A/N: Thanks to betas ColorOfAngels, Houseluvr, and Timbereads, who, to be fair, haven't read this updated version, but who nonetheless helped me shape this chapter.

Dedication: This story continues to be dedicated to Katej, for "all the etc."

Cameron looked up at House beneath heavy lids framed by long lashes. Like the tiny dancer in Elton John's song, she appeared delicate, her dark hair and milky skin a study in contrast.

Regarding her small form dressed in black like the widow she was, House was filled with contradictory wants.

I, me, mine.

He wanted to pin her against the pew and grind his hard cock into her softness, to shove his knee between her legs and up against her clit, to yank her to him, forcing her mouth open under his and thrusting his tongue inside like a brute from a dime store bodice ripper.

Want to crush you.

But as House surveyed her tear marked face, noticing the way she wavered on her feet from exhaustion, he just wanted to mold her to him so his warmth could offer her a haven from hurt.

Won't crush you.

Like it or not – and House was conflicted – Cameron brought out the caveman in him. So slender was she, her frame at times looked fragile beneath the white lab coat. If he scooped her up into his arms, it would be like carrying a child.

The few times he'd seen her cry, and today was no exception, an emotion more potent than pain attacked his heart and spread through his chest like angina.

Those were the times he'd forced himself to school his face and still his body, although he'd found it impossible on those occasions to breathe normally, and he'd squeeze the handle of his cane until his knuckles turned white.

If only he could love her body, kiss her mouth, grow inside her in spirit and in truth, and in so doing, heal her from hurt.

One love, one blood, one life.

At the base of House's belly, desire curls, spreading downward to fuel his erection.

How many ways can I ask you to take me, here & now?

That's what her eyes say.

Afterward, neither is sure who took the first step forward or if they stumbled together into one another's arms.

Cameron touches his face, scruff tickling her sensitive palm. Before he kisses her, House gives her the semi-sad half-smile, light contained in his eyes.

And more.

You think you know me now. Now you'll know me.

He leans toward her, lowering his head to her level, arms around her waist, learning its curves. His hands snake down to claim her ass, and he pulls her closer, up where he's so hard it aches.

Nearer my god to thee, nearer to thee, the angels sing as they look down on the scene.

It takes forever for their mouths to touch, and as they close in on each other, the colors of their eyes mix together like paint on a palate, until his blue is in her green. Atoms multiply. The ghosts in the chapel hush and the saints pictured in the thick colored glass cover their mouths with their hands, but keep their eyes open. Once his mouth skims hers, it's fated addiction.

"You shouldn't wear black. This isn't a funeral," House admonishes.

His hands skim her ribcage under her shirt as he lifts it over her head, and then he kisses her as if he has a fever and is no longer responsible for his actions. Her mouth is hot, the skin of her back silken, as his hands move restlessly down to her waist and he yanks her hard up against his erection. The sight of her aqua lace bra filled with the swell of her perfect breasts and the tiny freckles sprinkled across her clavicle makes him curse. That and the feel of those breasts pressed against his t-shirt, her stiffened nipples seductively brushing his chest.

His bad leg bumps into a pew.

Have to remedy that.

House grabs her hand and leads her to the front of the chapel under the benevolent face of the Virgin Mary, and draws her down onto the carpeting. Rolling onto his good side, he pulls her to him, clasping her small boned frame against the long, lean, length of him.

He feels small hands grip the back of his head, as her kiss deepens and she sucks his tongue inside of her mouth.

Can't get close enough to him.

She clings to his body as if ravenous. Next to her ear, his breath is ragged. House rolls onto his back, taking her with him, loving the sensation of blue chapel carpeting underneath him, while Cameron covers him like a blanket.

Her deft tongue darts between his lips, brushing his with a confidence that sends blood crashing toward his prick. He sucks her bottom lip and nips at the soft flesh gently with his teeth. It makes him think of biting off her panties when it comes right down to it.

Before he goes down on her, he wants to see her nakedness, the soft raven curls that cover her mound, to part her with his hands, and then his tongue, and, God help him, to fill her with his cock.

His hands reach for her pants and she grabs his wrists, guiding him as he unzips, tugging at the cloth. Watching her wriggle out of the trousers with a swish of her hips, he caught his first glimpse of transparent blue-green panties and what lies beneath. House burst with the desire to tug off the garment with his teeth and explore her with tongue and mouth – to tease her lips apart …

But not yet.

Cameron pushes him back down as her fingers fumble with the buttons of his aubergine shirt. "I'll buy you another," she promises, husky of voice, impatiently grabbing at the cloth and sending buttons flying only God knows where as she feels House's warm hands slide over her bare arms.

She feels cool and silky beneath his roving palms. Tugging at his tee, she burrows underneath it until he feels her mouth kissing a path from waist band up with a quick stop to dip into navel and blow – fuck, that was – but there was no time to think of adjectives as she shoved material out of her way, her tongue circling his hardened nipples hungrily. He lifted his arms so she could slip the shirt up and off him, and as she did her hands traced his biceps, his forearms. She couldn't stop kissing his mouth, sometimes barely skimming his lips, and then crushing his mouth with hers. Fine-boned fingers touched the bulge in his jeans, studying its shape, length, and heft.

Holy … In the name of all that is … holy. He's big and hard for me.

She leans over him, spilling into his eyes.

"I thought you'd become immune to me," she mused as he pulls off the band holding her ponytail in place and her hair falls across his face.

"Me, too," he lied. "Guess the magic serum protecting me from your charms wore off." House grips her rounded ass, edging a thumb under the lace, and pulling her panties down over her hips for better access.

He feels fingertips caress the shape of his erection as she asks, "How do you feel about your pants?"

"At the moment, ill disposed." He wondered as he replied if his eyes were rolling back into his head like a shark in the throes of a feeding frenzy. Her hands fumble with his belt and the button fly of his jeans, and then he felt her ease the pants down over his hardness, and gently past the necrotic tissue of his right leg.

Her tummy flipped at the sight of his cock packaged in his blue boxer briefs as she mentally reviewed the times she'd imagined seeing all of him, and having him inside her – too many to absorb at present. She wanted skin on skin and, oh, there he was in just his socks, he'd rid himself of the boxers and his cock jutted out, a formidable presence.

Her panties were wet.

Everything about House, all of his limbs and muscles, tendons and bones were beautiful to Cameron. But she returns to look into his eyes because that was where she'd learned to love him, want him. The naked blues were as potent as his stiff prick.

House rolls over on his side, lightly stroking her curves from hip to ribcage, and stares at her naked body, supine, skin satiny, swell of breasts peaked with dusky nipples, legs slightly parted, sex hidden beneath tiny brunette curls. He wanted to see her hands down there moving her lips aside to he could view the place he aimed for – and yet his eyes flicked back to her face, the sculpted beauty of her cheekbones and her eyes – both innocence and experience shone within – the open invitation that was her mouth, and the unkempt allure of that nut-colored hair.

He sucked in his lower lip and puffed it out again. "I'd say something, but I know how you hate it when I give you credit for being merely beautiful."

Cursing guitar giant Peter Frampton, House was attacked by the lyrics to the shaggy haired singer's, I'm in you; you're in me, but he kept his mouth shut and pulled Cameron hard up against his own nakedness.

Cameron nearly passed out, pressed against six foot two inches of House, and that wasn't even counting his erection. Hidden was the House whose long-standing date was with daytime television, the House who regarded breasts as "fun bags" and whose allegiance was to Monster trucks. This was a House who kissed back, who seemed to have memorized her shape and intuited her taste for loving without ever having touched her before.

As much as he took, he gave back more. His love paid dividends, she thought, moaning as he pushed her legs apart with his left knee, suddenly impatient. House gently touched between her legs, circling her clit and vulva with his fingers flattened, all the while watching her expression, before slowing his movement and – there, right there, like that – her flesh gave way before him, moved against him, and then it was the head of his hard-on nuzzling her folds, up against the wetness that led deep inside her.

As he entered Cameron, slowly filling her with the length of him, she felt stabbed by sweetness and her whole body tingled. She rose to meet him, posting against his pelvis, pressing her breasts against him to heighten the sensation that warmed her clit. Maybe there was a God after all.

House was where he had wanted to be since the first time he'd seen her and claimed her as his own personal work of art. She was everything, she was on him, and he was in her, buried deep in sheer Cameron heat. He rotated his cock within her, angling in and around, shifting when her moans became a descant. Her hands grasped his hair, then restlessly, she ran his fingertips across his spine and clutched the dip of his back, finding the hard shape of his buttocks and squeezing.

He had to go deeper, faster, and as he thrust long and hard into liquid heat, she touched the place where they connected, her small hand needing to feel where they joined together.

"House. Look," she says, "at us."

A hard cock, halfway buried in the dark wildness that framed Cameron's entrance is what House sees when he obeys Cameron and looks down at where the two of them meet.

United.

And then he finds her eyes as he gives one more thrust, brushing his head against her spot while skimming her clit with his thumb. Cameron cries out beneath him, and he feels her walls spasm around his cock as she comes, her body shuddering, her mouth moving beneath his. A surge of wet heat floods his erection as his excitement builds and exquisite pleasure pulses up from the base of his prick to the head, exploding as he shoots into her, whispering her name in her ear.

It wasn't a quick fuck on the floor of a chapel, but it wasn't a ballet, either. It was their first time. It was sacrilege and it was sacred, but mostly it was salvation. The only witnesses were the blue and green stained saints and Christ himself, his mom, and his 12 chums. A motley crew, no doubt, but blessedly silent.

They lay tangled together. House squeezed his eyes shut, afraid he'd weep out of sheer relief at the contact – finally, this – or that his heart would stop: this was as good a time as any.

Might have been the location, it was a chapel, after all, or it may have been that his proximity to Cameron put him in mind of the profane and the sacred, but words to a distant hymn from his childhood seemed right for the up close and personal that was their first time:

There let the way appear, steps unto heaven;

All that thou sendest me, in mercy given;

Angels to beckon me

Nearer, my God, to thee;

Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee.

It worked, he thought, if you just replaced "God" with "Cameron."

Cameron intuited deep emotion emanating from House, and decided to keep her tone on the light side, although she found she couldn't stop touching him – the pectoral muscles beneath her hands were hard, and she had to trace between each rib. Slipping a hand between their bellies where sweat pooled, she pulled it out again, and reached up to touch his face.

From now on, for her, the chapel would be a holy place.

"Am I, is this, just another distraction?" She asked it with her lips at his ear, nibbling its lobe, swiping tongue ever-so-lightly inside its shell.

House exhaled, finally opening his eyes to regard his Cameron.

"Only if you count the fact that you've driven me to distraction since the moment we met," he answered, his breath ragged. Then he admitted, "Everything is a distraction from the pain, but I wouldn't place you in the same league as soaps, Nintendo, and pay-per-fucks."

"You're a romantic," she laughed, hugging him, and he kissed her hard and deep in response.

"You on anything?" House asked, sounding more curious than concerned. "Forgot about condoms. Just like high school."

"I hate condoms." The vehemence in Cameron's voice surprised House. "I think everyone should use them. But, I think they should call them condemns, as in, you're condemned to have sex with a sock. Yes, I'm covered in the birth control department."

Although Cameron told the truth about the first part, she edited the second part. She did have a prescription for birth control pills, and she usually took them faithfully. But, she'd missed a few days with all of the Ezra Powell stuff going on.

Still, she was pretty sure she wasn't ovulating.

Pretty sure.

A/N: Reviews and favorite passages are always appreciated. Thanks for reading. Blueheronz