Fitz's chest is rising and falling rapidly when she snuggles in the crook of his shoulder. He's flushed to the tip of his ears but at least some of the tension he was vibrating with before has gone. Jemma rubs her face a little self-consciously –she must be quite a sight as well, sprawled on the bedspread in her panties with her hair wild and the remnant of her makeup probably smudged over her face. But when Fitz tips his head to the side to meet her gaze, his eyes are filled with such reverence she can't bring herself to care.

Her own arousal has leveled a bit while she was focusing solely on his pleasure and for now, she's happy to leisurely enjoy this new plane of intimacy between them. It's been on her mind constantly, this moment, the anticipation building up and filling her with nervous energy, urging her to drop increasingly brazen hints in their conversations.

And, sure, the excitement is tempered with a touch of apprehension –they are, after all, dancing at the edge of a cliff and bracing to fall into the unknown. But the moment feels right, and she already trusts him with her life anyway.

When Jemma feels the fingers of his bad hand trembling against her skin, it comes with a pang to her gut, reminding everything they've had to endure before they could find their way to each other. Before he can move away, she grabs his hand and drops a few kisses on the inside of his wrist.

His mouth is silently working, but she can't tell by his expression alone if whatever he's trying to say is good or bad.

"Fitz? Is everything okay?" she asks, nuzzling his stubbled cheek.

"Yeah, yeah, it's just… Everything's so– you are–"

He sighs softly and glares at the ceiling, letting the sentence hang in the air, but whatever sentiment he means to share is clearly not disapproval.

"So are you," she smiles, and had she not raised her head at that very moment, she would have missed his deepening frown.

"You know I'm not… very experienced, right? I just– I don't want to mess this up."

"Fitz. You couldn't," she insists, tightening her hold on his hand.

"Oh, I think I could," he counters, a touch of humor gracing his voice. "That's much closer from my area of expertise."

"I don't know," she muses, matching his tone, "you tend to give yourself too much credit in that department, if you ask me."

His fingers are running down her ribs, considerately avoiding her most ticklish spots and skimming down the length of her back until they reach the line of her panties.

"Now, who's overdressed?"

"Don't you want to wait out until your refractory period subsides?"

Fitz lets out a strangled sound that's half-chuckle, half-snort.

"Is this your idea of dirty talk?" he asks, backtracking fast when he notices the instant narrowing of her eyes. "No, no I like it! Please proceed, Dr. Simmons. What do you want to know about my–" he grits his teeth, struggling for seriousness, "erectile function?"

"Well, in that case," she says, repressing a grin, "would you say your penile sensory threshold has sufficiently decreased to attempt further stimulation?"

This time, there's no stopping his snickering and within seconds, they're laughing in each other arms, her chin nestling into the hollow of his neck until they manage to regain some gravity.

"Actually," Fitz says once he's recovered, raising his eyebrows, "I think I want to stimulate you, if that's alright."

"Yes," Jemma concurs, biting her lip, "I would say so."

There's no telling him twice. Fitz moves until she's the one lying flat on her back and he's hovering above her, peppering kisses down her clavicle until he's lavishing her breasts with his mouth and fingers.

When he trails down her stomach and his index fingers hook in the sides of her panties, trailing the garment down until she's lying naked beneath him, her breath catches in her chest. He doesn't say anything –she doesn't expect him to, doesn't want him to assume the role of a smooth seductor when he's practically shaking with nerves– but the look her shoots her is praise enough to keep her ego healthy for weeks to come.

A wordless question flashes on his face as he brushes the triangle of hair between her legs and she nods, opening her thighs wide both to give him access and signify her eager assent.

The colors are rising higher on his cheeks as his fingers slide further down her body. A look of intent concentration appears on his face and Jemma can't help but grin, noting to herself that this has to be the expression she's most familiar with, and it's delightful to encounter it in an entirely new context.

She's smiled so much over the past 24 hours it's a wonder her face isn't sore.

Fitz's eyes are darting from her face to her sex as his nimble fingers repeat every motion that seems to elicit a positive reaction from her, introducing variants in pressure and rhythm –he's studying her, cataloguing her reactions with the extreme focus he usually saves for his most challenging projects.

"Jemma. Can I–" he begins, and the breathless and frantic tone of his voice sends another spark of heat down her body. "I want–"

"Yes. Yes," she answers, nodding wildly, and from the moment his tongue makes contact, using all that knowledge he's just been amassing, her arousal keeps on soaring and within minutes she's panting, desperate for release.

"Fitz. Come here," she urges hoarsely.

"I'm not done," he says cheekily, looking thoroughly pleased with himself, before his heads drops back down between her legs.

"Leopold Fitz!" she berates him. "If you don't come back right this instant, I swear–"

"Okay, okay," he concedes with a smirk, scooting back up and holding up two placating palms.

She thinks of telling him the time has come for them to cross the point of no return but resolves to hold her tongue. They can joke about it later. They've waited too long for this, risked too much –it's simply too important.

"Kiss me," she says instead, and he only hesitates a fraction of second before he bends his head to meet her. She can feel him against her hip, hot and pulsing, and she wonders if he realizes her heart is pounding just as hard as his is right now.

"Okay. Okay, uh, I–" Fitz looks around, his eyes anxiously searching for the duffle bag he dropped to the floor when he joined her earlier.

"Bedside table. On the right," she says impatiently, and he glances at her with gratitude and amusement before he lunges for the drawer, tearing the wrapper and sliding the condom on with impressive efficiency.

Someone's in a hurry, she almost says, but her heart clenches when she remembers that yes, actually, they are. As much as she wishes they could hole up together for a week and take all the time in the world to explore the event's horizon, now's not the time for that.

If there ever was a question about her readiness, the slickness he meets when he aligns his body with hers has to be proof enough. Fitz rests his forehead against hers as he pushes inside her, his gasp not quite covering hers.

Jemma shuts her eyes to better meet the storm of sensations –her body stretching to accommodate him, the heat of him blanketing her, his shaky breath on her face, all her nerve endings striving for completion. She wraps her legs around his waist and sets out to follow his rhythm. It's a little awkward, not really in sync, but she's so close already this suits her fine –she wants to ride this for as long as she can.

When Fitz shifts to better support his weight, her pleased sighs turn into moans –the longer strokes and different angle are doing wonders for her and she's rushing steadily closer to the edge.

Their eyes catch and she's transfixed by the look on his face, like he's about to break, like he's ready to jump through a hole in the universe again, only this time she's right there with him and they can trade sloppy kisses and mutter unintelligible endearments all the way down.

She says his name and it sounds like a sob, desperate and too full of everything, just before her body starts tightening and shuddering. She's aware of the groans escaping his mouth and the sudden stiffening of his body as she spasms around him, but only peripherally.

When he collapses on top of her, her arm wraps tighter around his shoulders and she just hangs on to him until she can breathe again.


"I take it Mack had a lot of equipment to unload in the Quinjet," Fitz says as casually as he can manage, but there's no hiding the touch of regret in his voice.

They finally made it under the covers –he can tell already that saving Jemma from hypothermia is about to become a preeminent concern in his day-to-day life– and they've just stolen another half hour of cuddling and kissing and smiling at each other like idiots in love. It's too good to last and they both know it, but they're still a little high on endorphins and, as it turns out, not very good at denying each other a favor.

"We should surely thank him for being so– considerate," Jemma advises, beaming.

Before the previous night in his room, he hadn't seen her smile that wide in years, and he has yet to get used to it again. Each occurrence sends shards of pain and pleasure through his heart; he's not quite sure if he should berate himself for failing her before, or congratulate himself for making her grin now.

"Uh, I'll do it, okay?" Fitz says prudently. The last thing he wants to do right now is to offend her, but if the past day has taught him anything, it's that Jemma Simmons is not as shy as he previously assumed regarding such matters, and he won't risk her discussing his penile anything with Mack.

"We should probably get dressed," he sighs regretfully, bending his head to kiss a large freckle that's ideally situated on top of her right breast. How is he going to concentrate on anything ever again with her next to him in the lab is a question for another day.

"Probably," she acknowledges just as forlornly. She touches her lips to his and he responds immediately, intending to indulge in one last kiss before they let reality crashes back around them, but then her tongue brushes between his lips and the next thing he knows, they're wrapped up in each other again, kissing deeply and passionately.

"Five more minutes?" she suggests breathily, the corners or her mouth rising higher and higher still.

"Five minutes," he nods, knotting his fingers into her hand gently before he catches her mouth with his once more. "Sounds good."