of electricity that danced up and down her spine.

He surprised her again when they reached the lounge. After depositing her by the chaise, he turned back to shut the door behind them. It struck her as odd; it was only the two of them. Well, and MacTavish, but he was currently napping in front of the fireplace in their bedroom. A mine exploding couldn't rouse that dog from sleep, so they were under no threat of interruption.

Then it came to her: all his talk of being more himself with her, of her being easy to be with. His pronouncement that he would enjoy persuading her. They'd bantered back and forth but she shouldn't have put it past him to take it so much to heart. His having closed them off from the rest of the world was part of the seduction.

It isn't ordinary, love. She remembered the awe in his voice and the solemnity in his eyes when he said those words. No; it wasn't. Nothing about their coming together was customary by any means. It was—

"Sacred." She didn't realise she had whispered the word until she felt the warmth of his breath on the back of her neck.

"What is?" he murmured as he moved in close, sliding his hands up the length of her arms to rest on her shoulders.

She trembled at the heat of his body against her back. "Us," she told him. "It's not like anything; anything I've ever had or imagined. I love you so much it's what I am now."

"I know that. I have known." Even if she hadn't felt his smirk against her neck she'd have heard it in his voice. "I'm glad to see you're finally catching on." His hands slid to her waist. She leant back against him as he untied the sash of her dressing gown, his name escaping her lips, not quite a moan but certainly not a whisper, when he cupped her breasts.

"Yeah?" he asked, his lips caressing the shell of her ear. She loved him for it; she was entirely his, and eternally willing, but he never presumed.

"Oh, yes." She nodded against his shoulder. She couldn't bite back the moan, deep and keening, when his fingertips swirled around her nipples, raising them to stiff peaks. The heaviness of longing coiled in her belly, damp between her legs, as he touched her, and she sought relief unconsciously from the burgeoning ache and rubbed her thighs together.

He palmed her breasts and pulled her tight against him, holding her still. She reached back and held his hips. She was certain he could feel her heart pounding. She felt his heavy breaths against her back. She knew what he was doing: letting them both feel the anguish of desire, the tangible strength of their passion. Neither one spoke, dangling there on the precipice. Her hips moved against his groin and he gasped, pulling her even closer, and began to move with her slowly, pale shadows of what was to come.

His hand came up to cup her jaw and he angled her head gently, taking her lips in a kiss that was deep and evocative. She felt it all the way to her centre, clenching hard. He had to have known, for his other hand left her breast, smoothing over her belly. He held her there, grinding against her bum, until she whimpered.

"'S'amatter, love?" he drawled. She shivered.

"Hurts," she rasped. Her breathing was rapid and uneven, her nerves raw. Sharing her most intimate thoughts with him was nothing new, but there was an edge inherent in admitting to his power over her that made her feel completely exposed.

Of course, she needn't have worried. He loved her edges. "Give in to it." His solution was simple, and when he cupped her sex she pushed into his palm with a cry of relief.

"Yes." His voice was reverent, the timbre deep and soft in her ear, the rhythm of his breaths a grounding counterpoint to her frenzy. The fingertips of his free hand feathered over her skin, trailing fire as he stroked the column of her throat and down the midline of her body until they met with her heat, breaching her boldly. Answering the ache.

She gave herself up to sensation and came hard in his hand. He held her, his lips memorising the taste and the feel of her skin as he trailed kisses from just beneath her ear to the curve of her shoulder while she recovered.

When she came back to herself she turned in his arms and sought out the crook of his neck, burying her face in his soft warmth. She breathed him in and kissed him as her arms wrapped around him, her hands moving over his back. She whispered his name against his skin, over and over again. Because she could. Because it sounded beautiful to her ears. Because he was beautiful.

He took hold of her chin and lifted it until their eyes met. The intensity of his gaze made her gasp. He looked absolutely ravenous. She moved forward and touched her lips to his, barely brushing. It drove him mad when she kissed him like that. He hummed into her mouth, his hands roaming her back as they nipped at one another's lips. "I want … you bare," he managed between kisses.

She smiled, pressing her lips to his once more, and dropped her arms down by her sides. Her eyes fluttered closed as he slid her dressing gown off her shoulders. She heard as well as felt the whisper of the fabric as it pooled at her feet. It was silent in the room and she felt his heat nearby, but not near enough. She knew exactly why, but still it moved her when she opened her eyes and found him staring at her in what could only be described as rapt fascination.

"You are exquisite, beauty." She would never tire of hearing those words, spoken in that pitch and tone and inflection that were so unique to him.

She reached for him, her palms flat against his chest. "I feel it, when I'm with you," she confessed. Another big admission on her part; all that she'd ever managed before was to stammer while her cheeks pinked. Before her surge of boldness had the opportunity to dissolve, she made short work of the sash at his waist and rid him of his dressing gown. She met his eyes with a challenging look and he grinned, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Terribly eager, aren't we?"

She shrugged. "Turnabout's fair play, my darling." She couldn't help but admire the perfection of his form. The lean angularity of his face, the flexing of the tendons in his neck under the strain of longing. The hollows of his collarbones and all the secrets she had written there with her hands, her mouth. His pectorals, well-defined; the way that they would ripple beneath her palms when she touched him. His abdomen; the fine physique he worked for, but that was mostly down to good genes and clean living. His limbs; long and lean, blue-veined and strong.

His sex was beautiful as well, and it occurred to her that women weren't likely to describe a man that way, and it wasn't fair, really. Her eyes followed the trail of platinum from his belly button and down past his pubic bone to his penis. He was hard already, and as he watched her eyes devouring him, she watched him twitch and grow still more rigid.

She swallowed. "Can I touch you?"

He closed his eyes and took a breath, fighting for composure. "Please," he answered in a half-whisper thick with desperation.

"Will you let me do something for you?" He trusted her implicitly; this she knew, but he took such great pains to avoid exploiting her trust in him, and she owed him the same consideration.

"I think you'll find I'm rather captive at the moment," he said through gritted teeth. She was astonished at the way he ceded control to her, knowing full well that he could throw her down at any moment and have her under him and neither one would protest.

"Sit back, alright? Get comfortable." She extended her hand to him, palm up, and he took it and let her lead him to the chaise. She propped pillows against the back of it and watched while he reclined. She spread a couple of half-folded blankets on the floor and knelt before him. And she folded herself over him and kissed the open-mouthed expression off his face.

"Isobel, you haven't got to—"

She cut him off with another kiss. "Of course I don't. You didn't have to do … that for me, either." She waited a beat. "Why did you do it?"

He gaped at her still, but he managed to answer. "Because I love you, and I love making you feel good."

"Which is exactly why I want to do this for you. That, and I don't think you have any idea how beautiful you are. I don't just love you for what you do for me. You're everything, you know. All that I want, everything my heart needs. And if we're meant to enjoy one another …" She kissed him again, writing her love on his lips. He yielded, and she felt his body sink further into the chaise.

She reached for his hands and held them above his head, wrapping their fingers together. When her mouth left his own, it was to feather kisses across his forehead. She pressed her lips to each closed eyelid, the bridge of his nose and then the tip. She kissed his cheeks and revelled in the scrape of his stubble as her mouth moved over the line of his jaw. When she reached his Adam's apple she let her teeth graze along the surface and he groaned softly. She blessed every inch of his skin: each freckle, every scar. Numbered each rib with a kiss; rested her head on his belly while he ran his fingers through her hair.

His arousal grew as she languished in the intimate nearness, and when she touched him he let out a hiss. She kissed the base of his shaft as it lay against his body and he stopped breathing. Then she covered his length with her palm and locked eyes with him. He pulsed against her hand.

"More?" she asked gently, leaning up to brush her lips across his brow.

He nodded, his mouth seeking hers. He kissed her, full and hot and hungry, holding her to him with a hand at the nape of her neck. As their lips met, matching one another kiss for kiss, she began to stroke him. He made a soft sound, more than a moan and not quite a cry, and when she took him hand over hand he did cry out, the sound of his surrender so honest that it broke her heart.

She took him into her mouth then, delighting in the sensation of his hot, silken length passing through her lips. Slowly she caressed him from base to tip, her kisses deepening with the crescendo of his vocalisations. He was beyond word or thought, nearly sobbing when he touched her shoulder to warn her that he was perilously close to exceeding the bounds of self-restraint.

Smiling, she released him gently, accepting his hand, which fast became the enfolding of his arms as he pulled her onto his lap. He crushed her against his chest, so close that they were hardly two separate people. Even in her frenzied state the symbolism was not lost on her. She held his head in her hands, kissing his lips, his chin, his hairline, slick with a sheen of perspiration.

She broke away and looked at him, and his expression was so intense and urgent that she gasped. His eyes reflected the same ache she carried in the centre of her chest, prompted by a love so all-encompassing that language failed to touch it. He willed her to understand that which he never would. She felt it all, and hoped that he could see it mirrored in her eyes and feel it in her touch.

All there was for it in the moment was to stroke his brow and kiss his mouth and swear to him, "I know, my darling. I know."

He clung to her, the rasp of stubble against the soft curve of her neck sending darts of pleasure down her spine that smoldered low in her belly. Her sex hovering just above his own, she could almost feel him inside of her, and when she writhed at the thought it brought them into contact.

"How?" he asked her on a harsh, indrawn breath.

She leant her forehead against his. "I want you deep."

He groaned in delighted agony and lay back again, helping her into position. She straddled his hips and leant forwards, bracing her hands on his chest. He palmed her bum and brought her into alignment with his arousal.

She slid him against her folds and watched him shudder. Did it again because —my God— it felt good.

"Christ," he swore, his head pressing back into the pillows, the tendons in his neck stretched taut.

"Yeah?" she breathed, continuing to tease herself with him. She leant forwards, seeking even greater closeness.

He arched up and took her lips roughly. "Yes," he hissed. He locked eyes with her and she realised that his had gone nearly as dark as her own. His mouth opened as she continued to move and he was panting, raw damp heat unfiltered bathing her face. "Isobel, please," he finally managed on an exhale.

It was wild and frantic; he was utterly vulnerable. She had never loved him more. Even when he was taking from her, he was still giving. The realisation made her breath hitch.

"Alright, my darling," she soothed, touching him as she aligned them. She moved forward as she raised up on her knees and took him into her body with painstaking slowness, watching his eyes and letting him see what he was doing to her. Can you see what you mean to me? Oh, precious, can you feel it? If his expression was anything to go by, she reckoned that he knew it. Saw it. Felt it.

Trust. Desire. Openness. Pleasure. Love, love, love.

They gasped in unison when he was seated deeply within her. Then she spread her legs wider, urging him to hold her like that, and at the same time he thrust upwards.

"Oh, God!" she cried, sharp and short.

"Alright?" he asked, massaging her hips.

She nodded emphatically. "So deep! Feels—"

"I know," he rasped. "S'good, beauty." It was slurred. Nonsensical. They were past words, and thought, and time. Everything was distilled to the point of contact; pure sensation.

She didn't want to move, but there was more awaiting them. She rolled her hips downward. Oh, yes. Then she repeated the motion whilst he ground up against her. Sweet Jesus! He held her wide and close and when he rocked upwards again he swivelled his hips. She circled her own hips in counterpoint and a sob was torn from her throat.

"Aaagh!" he exclaimed at the same time, his head tipped back. "Baby!"

His name spilled from her lips as they continued to work him deep. He left go of her hips and brought his hands to her breasts, somehow managing, in spite of their frenzy, to touch her so gently, stroking her nipples and feathering over the tiny raised bumps of her areolae. It was perfect; it was dizzying, and she tightened around him.

"Yes," he grunted. "Come now." It was coarse, and so unlike him.

And it worked a charm. He kept touching her through her climax, drawing it out, leaving her gasping for breath, sated and sensitised.

"C'mere," he beckoned, drawing her down to lie on his chest.

"But you're not done," she protested.

"An interlude." He smiled softly and she acquiesced, pressing a kiss over his heart and then resting her head there. She listened to his rapid heartbeat and felt her sex squeeze him again. Aftershocks. She moved with it, rolling her hips lazily, feeling him respond within her.

"Ohh," she sighed, long and keening.

"Hmm?" He smoothed his hands over her back and twirled her hair around his fingers.

She lifted her chin and looked at him. "I feel everything."

He twitched again at her admission. Her responsiveness had always been a source of maddening delight to him.

She worked to steady her breathing, concentrating on the way she rose and fell on his chest with each breath he took, counting his heartbeats. Trying to focus on anything else besides the place where they were joined. She stroked his chest and thumbed his nipple, and in response he caressed her bum, dipping into the cleft, running his index finger through her folds.

They teased back and forth, matching and then surpassing one another's ministrations until her slow grinding rhythm became unbearable for him.

"Would you …?" he started to ask, and then hesitated. It was a peculiarity of his that would appear from time to time: as masterful as he was, there were times he seemed to shrink from asking certain things of her. It was endearing, but it also wasn't going to stand.

"What, my darling? Show me?"

The look he gave her was full of gratitude and awe. "I love you," he breathed, reaching for her. And show her he did.

His chest was a wall of warmth against her back. His legs were wide and she was nestled between them. He rocked into her and it was bliss, steady and sweet. Sweet, like his breath on her neck. Like the way he wouldn't say it, but instead took her hand and moved it to her centre, his own hand drifting nearby as she touched herself.

"My God, you're lovely." His voice was high and tight.

"And you're close. Come in me, love."

He took hold of her breasts as he drove hard into her, and she moved in counterpoint, flexing down on him, feeling so many good things. So much of him that she could swear she felt his pleasure along with her own. As intertwined as they were, she still somehow, inexplicably, had never felt closer to him than in that moment.

He held her to him as he came, so that she couldn't have moved if she wanted (not that she would dream of it). He pulsed hot inside of her and she let her head fall forward, inviting his kiss to the back of her neck.

She managed to lie down without severing their connection. He spooned up behind her, wrapping his arm securely around her, and rested his head on hers.

"I love you," he told her baldly. He stroked her breasts and belly and she shivered.

"Love you," she breathed. He might be finished, but she was still running hot.

"You still want me." It was a statement; not a question.

"Mmm," she sighed gutturally, nodding her head where it lay against his. "But you can't …"

"But I can help." He kissed her temple, the tips of his fingers grazing the curve of her hip.

His generosity pleased her and she let go an appreciative laugh. "Oh, Major … I think it's a bit much to ask. I wouldn't want to be a greedy guts."

"As if you could," he told her. "You need it, don't you?"

"Hmm," she huffed, remembering their conversation, "need. No; not in the strictest sense of the word. Nobody needs three orgasms."

"Oh, for Chrissakes." Even with her back to him she could hear the rolling of his eyes. "Well if you won't let me, then you do it."

She glanced over her shoulder at him and saw the mirth in his eyes. He was still inside her, and even if his arousal was fading, he could appreciate the tight, wet heat of her.

"Hold me?" she asked, and without a word he lifted her leg to rest atop his own.

This was the dance they had perfected: the push and pull; yield and resist. She held nothing back, whimpering and crying out as she touched herself and he caressed her. When he brushed the flats of his palms across her nipples, she tightened.

He felt her climax building and urged her on with whispers. "So beautiful when you do that. Nothing better than the feel of you. Come on, darling girl, let go for me."

She lost herself in his voice and his touch and his nearness; there was nothing but he and she and the moment. When she came she was certain he could feel it from her perspective as well as his own. "I love you!" she told him, unceasingly, until he turned her over and silenced her with a kiss.

oOo

He didn't stir when she woke, for which she was thankful. His stamina was impressive, but she had to have worn him out. She lay on her stomach, propping herself up on her elbow to study him. He wasn't simply beautiful to her. He was stunning, full stop. She ran the backs of her knuckles over his cheekbones and traced the shape of his lips. His words echoed in her mind. Your being here is something I still can't get used to. I never want to get used to it. She caressed his brow, reflecting on the depth of truth in what he'd said to her.

It was, by turns, both difficult to remember what life was before she loved him, and impossible to forget. She couldn't seem to do the one without the other. To acknowledge that her heart and her arms and her bed were full was to revisit the last time she'd been able to say that, which always meant reliving the dread of Reg's death and the ensuing twenty years of cold existence.

It was the reliving bit that didn't serve her, but divorcing a lifetime of beautiful memories from the anguish of losing the one with whom she made them was a challenge of epic proportions.

Yet somehow he had done just exactly that, and my God, was he happy. Present. Fully there at any given moment. His enthusiasm was effervescent and addictive. She needed to find it for herself.

"I can hear you thinking, love." The sleepy rasp of his voice broke through her musings, and she looked down into the coruscating blue eyes that never failed to captivate her.

"Hi," she breathed, pecking his lips. "Sorry."

He cocked an eyebrow at her and she waited for an admonition. It never came. Instead he smiled at her indulgently and opened his arms. "Time's it?" he asked, blinking drowsily.

She stretched long, settling herself atop him with her chin propped on her hand. "Half past ten," she told him, giggling. "We passed out but good."

Even half-asleep, his eyes took her in. She noted his appraisal of her cleavage and ducked her head to bring her forehead into contact with his.

He kissed her softly. "We should get up for a bit. Feed the lad; let him out. And set the fires, else we'll freeze long towards morning."

She cherished the times when, in his fatigue, he slipped into colloquialisms. "In a minute," she told him, leaning up once more to take him in.

"What?" he asked, amused. His arms going around her, he smoothed his hands over her back and ran his fingers through her hair.

"Trying to live in the moment." She nuzzled his nose with her own. "I still can't believe it's real when we wake up together. All that time alone, and now … And alive. That's the big thing." She didn't need to elaborate, and he noticed straightaway when she didn't do.

"I'm telling you, beauty, we've got years. You'll tire of me long before you're shot of me."

She touched his face again, running her fingertips over his stubble. "Impossible," she whispered against his lips.

They did get up when, after a quarter of an hour spent kissing and touching, his stomach growled rather spectacularly.

"I fed you, didn't I?" she remarked with a smile.

He returned it, looking mischievous. "Aye, but then you had your way with me. It takes it out of a man, keeping up with the likes of you."

"Mmm," she returned, "said the pot to the kettle. Right, well, let's start with the fires. Then you can see to our boy and I'll do us some cheese on toast." And with that she rose from the bed and went to search out a pair of pajamas.

"Oi!" he called after her, getting to his feet. He caught her by the waist in front of the chest of drawers and spun her around to face him. "This was beautiful. You are beautiful. Thank you."

This, she thought. One of a million reasons to love him. He thanks his wife for sex. She kissed him hard on the mouth. "Always," she told him, and meant it from the bottom of her heart, "I always want you." I can't get enough. You'll always have me coming back for more.