A/N: First and foremost, my reviewers take my breath away. You all are the reason I write, and to hear such kind words totally and completely makes me giddy. Thank you :D I again want to offer my apologies for not updating this sooner and leaving everybody hanging with this fic, and if anyone still cares after all this time, I'll be very, very surprised. Oh, and there's seeee-ex in this chappie. Yep, I said sex. Intrigued now:D Hope you like.

Betty perched on the edge of the unnecessarily bouncy bed of the deluxe suite of the ski lodge and tried not to throw up. She'd attempted to distract herself by staring out at the pristine mountain vista of falling snow, but had to pull the curtains closed, finally. The drifts of snow piled against the window made her feel claustrophobic and trapped in there with her own insecurities and a gorgeous, kind, wonderful man with the body of a Greek god that wanted desperately to have sex with her.

We should all have problems like yours, Sissy, came Hilda's sardonic rejoinder in her head.

Betty had to admit, her quandary wasn't exactly the plot of Saw. She'd thought she was more than ready to sleep with Daniel for the first time, but now the issues that had made her subconsciously put it off came bubbling to the surface. Speaking of issues, there was, Thank God, the newest issue of Mode on the nightstand. She reached for it, desperate for a distraction.

Daniel himself was in search of condoms, and was, so far, shit out of luck. Oh, come on, this is a freakin' ski lodge sat in the middle of Deliverance-style wilderness and snowed in half the time. What do they think people come here for?

The thought led him to why he'd brought his girl here in the first place. Not to seduce her or push her, but to get them both away from the long arm of Meade Publications, at least for the weekend. He'd been worried about her, honestly, as she had been growing wan and pale and shifty, even in his arms. He chalked it up to work stress, mostly Alexis and Wilhelmina-induced. Seeing his brother's eyes peering out of a seven-foot-tall woman's body was enough to make anyone run the other way, and Daniel was rather proud of himself that he'd resisted ere this, especially when his bro-sis's latest foray to the dark side involved shooting Daniel in the nuts with a paintball gun. And while Wili's icy glare was nothing new, her smile was enough to shrivel gonads, even non-existent girly Betty ones.

But the thought occurred to him, after finally buying rubbers off the bellhop, that maybe Betty was simply afraid. Of him. The thought absolutely annihilated him from the inside out, but he could understand. If he were a woman, he'd have his reservations about him, too. Daniel refused to feel guilty for wanting Betty and, God, did he ever want her, but it was eating him up inside that he was such a rat-bastard in the past that she would be so obviously terrified now.

He was rather surprised when she'd calmly informed him that she was ready, and like most things involving Betty, it came from absolutely nowhere, straight out of the blue. They had been watching "Dawson's Creek" reruns and arguing the eternal merits of Pacey versus the quaint virtuous charms of Dawson, wrapped up in each other's arms. Betty was wearing a baggy shapeless sweater and laughing over the fact that the hot-natured Daniel was completely shirtless, when her adorable, flushed Betty-face raised to his and she said "Daniel, I'm ready."

He looked at her stupidly. "For what?"

And then she kissed him, pushing him down on the fluffy pillow fortress and straddling him.

Everything became exhilaratingly clear. "Betty, we don't have to do this now…" For once Concerned Boyfriend of the Century!Daniel shone through over Horny Beyond Belief!Daniel, who was mainly chanting Oh, shut up, you hopeless, castrated pansy!

"Oh, don't be coy," Betty teased, sitting on top of him, head tilted like a curious, matter-of-fact little bird.

Daniel brilliantly said, "We'll need a condom." He would've thought of something more eloquent but Betty was on top of him. And there was a possibility that if either of them moved, this would all be over a lot faster than they would've liked.

"You mean you don't have one in your suitcase? Or your back pocket?"

"For once in my life, no." He lifted her easily and kissed her forehead before laying her back down in the warm dent in the pillows he'd just occupied. "I'll be right back."

He returned to find Betty standing, her smooth cool arms twined around the ornately carved bedpost and her forehead resting on one of its wooden lions. She was wearing his old Harvard jersey which she had quickly claimed as her own when they'd started dating; she was practically swimming in the thing, to the point where the torn neckline actually dipped to show cleavage and a shoulder of olive-toned marble. Daniel was about to go absolutely insane right there on the plush rug with love and need and protectiveness of her, emotions that had always been there but had startled them both with their intensity when they finally emerged.

And she was shaking, Daniel's typical response to which was to immediately warm her up. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her and saw the open copy of Mode on the bed before her. In it was the typical blonde, emaciated model in impractical underwear and sporting too much eyeliner.

Daniel kissed the top of her head and rested his cheek on her shoulder, something he had to bend way over to do, but her warmth was worth it. "So what are we looking at here?"

"Something I'm not." The words were so soft, so small, that he knew he wasn't really meant to hear. Betty suddenly took a deep breath and turned around.

"Daniel, if I wore something like this, it would itch like a mother," she declared.

"Ooooo-kay." Do not make any sudden movements…

Betty began to visibly crumble, all the stress of the last months crashing down in an effect that shocked both of them with its intensity. "Do you understand?" she begged. She picked up the magazine, both palms out flat to support it. She held out the picture of the model like an offering. "I can't be this, I'm not…Daniel, I can't ever…" His confident, scarily smart, center-of-his-universe Betty was wilting before his eyes and God help him, he was crying, too.

"Oh, Jesus, baby, is that what you've been afraid of? Come here. Shhh." He pulled her against him, but she put her hands on his chest and looked up at him through moist eyes. "Ok, disclaimer time. I'm short and I'm curvy and I have an ass and I'm…"

"Giving me a boner the size of the Eiffel Tower?" Daniel said, seriously, gently.

Betty glanced down and saw that it was true. "Oh, my." She covered her face with her hands, a modest, Betty-like gesture. Daniel laughed his deep, rumble-y, Betty's-quirky-as-hell-but-I-love-her-anyway laugh and pulled her hands away from her face. He tugged on the Harvard jersey, and Betty smiled wryly. "My armor," she murmured.

She took a deep breath as if anticipating that she'd never take another and pulled it off. She still held it in front of her, like a second skin that she couldn't bear to completely part with. Daniel gently but firmly pulled it away. "We're done with this," he said into her hair, the jersey balled up in one hand. She nodded and he stepped back to look at her.

She was breathtaking and luscious and absolutely perfect, and he told her so, making her blush furiously. He'd never met a woman that honest-to-God blushed before Betty.

She let him drink her in for about a minute and then stepped back into the safety of his arms. "You know, it's not really fair, me being the only one here naked," came her muffled, precious voice. Her little hands, gaining confidence, were working at the buttons of his jeans, undoing them more deftly than he would have ever imagined.

By the time he had pulled his t-shirt over his head, Betty had forced him to part with his pants as well. And surprise, surprise, Danny-boy was going commando.

In one swift movement—three cheers for lifetime gym membership, Betty dizzily thought—Daniel picked her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He looked about swiftly for a place to put her while he searched his pants for the condoms. He deposited her on the massive bed. She looked so small, so vulnerable, yet so incredibly smokin' beautiful.

"Okay, Betty, we have a variety here," Daniel crawled up beside her. "We have regular, glow-in-the-dark, ribbed-for-her-pleasure, oooh, strawberry flavored," he teased, doubting his sweet girl would go for the last of those options. He remembered fondly explaining to a bemused Betty the concept behind having condoms taste like something:

"Who would be tasting a cond…OH."

Wordlessly, her eyes never leaving his, she ran her fingers over the array of birth control items spread out in his hand as one might hold a hand of cards for a card game.

Betty smiled gently and pulled out the flavored one. Daniel's jaw was hanging wide open.

"Daniel?" She said softly, wrapping her tongue around his earlobe.

"Yeah?" he said, in a voice that would've been more appropriate had he been going through puberty.

Betty peeled off the wrapper. "Go fish."

DBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBDBD

Daniel pressed his sweat-slick forehead to Betty's. "You okay?" he inquired huskily.

"God, yes." Betty idly traced her fingertips down his abs, his ribs, along his spine between the planes of raw muscle, and was as rewarded with the arching of his back to her touch as if he were a tiger that she had painstakingly tamed. In a way, he was.

They kissed, tongues sliding together, before Daniel rolled off of her, afraid he was crushing her little frame under his much larger one. However, both became obviously disturbed at the loss of contact within five seconds of separation.

Daniel opened his arms imploringly, and Betty gratefully sighed and crawled over. She rested her head on his chest. Whoever started the rumor that Daniel Meade didn't like to cuddle must have been either wholly unsatisfying or wholly disliked or both, because he couldn't stop gathering her back to him every time she would drift off and begin to stretch away and nuzzling his face into her hair, her neck, her breasts.

Betty was sore, deliciously so, and she whispered formally into his chest, "All my parts thank you." She felt as if her body was in the midst of a fever, radiating between chills and searing heat, leaving her skin ultra-sensitive to his touch.

Daniel laughed exhaustedly. "Right back at you, you wild little vixen." He leaned back to look into her eyes. Her eyes, though sleepy and blissed out, housed dilated pupils; he knew his looked the same.

"God, Betty, I love you so much. You know that, don't you, Suarez?"

"Like I know grass is green, Meade" she responded. Her tone grew adoring and serious. "I love you, too, Daniel. More than anything."

He held up his hand and she pressed her palm against it, twining her fingers through.

Neither of them were surprised that their hands, like the rest of their beings, fit together like interlocking puzzle pieces.

Wow, a whole sappy-ass chapter dedicated to sex. Fun, huh? Or maybe not, which is why you should review, pretty please? I can't really bring myself to get overly smutty, but I tried to tell enough to where you get the picture. I'd love to know your thoughts, so share, will you:)