Lindy giggled at the pictures falling when Tim pushed her against the bedroom wall. Her laughs didn't last long though because they were drowned in Tim's kiss. Her hands quickly unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off his shoulders. His mouth moved to her neck and she let out a sigh of pleasure. Tim continued on to her collarbone -- Lindy's "magic spot" -- kissing from each side to the middle, then back up her neck to meet with her lips. She shoved her tongue into his mouth, not able to get enough of him.

"You weren't kidding about wanting to jump me," Lindy commented between moans and sighs.

"I told you I love your cooking dance," Tim replied as he pulled her shirt over her head. His hands found their way to her hips and he connected his lips to her body between her breasts. She arched her back into him, and he looked up at her with a smile. Lindy undid his belt and jeans, and pressed her mouth to his once more, backing him up to the bed. Once there, she let Tim take over, knowing he liked to be the one in control. He pulled her on top of him, and Lindy took her turn to kiss his neck all the way down, then move back up to nibble his ear. Tim groaned and moved to yank her jeans and underwear off, anxious to get started. With her leaning over him, completely naked, he couldn't stand it any longer. He flipped her over to her back and stood to rid himself of his jeans and boxers. Once back on the bed, Lindy pulled Tim to her, needing to kiss him. He indulged her, and while she was distracted by his kiss, he slipped inside her. The surprise sent a shock through Lindy's body and she had to try hard not to scream. Sweat was building up on both of them when Lindy dug her fingers into Tim's back, a result of the waves of sensation that were washing over her. Tim found himself in an equal state of satisfaction, and knew it wouldn't be much longer. The harder she dug her fingers in, the closer he was. A few minutes later, Lindy felt his entire body tense, and hers followed a few seconds later. They were both breathing heavy when Tim moved to lay next to her, a hand on her stomach. He kissed her cheek, then ran his fingers through her hair.

"If I would have known it was going to be that hot, I would've told you to come over a long time ago," Lindy said, unable to manage anything more than a whisper. Tim chuckled and kissed her on the mouth.

"I'm going to get a drink of water. You interested?" Tim pulled his jeans back on watched for Lindy's nod.

"I'm going to get in the shower while you do that." Lindy stood on tiptoe to kiss him one more time before getting in the shower. She felt like she just couldn't get enough of him sometimes.

Tim smiled to himself all the way to the kitchen and while he was getting the two glasses of water ready. He downed half of his and then refilled it. He just stood for a few minutes, thinking about Lindy. No one had ever managed to get to him like this, especially not a girl. He heard her singing from the shower and smiled, realizing that his heart beat a little faster. He remembered her asking the day before if he cared about her, and knew he needed to talk to her about it, so he set the two water glasses down on the bedroom dresser and stripped off his jeans to join her in the shower.

"Tim! You scared me!" Lindy gasped, rinsing the soap off of her body. Seeing her with no make up and dripping wet made Tim's heart beat faster, but it had nothing to do with sex.

"I'm sorry," Tim apologized. He kissed her softly, and she noticed the tense look on his face.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, I just wanted to talk to you about something you said the other night."

"And you felt the need to talk about it in the shower?" Lindy smiled. Tim smiled back at her, loving that her thoughts were the same as what his would have been.

"Not necessarily in the shower, but I do need to talk about it now while it's on my mind to talk about it, otherwise, I may not be able to bring it up again for awhile. You were trying to make light of the conversation, but you really wanted an answer from me when you asked the other day if I cared about you, didn't you?"

The question caught Lindy off-guard. It wasn't very often someone saw through her, but Tim managed to do it all the time. Because of this, she confessed. "Yes. I mean, I know we're trying to progress, and I'm really glad you're here tonight and you met Kerry and everything, but sometimes I'm still unsure where I stand with you."

"That's my fault, Lindy. I'm not very good at telling people how I feel unless it's an annoyance or something. I don't like to be vulnerable." Here, Tim paused, making sure he really wanted to tell her what he was thinking. "I do care about you. Really. I just don't want to rush things because of it and have you end up getting hurt."

Lindy smiled and rinsed out the shampoo she'd been lathering up while he made he speech. "Thank you, Tim. That right there tells me maybe you care more than you know. I'll let you finish your shower, and then we can go to bed. Okay?"

Tim nodded in agreement and kissed her before she stepped out of the shower. Lindy picked up one of the towels on the shelf and wrapped it around her, heading to the bedroom. She dried herself off and dressed in Tim's shirt before drying her hair some and braiding it. Tim's words had a wondrous affect on her heart, and she sighed as she snuggled under the covers. When they had first met, she never would have guessed that Tim Speedle would be the one man to be different from all the rest, but she found herself caring about him, too. She allowed her imagination the extravagance of picturing them together for a long time to come, and fell asleep with a smile on her face, which is exactly how Tim found her ten minutes later when he turned off the light and buried under the covers with her.

--

Lindy woke up when Tim's alarm went off the next morning. Normally she would go back to sleep while he showered and got ready for work, would wake up to kiss him goodbye, and then go back to sleep for awhile before leaving his apartment. This morning though, she wanted to do something different since they were at her place. She got up and made coffee, pulling her hair out of the braid while she waited for it to brew. Tim found her still in his shirt waiting with one porcelain mug and one with a lid for him to take to work in front of the coffee machine. Careful not scare her this time, he hugged her from behind and kissed her neck.

"Good morning, beautiful," he told her quietly, not wanting to wake anyone else up. "Did you sleep okay?"

Lindy's smile could have lit up the entire city. "I most certainly did."

"What's that smile for?" Tim knew she hadn't slept that well, but wasn't exactly sure it was the sex either. Lindy turned in his arms and threw her own around his neck.

"You've never said that to me before. It just makes me happy to hear it."

Tim thought back over what he had said. "I've never told you before that you're beautiful?"

Lindy shook her head and released him from her embrace to fix his coffee. "I didn't really expect it though. I mean, not that I didn't think you didn't think it or anything, but that's just you."

Tim took the coffee cup from her as she shrugged, and with his other hand, cupped her chin. "You are beautiful, Lindy. You're the most beautiful girl I have ever met, and I should've told you every day for the last month. Just because it's not me, doesn't mean that you don't deserve to hear it."

Lindy kissed him. "You're going to be late for work."

--

Tim found Erik in the locker room when he first arrived at the lab. He noticed that Erik looked extremely tired, and took the opportunity to ask what was up.

"Late night at the bar," Erik replied with a smile. "Nothing else."

"Didn't hear you come in with Kerry last night. You couldn't have been too drunk if you were that quiet."

Erik chuckled. "All right, all right. Kerry came home with me last night. Nothing happened though, okay?"

"Nothing at all?"

"I kissed her, she kissed me, we fell asleep."

Tim nodded, shutting his locker. "Okay, whatever you say."

"Hey, Speed," Erik called before his friend could walk away. "You and Lindy … I don't know exactly what you're doing there, but hang on to her. I mean, I think she's good for you."

Tim nodded. "Maybe."

--

A few nights later, Tim had just gotten ready for bed when his phone rang. He smiled, knowing it was Lindy on her way home from work. He flipped it open and answered, feeling the now familiar racing of his heart.

"Hey," he greeted warmly.

"Hey you," came Lindy's tired reply. "How are you?"

"I'm all right. Getting ready for bed. You okay? You seem a little down."

Lindy smiled at the concern Tim was trying to hide from his tone. "Just a long night at the bar. How was work?"

"It was fine. I hear Kerry went home with Erik last night."

"Yeah, that's what she told me. She also told me all they did was kiss, but I don't know how much of that I really believe."

"I don't know, Erik told me the same thing. Think they'll make a go of it?"

"I think Kerry's a little unsure. I'll probably talk to her tomorrow, so I'm sure she'll say something about it."

"Yeah. Listen, Lindy, you sound really stressed out. Are you sure it was just a long night at the bar?"

"Yeah, um, Randy came in tonight." It took Tim a moment to place who Randy was, and then he remembered the night in the alley.

"I thought they kicked him out for good?" Tim exclaimed. He didn't like hearing that the bar was allowing patrons who roughed up their employees.

"So did I," Lindy replied, sounding like she was tearing up. "But I guess he made some sort of elaborate apology to Monica and now he's in good standing again."

"Where are you now?"

"The cab just pulled in to my apartment complex."

"Tell him to bring you here. I'll pay for the trip," Tim offered.

"Tim, you don't need to do that. Just leave the door unlocked for me." They bid each other goodbye, and thirty minutes later, Lindy had crawled in to bed with Tim. He rolled over on his back so that she could lay her head on his chest, and he put an arm around her shoulder.

"We need to talk about you maybe changing jobs," Tim told her. He was hesitant to bring it up because he didn't want to be controlling or even come across that way, but her safety was growing more and more important to him by the day.

Lindy sighed. "I had a feeling you would say that. I've never had a job anywhere but restaurants and bars, Tim. This is all I know."

"I know that you could do any job you got. I'll help you look, if you're up for it. I just don't want you to get hurt again."

Lindy sat up a little so that she could kiss him before snuggling back under his arm again. "I would very much appreciate the help."

--

Lindy didn't have to look long. The law office where Kerry worked as a paralegal was in desperate need of a new receptionist, and with some good words from Kerry, they were happy to hire Lindy. With the day job, she was able to fall in to a more consistent, comfortable routine. She was staying with Tim, or vice versa, most nights now. He couldn't remember the last time he had made dinner for himself, but he certainly wasn't complaining about it. Three months into the relationship, Kerry came to Lindy's desk with a huge smile on her face.

"You have a delivery, missy," Kerry announced, pointing to the front door of the office. A high school aged boy carried in a pretty vase full of yellow roses and asked for Lindy Sullivan.

Lindy blushed and identified herself. "Thank you, very much. Kerry, do you see the card?"

"Yeah, right here." Kerry plucked the card out of its holder and read it for Lindy. "It says, 'Three months today.'"

"He remembered," Lindy smiled. "He's never mentioned it before, and we're still not official. I didn't think he would remember."

"Call him," Kerry urged. "I'm not doing anything, so I'll cover for you if any calls or anything come in."

"Thanks." Lindy hurriedly dialed Tim's cell phone number, feeling butterflies overtake her stomach. More and more Tim was doing things out of his normal comfort zone for her, which made her hopeful that this may actual go somewhere one day.

"Speedle," came a gruff reply on the other end.

"Do you have a couple minutes to talk or are you busy?"

"I can talk." Lindy could hear the smile in his voice. "I take it you got the flowers."

"Just now. Thank you. I didn't know you were keeping track."

"Yeah, to be honest, I pulled the file on Randy to see when we booked him in for that assault. But I will remember now."

Lindy laughed. "It's all right. Well, I don't want to keep you for too long at work, but I did want to thank you for the flowers. This means a lot to me, Tim."

"I'm glad you like them. You know, I was thinking of something else."

"What's that?"

"I've never taken you out. I mean, we've gotten food and brought it back to the apartment, but I've never taken you on a date. Will you let me do that for you tomorrow night?"

Lindy thought her heart might explode, but then her face fell. "That would be wonderful, but my last night at the bar is tomorrow."

"Oh, that's right." Tim had forgotten. Since Lindy started working at the law firm so soon, she was still finishing up her two weeks at the bar. Tim had all but insisted she just quit, but Lindy informed him she never "just quit" any job in her life.

"If you don't mind though, I could come see you when I get off work," Lindy offered.

"Great. I've got to get back to this case, but I'll see you tonight?"

"You most certainly will."

"All right. See you tonight." Lindy hung up and looked at Kerry. She didn't even have to say a word.

"You're falling for him." Kerry's comment wasn't a question; it was a statement.

"I am not, he's just being sweet right now."

Kerry rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Lin."

A/N: We're heating up a little more in this chapter! For those of you who may be wondering, this will probably be the last we see of the jerks who roughed Lindy up earlier in the story, I just needed them to cause some concern for Tim. :)

Also, I apologize for not updating sooner; I have had this chapter ready, but I was in a car wreck last week (on my birthday, isn't that wonderful?) so I haven't been doing much of anything. School has started up too, but I will still try to post at least once a week.

Thanks for reading!