Jane admitted to herself that it was dumb to think she would arrive, perhaps see Maura stepping out of a cab, and then she would sweep her off her feet. Or maybe, a tad more realistically, she'd surprise her by waiting in her kitchen, drinks ready.

Instead, Jane was pissed. She had waited there at the island, sipping a beer, hopeful and nervous all the same, when she heard a vehicle pull up. Excitement had filled her, until she heard voices on the other side of the door – voices that, as they approached, clearly belonged to Maura and Jack. She had taken Jack.

So, before they could walk in and she blew the top off the whole damn thing, she stormed up the stairs and into the master bedroom. If they made it that far, they'd have to contend with her presence, at least.

She heard only an opening of the lock, and Maura saying "not tonight," followed by a sigh. The door then clicked shut, and Jane waited for what felt like an eternity on the edge of the bed that she'd spent more time in in the last two weeks than most anywhere else. She worried at her hands, those ancient scars tightening with her lungs and her patience. The pad of heels against carpet, nearly indiscernible, electrified her, and the bedroom door swung open.

"Jane!" Maura jumped, putting a hand to her chest at the sight of her best friend perched on her bed, unexpected but not unwelcome. "You didn't tell me you were coming."

The medical examiner, in her surprise, didn't register the change in Jane's eyes or the spike in her body heat. If she had, she might have guessed that it was because of her dress, or her make-up, as Jane had always… appreciated her style, even before everything happened between them.

More than just arousal existed in the room, however. As Maura stood there longer, in her backless Givenchy, expensive jewelry, and chicly mussed hair, she sensed the seismic something steaming over and into the air between them. Still she waited on Jane, who didn't make her wait long.

"Why'd you take him?" the detective asked, clearly interrogating.

Maura tried to not let it shake her bones. "I'm sorry?" It was a desperate reach; even she could understand the implication in Jane's words. But, she wanted to elongate this however she could.

"You always take me to shit like that," Jane, all too happy to play along, growled her response and stalked toward the woman who, in heels, was now near her height. She did not touch, nor did she soften her gaze when she approached. She merely watched, appraising, restraining herself at the sight of Maura in black. The tan of the medical examiner's freckled skin, juxtaposed with the shine of the diamonds on her neck and wrist, made Jane alive with possession, envy, need.

"He's…" Maura gulped under the scrutiny, "He's my boyfriend, Jane. That's why I took him."

"Why is he your boyfriend? When you have this?" Jane practically hissed, the sibilants slithering into the air that Maura breathed, taking the express of her bloodstream all the way to her pelvis.

"It's complicated," the woman answered, looking away for fear of judgment.

"It's not, Maura," Jane said, stepping closer, so that they touched, front to front, "you can't have both forever."

"I know. He's already started to wonder," Maura replied, looking back into Jane's eyes, dropping her guard for only a moment, letting something shine through in hopes the Italian would catch it.

"If you and I…?" Jane responded. She was suddenly lightheaded with guilt. Had they truly been so careless that he might suspect?

"Why I haven't slept with him in a month," Maura confessed, quietly, like she shared company with a priest.

The revelation caused Jane to look toward the heavens. It cracked her resolve to refrain from touch like it shattered her willpower to leave angry. There was anger, yes, but no longer the ability to resist the triangular pull of the sheets, Maura's body, and her own heart. The pressure of the three promised to boil her alive.

"No one else?" She asked, cockily and with desire, all at once.

Maura laughed wryly. "Is there any need for anyone else?" she asked, more to herself than to Jane.

"I sure as hell don't think so," Jane shuddered out. She let herself be pushed by Maura to the edge of the bed again, in a slow foreplay. When her ass hit the duvet, she put her hands behind her body to steady it.

Maura stood back, and kicked off her heels. Jane sat up straight again at the implications, and awaited the show to ensue. When the woman reached behind her neck to unclasp her necklace, however, she held her hand up. "No. Leave it on," she ordered. Maura smirked. "Leave the jewelry on."

She did as told, then shimmied out of her dress. The two bedside lamps provided the only light for the room – shadows touched on every exposed part of her body, begging Jane to drag her onto the bed and into some clarity. Instead Jane left her there standing in her underwear, and traveled over the mattress to the nightstand. She pulled out the harness she'd become accustomed to wearing periodically in the past few weeks, and then it was her turn to put on a show.

The detective stood up, straps in her grip, toy secure, and marched back around to where Maura was waiting. She kissed with no hands, a surprising feat considering the allure of Maura in only lingerie bottoms – lingerie she once thought was meant for another, but that notion was proven so delectably wrong by the other woman's admission.

The kiss all but tore Maura apart. It was calculated, but angry, raw and warm, all at once. Jane's mouth was heavy against hers, but it was no burden; that tongue slipped between her lips with ease, rocking back and forth with what could only be the effortlessness of natural talent. It undulated sometimes against teeth or sometimes against Maura's own, sometimes retreating, sometimes filling. If she moaned, Jane's tongue caught it and rolled it back against her throat; if she whimpered, Jane swallowed it whole.

In what was feeling more and more like a game of chicken, Maura surrendered when her hands finally had enough: they needed to touch. She rustled the hem of Jane's navy tee out of the way and moaned when she hit belt-buckle pay dirt, hoping that Jane didn't dare touch her body before she could undo it and let those dark jeans fall.

In that moment, Jane blessed her, and refrained from touching. Her fingers grasped leather with a satisfying pop, and when the tooth of the buckle was let free, Maura took a few breaths to admire her progress. An eyeful of Jane's thighs coming out of those boyshorts infused a gasp into their kiss, and she greedily pushed those jeans with her foot as far as they would go until they hit Nike running shoes.

Normally, in a moment like this, Jane would have laughed, or shown some amusement at the frustration in Maura's body language. This time she pulled the doctor to her with one arm around her waist, and threaded two fingers in the hem of her black lace underwear. As she pulled, fingernails dragged against Maura's ass, tattooing it with goosebumps in their wake. The hint was taken and while Jane kicked off her shoes, Maura kicked off that underwear.

Jane picked her up, and immediately, almost of their own accord, her legs wrapped around those hips. The two didn't have far to go, and yet, the kissless time from standing until lying together sent her into a frenzy. As Jane settled on top of her she groped with her lips for the Italian's, but she was denied each time, left to suck on expanses of skin that covered, shoulders, neck, chest.

Just as she was about to ask why, Jane held her gaze, and guided it down between their legs. She was to witness their union. And, when she felt it slip inside of her, easy but heavy, she understood: Jane kissed her again then, the same heady kiss, and the feelings of above and below were identical. It disoriented her, the combination of the intent thrusts and wet lips meeting, in a way they never had before, so much so that she had to grasp her detective's shoulders and brace for the unknown.

When Maura watched the scratch of her bracelet against Jane's skin, when the diamonds glinted in the light, when she heard the springs in her bed bounce, it brought her pleasure-painfully back into the present: to their sideways position on her mattress, so that the leg Jane wasn't using for leverage spilled over the side of it. Then she was hit by the sloppy sounds of them together, by their predicament and the words the taller woman had uttered before they fell into bed. "Did… did you want me… to take you instead?" She struggled to ask between sighing and grunting.

For a moment, Jane stared at her in confusion, until she realized Maura was talking about the gala. She said nothing in response. The springs whined when she twisted her hips, and Maura let out an identical whine when she felt the result shifting in her, rubbing against a particularly sweet spot.

"You… hate those things," Maura panted again, and Jane grabbed her hips both in a steadying motion, and as if to say you talk too much. The medical examiner only noticed how much deeper it made her feel everything.

"Are you being… strong and silent now?" She managed, out of mounting annoyance at the quiet, to choke out more per breath. This effort was despite the way their sweat mingled and created a scent that rendered only two words in her mind: future and home. There was still no response, and she was so caught up in her thoughts that she initially failed to feel the way Jane slowed her undulations to a scream-worthy crawl – she only heard it in the way her bed creaked in staccato. In the creak's sometimes-silence-sometimes-noise, the gravity of Jane's plan, implemented from the moment they kissed that night, obliterated her.

Tears, of anger threatened to spill onto Maura's cheek. She couldn't believe she had made it here, to the precipice of orgasm, surrendering completely, without noticing. And the insanity of it all was the fact that her body begged her to continue surrendering. Her mind willed her heels, which were wrapped at Jane's waist, to dig in to the point of pain, but instead they dropped, letting her legs tangle limply, intimately with the other woman's. She hated this self-mutiny, but she couldn't stop it – she tried vainly to get Jane to do it by grabbing her face and mustering the most pissed off expression she could in that moment.

"You don't get to make love to me," she croaked, finally saying it out loud, mad at herself for not noticing Jane's plot. Jane smiled for the first time all night. "You don't get to yet. It isn't fair," her voice, wet with those unshed tears, was swallowed up by another kiss. The kiss sent her reeling, and Jane held her until she collapsed.


A/N: I'm goin' HAM on this update business.