Author's Note: Again, I delayed in posting this update because of what may be 'controversial or offensive or pushing the boundaries of good taste' but to hell with it. I've taken a policy of letting this story be what it wants to be with little to no censorship. And now that I've scared the majority of you off yet again with my overdramatic warnings…

WARNING: REFERENCES TO MATURE SUBJECT MATTER (and frank discussions of biology)

*EDITED TO INCLUDE GABRIEL POV SCENE (So all those warnings, too)*


Merri was loathe to put an end to it, but she really had to before things got out of hand. She thought making out a little would be quite nice, a balm to a hard fricken day. And Chris LaSalle was so very good at kissing. And caressing. And rubbing himself against her in a way that drove her straight out of her mind, even as his tongue did that thing to her mouth that she couldn't ever quite figure out the mechanics of it but damn. She moaned, equal parts pure pleasure, intense desire and lamentable loss. Because she also pushed him away, causing him to sit up once more, instead of that sexy-as-hell leaning so far over her that he was practically lying on top of her and only partially keeping his weight off of her by gripping the sofa arm behind her head, his bicep bulging deliciously in her visual periphery.

His alluring, pretty lips were wet and had acquired a light pinkish hue from their heavy petting session. His eyes had gone all dark and intense, but also a little confused over the cessation of activities.

It had been selfish of her to let things go so far. It was just- it'd been a long day. And they hadn't seen each other the previous day, either. And she was feeling a little lusty and sexually frustrated by the extremely short dry spell. Three whole days without even touching or kissing him. They had never gone that long without at least making out. The first time they'd had sex sort of just became the beginning of their uninterrupted intimate activity. And 'sleeping together' in the literal sense. At her place or his, depending on the day and their moods. Neither of them seemed to really care as long as they were together. She had a feeling they both feared that it was simply an addiction, so they'd agreed to take at least one day a week off from each other. Just to make sure they weren't burying their problems with this strange friends-with-benefits (more like friends-with-incredible-sexual-chemistry-and-a-little-something-more-that-she-just-couldn't-face-yet) relationship.

"Sorry," she said, pushing herself back up into a sitting position as well. "Just... I started my period yesterday."

"I know," he said, still looking a little confused that she'd put an end to their making-out-bordering-on-serious-foreplay.

"What? It's only been a couple months since we started sleeping together," she said, more than a little shocked he was behaving so matter-of-fact about the information that usually made guys squeamish.

"Mere, our job is a li'l more along the lines of 24/7 than 9-ta-5," he said. "We been workin' together for nearly two years now. An' we been good friends for 'most as long. I've known what time of the month ya get yer menzies fer well over a year."

She scoffed, her mouth slightly ajar. It was partly the news that he'd figured out probably a few months after first meeting her what her menstrual cycle was. But it was also the fact that Chris LaSalle had just used the word 'menzies', and without an iota of embarrassment over it. He was such a guy's guy that it was shocking that he was completely willing to talk about her 'female problems' like they were discussing the procedure for processing an arrest.

Then again, his openness and easiness about it sort of made sense. He was basically raised by a single woman, whom she thought was pretty staunch in her Christianity, but she'd been the one who had to teach her boys how to respect and behave towards women, since they'd had no real male role model to follow. But even more significantly, Chris had an older sister. She supposed that meant the sexes were evenly matched in his childhood household. But his mother was the authority figure, presumably followed by Cade, but given the development and maturity of kids, the sister, Jenny, was likely truly the second in command. And if the mother-daughter unit were open with each other, they were inadvertently open with the boys, too. In the single-parent home, he'd probably even had to buy feminine products for his mother and sister when sent out on errands.

So if he was well-aware of the current state of her reproductive organs, and was comfortable enough to tell her so, then why the hell had he been basically dry-humping her on the couch, his hand wandering southward as if he were about to slip it beneath the waistband of her pants and into her panties?

"I don't get it," she said.

"It ain't that difficult." He began to list all of the signs that indicated she was menstruating, finally adding, "An' last month, don't think I didn't notice how horny ya got."

"Excuse me?" She really had no right to be incensed. It was true. She got damned lusty in the middle of her period. It was ridiculous. Mostly because what the hell could she do about it? Okay, so she had done a little something about it...

"Ya jumped me before I even got fully inside a' the door, Mere." Well, he'd been assigned their trainee that day and she hadn't seen him at all, had been unable to sate her lusty inclinations by studying the way his jeans fit his ass and fantasizing about what she'd do to it, to him. Or breathe in the scent of him that always comforted her. Or aroused her, depending on the situation.

"Don't get me wrong, that was the greatest blow job I ever received in my life," he said, the stupid-happy grin lighting his face as he remembered the event which gave her both pride and a little shame she'd been so uninhibitedly voracious in stripping him naked, tonguing every single inch of his body and then devouring his cock. "But despite what ya may think, I didn' pass out after. I heard what ya did in the shower."

Merri felt her cheeks burning.

"Ya come damn hard, darlin'," he said, delighted grin now downright Cheshire in nature. "An' make the racket ta match."

"Okay," she said, deciding to take the high road. "So, yes, I get 'horny' when I'm having my period. You would, too, if your sexual organs were all swollen and highly sensitive. That is, when they aren't feeling like they're trying to tear themselves straight out of your body."

He grimaced in sympathy, so she forgave him for pointing out the fact that while her body was giving up on making babies, she really wanted to perform the act of making babies.

"What are you going to do about it, Chris?"

She didn't mean for it to sound like a challenge. Or an invitation. But he apparently took it as both, pouncing on her in a flash, kissing her in that way that made her dizzy-drunk, coaxing her back down onto the sofa beneath him.

"Don't tease me," she said, locking eyes with him when he finally surfaced for air. "You really want to have sex with me right now?"

"As much as ever, darlin'. An' ya know how much I like ta make love ta ya."

"You can probably just rub me off," she said.

He frowned. "Not gonna work fer me."

"You know I'll take care of you, too." When had she ever left him hanging?!

"I don't doubt that ya would, Mere." He was smiling at her again, his blue eyes possessing that mischievous, teasing glint she knew all too well, and admittedly adored. "But I wanna stick it in ya, feel ya come around me, wanna come inside ya."

She squeezed her thighs together, feeling an unsettling gushing sensation as her vagina twitched with her increased arousal, loosening her flow.

"I'm bleeding," she said, trying to wrap her mind around the idea that this man, her friend, her lover, didn't seem bothered by the lingering cultural taboo against fucking a menstruating woman. "It'll be messy."

"Sex is messy," he said, his eyes holding hers, remaining engaged in their serious conversation. But his free hand, not supporting his weight, roamed over body, stroking her neck and throat, gently groping her tender breasts, caressing her stomach and sides and hip... Rubbing low on her belly, massaging the aching uterus buried within. Fuck. He always made her feel so good. Always. Even that first night when he'd climaxed and she hadn't. He'd seemed determined that it never happen again. She had at least one orgasm every time they had sex. Well, there'd been twice without, when she'd only performed oral sex on him and had to insist he needn't reciprocate right then, or at all. She wasn't keeping score. And she was pretty certain he wasn't either. Because just like she felt about pleasuring him, he seemed to enjoy getting her off as much as getting off himself. Which was why she was concerned that he was only doing this because she hadn't been discreet and he well knew how sexually needy and frustrated she got during her time of the month.

"An' we might as well get used ta it, 'cause it's gonna be a lot messier when we ain't gotta use a condom no more."

It was probably silly, but they were both looking forward to that, despite the fact that they hadn't discussed where this whole thing was headed, or that it would even last those four more months before the final test that would officially clear him of possible HIV infection. And it wasn't something being anticipated just because it meant he hadn't been infected with a horrible disease. He was optimistic about it, about how positive the doctors were, that it seemed a foregone conclusion that it would be okay, that he would be okay. And Merri herself refused to think otherwise. So rather, when they talked about that last negative test, they were fantasizing about doing it au natural, removing the last barrier between their bodies. How she craved that, and she wasn't sure why.

But for now, the sex was fantastic, anyway. And it was a bit easier to clean up she supposed, than it would be if he pumped his entire release into her body, or in the case of non-penetrative sex, onto her or himself or the sheets or into her mouth.

"I want ya, Merri," he said, staring down into her, in that soul-searing way he usual only used on her mid-coitus, when they were entangled in one another's flesh. "I am always wantin' ya. I love yer body. An' twelve times a year it bleeds. So what? It's natural. An' if ya wan' me, whether yer bleedin' or not, I'm more than willin'."

She felt more wetness spill into the panty-liner she'd clenched her thighs around. Sophisticated persons wouldn't call Chris LaSalle an eloquent man, but damn, he had a way of talking to her that made his words as arousing as his touch.

Oh, to hell with it.

"Bed me, Chris LaSalle."


He liked the sex. That was a given. Not just because he was a guy, though. And not just because she had the most gorgeous, firm yet soft, curvy, full-breasted, round-bottomed, responsive, perfect body. It was the emotional intimacy that accompanied the sex. Merri Brody was completely open and unreserved when she was making love. Chris wasn't sure if she was that way with every man she'd bedded, and he supposed the thought that anyone else could've been so close to her heart and soul sort of made him jealous.

But if he wanted to follow that line of reasoning, how jealous could he be when he was the one who was holding her in his arms at night? Got to kiss her, touch her, caress her naked body, be held by her, touched by her, kissed by her. She was his. At least for the moment. He didn't know where it was going between them. He knew that she thought perhaps, like he sometimes feared, that it might be unhealthy, the mutual obsession and addiction they'd almost instantly developed for one another. Did it bespeak an unwise codependency? He'd been so lost before she'd reached out to him, so unsure of himself, of who he was, what feelings were truly his, what were the remnants of those forced upon him by an evil monster.

She'd put him together again. When he was with her, he saw himself as reflected in her eyes. He wanted to be the man she saw him as. More than that, he knew he was that man. Maybe not quite as good as she thought he was, but in the eyes of a friend, wasn't that always the case? She thought him loyal, which he was, but maybe not so completely noble and unwavering in his loyalty. She thought him kind and gentle, but he knew it was only to those he viewed as deserving compassion. She thought him respectful, but manners sometimes only disguised distaste and dislike.

But to her, with her, he was all those things. And he liked being all those things again. Like he had been before...

He tried to look at other women. Because that was the plan. That she was just serving as interim, as a rebound to make him feel whole again so that he could carry on with his life. So he did try to look at other women. Try to imagine what it would be like to go on a date with them, to use his rusty charm on them, flirt, make 'em smile an' laugh. To bed them. Settle down with them. But god, no matter how pretty they were, how lively and alluring, how hard he tried to fantasize about getting them to spread their legs for him... He always wound up thinking about Merri. How much he enjoyed making her smile and laugh. How much he enjoyed plunging into that sweet spot between her accommodating thighs, kissing her, making her whimper and moan and scream, dig her fingernails into his skin, kiss his neck and mouth with primal need. It never got old. And not only because the woman was adventurous and willing to try anything he could think up, ask her to do. It just... He'd never tire of making love to her, being intimate with her.

He pulled her sleeping form closer, took her slender hand and placed it on his chest, over his heart, in the way he knew she liked. Merri still had nightmares once in awhile. So did he. But all the comfort she generally needed was to feel his heart beating by placing a hand or her cheek against his chest. Sometimes, when she was really freaked out, he'd quickly maneuver her body, pull her beneath him. A stash of condoms sat on top of his nightstand, easily on hand for the amount of sex they had. He'd be inside of her, on top of her, smothering her with his presence before she even fully became aware and sighed in relief, wrapping her arms tightly about him and taking the entire weight of him onto her, so that she could feel his heart beating against her chest, her own answering in its separate tattoo. Then they'd slowly move together, matching the rhythm of their hearts, sometimes not reaching a gentle climax until over an hour had passed.

It was utterly bizarre, he supposed.

But felt extremely right. As did making love to her that night, despite her women's blood coating the condom, her thighs and his balls, soaking into their pubic hair and the towels he'd laid out beneath her on the bed. She'd offered to wash for him first, citing the strong odor of her sex, but he'd said why bother when they'd have to shower afterward. She'd looked incredulous, so he had to explain how he didn't find the potent musk of her offensive, that it was like her natural scent only amplified and with a metallic tinge, and that the fact that she smelled so strongly of her pussy got him painfully hard. She'd blushed a little at that, turning even more pink and flush with arousal when he began to kiss her and touch her again, stripped her naked, teased her sensitive lady parts a little before he slid into her, eliciting the most delightful shuddering moan of ecstasy from her lips.

It had been messy.

But pleasuring Merri was definitely worth it. Not to mention his own physical enjoyment of the romp. And then afterward they'd showered together, washing each other, an always welcome sensuous game. He got her to come again under the hot torrent of the water that washed the pinkish-orange tinted soap suds down the drain. He loved it when she said his name in that certain way. It wasn't a loud cry (although she did that, too). Rather, it was a breathy whisper, pure untempered need. Somewhat a paradox since she uttered it at the moment of completion. Yet not at all, because he knew it wasn't lust, it wasn't voicing a need for release, but a need for him. It was the single most completely unguarded moment in which Merri Brody existed. She shared herself with him in varying degrees, always mindful of his emotions, more-so than her own. But in that moment, right as he drove her to climax, it was solely her most primal emotion, unregulated. And she whispered his name like she were begging him to stay with her forever.

God help him, he sort of wanted that, too. And not just because she'd made life bearable again. More than bearable, pleasant, happy even. He knew she feared that she wasn't doing right by him, that she was only helping him to avoid his darker thoughts and fears. But that wasn't true. She was there for him. She loved him even when it was messy, too. And that's why he never wanted to let her go.

He'd never trusted someone so implicitly before. Never shared every dark corner of himself, every flaw. And she'd never rejected him once for it. Rather, she accepted his issues, and tried to find ways to help him deal with the ones that hurt him. It had been Merri who'd convinced him to join the support group for survivors of violent crimes, knowing how he just wasn't comfortable talking to the psychologist he still had to check in with. And it had also been her who'd held him while he sobbed into her shoulder after barely keeping it together through a case where a navy lieutenant's auburn-haired wife had surprised a home-invader and was shot dead in their living room. Both she and Pride had tried to offer him multiple outs for the couple of days it took to investigate the open-and-shut case, but he'd refused. It was something he had felt compelled to do. He couldn't just abandon Justice whenever it got rough. Merri had seemed to understand. And comforted him when he broke down.

No. He was still a mess. Nightmares. And the tendency to be seized by random bouts of depression, sometimes followed by irrational mood swings. She weathered them all.

He didn't deserve her.

When he leaned over to press his lips to her temple, she opened her big, brown eyes and he fell in love.

Okay, so he was already more than a little there. A lot there. It was just... He'd had doubts about his feelings. So many. So often.

Except for with her. Everything seemed so simple and certain when gazing into her pretty doe-eyes. All of the troubles in the world didn't seem to matter. All of the expectations and pressures placed on him. But never any from her. She accepted him as he was.

"Thank you, Mere," he whispered, cupping her face and stroking her soft, pale cheek with his thumb. He could feel tears welling up, because god, he didn't deserve her. He didn't.

"Come here," she said softly, her voice the sweetest sound in the universe as she pulled him against her, allowing him to bury his face in her neck and breathe in the equally sweet scent of her skin as she wrapped her arms around him and held him close.

Did she know how much she meant to him? Did she know how much he loved her


Meredith Brody.

She was the glue that was binding the broken pieces of Gabriel's Blue-Eyed Pretty Boy together. And as far as glues went, he couldn't blame the man. The bugs he'd placed about Pretty Boy's apartment gave him all the information he needed about how specifically she'd put his former self together again. Instead of tendrils of the man's true self winding throughout all the layers of masks and lies, binding it together, it was her. It was obviously her.

Some would say sex didn't solve any psychological or emotional problems.

But Gabriel knew better than that. He could use it to destroy.

Meredith Brody used it to rebuild.

Hell, if he could stick his dick in that sweetness, he would probably forget all of his darkness, too.

Or not.

Fucking her would be a beautifully primal act. He could tell by the sounds she and Pretty Boy made, the ways she let him fuck her, how their bodies merged and moved as one... She dropped all of her masks when she was with that delicious Blue-Eyed boy. She poured everything she was into him, filling in the cracks, so he could rebuild the walls around himself.

And Gabriel had spent a lot of hard work tearing down those deceitful walls, smashing those lies society had created. The manners. The nobility. The self-righteousness.

Pretty Boy was just an animal like the rest of them. And rather than showing that to him when they fucked, this Doe-Eyed Sweet Thing made him believe that he was the lies he'd been before.

She needed a lesson, too.

He'd teach her one. Make Pretty Boy watch his glue dissolve as he fell to pieces once more. And maybe he'd keep the pair of them for a little while longer than normal. This would likely be his last hoorah. No one could match the ecstasy of breaking Chris LaSalle, and now with the added bonus of that delectable bit of pussy he kept.

It would be difficult to decide which one to fuck first. Try out the fresh cunt and ass. Or return to the best fuck he'd ever had. Hell, he wouldn't deny the fact that he jerked off to the memories of burying his cock in Pretty Boy's tight back passage, recalling the way the man tensed and squirmed, how his shapely buttocks cushioned the thrusts, quivering as he pounded into him. Gabriel also had been having quite intense wet dreams about the times he'd taken Pretty Boy's cock into his own ass, riding him, staring into his dark blue, intense eyes. Or of sucking the man off, making him come against his will, whimpering and moaning. And the one time Gabriel let that pretty mouth part around his own engorged organ.

It would be pure primal ecstasy having his pet locked up in his playroom again. Along with that bonus treat. And destroying them both. Truly nothing would satisfy after them. So he'd have to make it last. He'd play with them a little first.

This was uncharted territory. And it could be fun to watch them squirm and suffer within the walls of their cozy little social-constructs.

Whoever said he wasn't into foreplay?


A/N1: Well that escalated quickly. I honestly hadn't meant for this to be more than friendly love… But it's sounding a little like romantic love, isn't it?

A/N2: Before you run away because of the 'gross' content of this chapter… This was inspired by the novel 'The Reliable Wife' in which the contrast between the woman's former lover (who would never finish inside of her because he was terrified of getting her pregnant) and her husband (who bedded her every night even when she was bleeding) intrigued me, had always stuck with me, and seemed pertinent in this context. I thought it was an excellent way to show an intimacy and affection and acceptance so intense that even social taboos (with no basis in biological fact) become meaningless. I also wanted the comparison here of Chris' accepting every aspect of Merri, as she has done him.

A/N 3: Sort of ignoring the nonsensical fact dropped in 'Billy and the Kid' about LaSalle's father, when we've never heard anything about the man before by someone who loves and talks about his family quite a bit. Personally, I prefer the impression that all previous information created, that his father just wasn't around. It also makes his relationship with Pride far more significant. So that's my head canon…. LaSalle's father was a Deadbeat Dad. He was raised by his mother and siblings. And later, Pride fulfilled that role in his life.