When Cassie wakes up on Valentine's Day morning it's to the noise of crinkling paper under her face.

Groaning, she removes the sticky not from her face and blearily examines the tidy scrawl. Basically it was just Jaime saying he was going out for a few hours and would be back before nine. She looked at the alarm clock's blocky red numbers. 9:04 a.m. Good, he was home so she could grouch at him until he made her coffee and breakfast.

Kicking off the blankets, Cassie combed her fingers through her hair and grimaced at the tangles. She stumbled into the bathroom, still half asleep, to brush her teeth and try to approach something looking halfway presentable.

Once she's mostly conscious, she pads her way into the living room. She stops in the doorway, jaw dropping just a bit. Delight and surprise shot through her veins, and any remaining sleepiness evaporated into excitement.

Jaime had constructed a massive pillow fort. Couch cushions and rigid pillows held up a roof of thin sheets, the floor underneath covered in soft blankets and her stuffed animals. (Which he was obligated to tease her about, but cuddled just as much if not more.)

The TV was on and halfway through the first Thor movie, and Cassie practically vibrated when she saw the stack of dvds. The x-men movies, the wolverine ones, the iron man movies, the avengers, captain america – there was the makings of a wonderful marathon and Cassie bounced a little on the balls of her feet just thinking about it.

Jaime walked in just about the time she was going slackjawed over Loki, carrying a brown paper bag. She watched him unpack the items, though most of her attention was focused on the screen. She was only human, and Tom Hiddleston was speaking.

This didn't stop her from making a mental list of the items he pulled out - coffee grounds, milk, strawberry ice cream, toothpaste-

"Ice cream? In the middle of winter?" She asked slyly (in her opinion), trying not to make it painfully obvious how she was going to sit here and eat the entire carton of frozen strawberry goodness.

"It's for you," he said because he was the most wonderful person in the history of ever, popping open the lid and sticking a spoon in it before handing it into Cassie's eager hands. She opened her mouth to form a false objection of how she had to share it, and then realized it was utterly ridiculous.

He dropped a quick kiss on the top of her head before leaving to put the rest of the things away. Cassie turned her attention back to the movie, smiling quietly.

Jaime returned to the room carrying something wrapped in black crepe paper. Cassie winced away from a pang of guilt. She'd started wrapping Stephen King's latest novel but gave up when she realized she couldn't wrap worth shit.

He settled next to her, pulling a blanket over his legs and snaking an arm around her shoulders. Cassie opened the gift, grinning down at the pajamas. The tanktop had 'Zombie Killer', complete with blood spatters, printed across the chest. The pants were less subtle, covered in undead who more likely than not were missing limbs (or heads).

"Oh my god, I love it so much!" Cassie took the exclamation as an excuse to hug Jaime. Words could not describe how happy she was – ice cream, a pillow fort, her favorite movies, violently themed pajamas...

He awkwardly patted her back and she slowly moved off from him and situated herself back into a comfortable position to watch the movie. Scenes passed and they relaxed back into a position that could nearly be referred to as snuggling.

Cassie heard Jaime take a deep breath and suddenly he was nudging her head to look down at his hands. They were holding a tiny box, the kind that you got when you bought a fancy necklace. She frowned down, already opening her mouth to berate Jaime over spending money on jewelry when she didn't need more gifts and they'd nearly had to cut netflix-

Then Jaime opened the box, and all she could do was gape down because she'd found the most perfect person alive to date.

The ring was, at first glance, just beautiful. On closer inspection (which she quickly gave) it was created from delicate spirals of metal, a spiderweb pattern surrounding the diamond. Cassie couldn't move, could hardly breathe, overwhelmed by just – everything. How lucky she was, how incredible Jaime was, how much her mom was going to freak-

"I- uh, Cassie?" Jaime's voice was so nervous it cracked, and she laughed, because how could he be nervous? She pulled away from the warmth of his arms and the blankets so she could place herself firmly in his lap, smiling into his lips.

"Yes." she mumbled, joy bubbling in her chest and out of her throat. "Yes!"

He gently pushed her back far enough that she could see him grinning, and she offered up her hand. Jaime slipped the ring on, and she said yes until the word lost its meaning and became a jumble of letters in the air. It was ridiculous that he thought he even needed to ask, when she loved him so much it hurt a little.

He kissed her again, her 'yes's answered with 'thank you's and she scraped her fingernails up under his shirt and over the skin of his back and the little gasp he made was what decided it.

There was no reason to be scared. He wasn't going to leave her, she wasn't going to be another in a long string of one night stands. Jaime – sweet and kind and gentle – wouldn't intentionally hurt her and would do his damndest to make it amazing. If it did hurt, he would let her back out and not say anything, just kiss her and apologize and check her over with fluttery hands.

That decided, she wasn't quite ready to shout 'YES I'LL HAVE SEX WITH YOU' or just strip down. So she took a deep breath, and scooted up from where she had been seated on his thighs to his crotch.

His eyes dilated and another one of those beautiful gasps left his lips. "You-"

"Yes." Cassie said, and that was that.

Time passed in a blur of tongue and teeth and bare skin. Before her brain caught up with the proceedings, she was flat on her back, gasping and only in her panties. Jaime was trailing fingers feather light down her ribs, and the way her back arched from just that touch was excruciatingly embarrassing.

He paused when he reached the top of her underwear, thumbs rubbing what was probably meant to be soothing circles into her hipbones.

"Are you sure?"

"If you fucking ask me if I'm sure one more time-"

Then the layer of cloth was gone, and she was exposed, flinching away from the sudden rush of cold air.

She felt Jaime's warm breath against the inside of her thighs, making her squirm and bite down on her lip in anticipation. After a painstaking moment, he flicked his tongue out and into her and she will deny to her dying day the noise that came out of her.

Blood pounded harder and faster in her ears as he grew more adventurous, exploring, holding her down when her hips twitched. Everything suddenly seemed like a bad idea, and she wanted to back out- she was making these noises like a dying animal, he had to be just doing it out of pity now. Her hands had somehow wound up tangled in his hair, and she had to drop them if she didn't want to rip his hair out when he pressed a flattened tongue against her clit. He very slowly pressed his index finger into her, the knuckles providing an interesting sensation. She couldn't decide if everything felt euphoric or just mortifying. If anything it seemed surreal.

"Jaime," She whispered. And the pornstar tone in her voice, God, she was never going to live that down. She was sure her face was flaming red in embarassment, while her hips fought against his hold to snap upwards. He occupied her against by rolling her clit between his tongue and upper front teeth, finger sliding the rest of the way into her. Her hands gripped the floor underneath her while heat pooled into her stomach.

Butterflies exploded in her chest, and she wanted to tell him to stop because she was definitely in danger of having a stroke. Jaime gently prodded a second finger into her and she wanted to shout. Everything was hot, too hot. His index finger curled at the same time he lightly bit down and her back arched against the touch, her breath coming out in uneven, helpless pants.

The third finger was less pleasant, but words quickly became incomprehensible when he pressed his tongue- now erected and pointed- against the underside of her clit and generously licking until the top and then giving it a tiny kiss and repeating the process over. She was sure from that alone was finally what made her hips quiver and the world go numb as he held her steady, his touch grounding her, the only thing that kept her from falling into a million pieces and melting.

Cassie thought he pulled away, but she couldn't be sure, the entire world a blur of colors and shapes, body loose and pliable. Her hearing was narrowed down to the drum of her heartbeat and the whoosh of air from her lungs. She never wanted to move, had a vague feeling of kill me now before life comes back and ruins this.

Jaime was making noises that certainly weren't whimpers, thank you very much, but that weren't very dignified either. He nudged Cassie's face so her glazed over eyes were staring straight at him, face lax with bliss.

"Cassie – can I- Cas-" The words failed into little choked gasps as Cassie nodded, wrapping legs around his hips in an effort to bring him closerclosercloser.

Then he was pushing in, slowly, so slowly, and Cassie was making these strangled noises, raking her fingernails down his back when he asked if she wanted him to stop.

Then he was in, and it was hot and wet and tight, and maybe it was the year and a half of celibacy or maybe it was just Cassie, but he had to take slow breaths because it was like his first time all over again. Her hips were jerking insistently under his, and he held her down and still because so not helping.

When he was fairly certain he wouldn't come the second he moved, he pulled back – slowly slowly oh God – and then slammed back in. Cassie's back arched, mouth open in a silent scream as her body tensed.

The world devolved to wet and tight and heat and Cassie. Sweat covered limbs slid off each other, gasps and moans and half muffled screams filled his senses. Cassie wasn't that much better, struggling to keep her eyes open because she wanted to see him, wanted to commit Jaime's face to memory. Her entire body was shrieking, nerve endings oversensitized from her first orgasm to the point where she wasn't quite sure if it was fantastic or agony.

Then it didn't matter, because Jaime's eyes were closing, his teeth bared over hissed breaths. He was close, and Cassie clenched because she wasn't sure how much more she could take before she just melted into a puddle of endorphins and died.

Jaime's eyes snapped open, driving into her fast and hard a few more times until his entire body stiffened and a noise that couldn't have been entirely human ripped through him.

He collapsed on top of her, mumbling an apology that Cassie brushed off. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but you couldn't have convinced her to be anywhere else right now. Sticky, hot, starting to itch – it didn't matter.

Because this was Jaime. This was Jaime who always woke up and immediately glared at the nearest light source, Jaime who smelled like coffee and always remembered what kind of tampons she needed. Jaime who brought her chocolate and tylenol during her periods, Jaime who tickled her until the neighbors came to investigate. Jaime who ranted whenever he didn't agree with his book, Jaime who didn't really like superheroes but endured her fangirling over them anyways.

Jaime, who Cassie was in love with.

Jaime, who Cassie was going to spend the rest of her life with.

Jaime, who was definitely putting the ice cream away as soon as he could move, because if it melted she would kill him.