Jennifer brushed a tear from her cheek as she mindlessly stirred the boiling linguine noodles and looked at the wall adjacent to the stove, where the phone hung limply by a single wire. It had been the closest object to Tony during the argument that he and Jennifer had just had, and, as he had been yelling at her, he had grabbed the phone in rage and ripped it from the wall. Fighting with Tony was nothing new to Jennifer; hell, even during therapy some of their sessions had degraded into miniature arguments. She remembered the day nearly two years ago when she had ended their professional relationship for good and realized that even that had been nothing more than a lovers' spat, before she and Tony had even become lovers.

Their disagreements now were different, though. The heart attack and the subsequent changes that it had caused in Tony's life had left him deeply reflective, and even more depressed than he had been when he was Jennifer's patient. She suspected that when he was at work, he was his usual self, a bastion of strength and a ruthless authority figure, but when he was at home with her, he was a scared and confused little boy, clinging to her one minute and then yelling and ripping appliances off the wall the next. Even before she had taken the time to do extra research on the psychological after-effects of a heart attack, Jennifer had known that both anger and depression were normal emotions for heart attack survivors. Still, the fact that she had a textbook understanding of what to expect hadn't prepared her for the real thing.

What bothered her most was that Tony wouldn't talk to her about what he was feeling, no matter how hard she tried to elicit a conversation on the subject. Her gentle prodding and insistence that talking would help only made him even madder. Jennifer worried about him, but for once in all the time she'd known him didn't have even a hint of an idea of how to help him, because she couldn't if he insisted on shutting her out. She sighed and turned off the heat underneath the pot, hoping that she hadn't overcooked the noodles. After draining them and mixing them with the tomato sauce, she set the dish aside to cool and left the kitchen to look for Tony.

She found him in the bedroom, lying in the dark, fully clothed on top of the covers, staring up at the ceiling. He turned his head only slightly when she opened the door, letting in a sliver of light from the hallway.

"Dinner's ready," she announced, then began to close the door.

"Hey," he said, his voice softened from when he had been raging at her in the kitchen, "Don't leave; come here."

"What do you need, Anthony?" she asked, not moving from the doorway.

"I need you to get the fuck over here," he said, a hint of annoyance in his voice, and then, more softly, "Just come sit by me." With a sigh, Jennifer closed the door and approached the bed, turning on a lamp before sitting down next to where Tony lay. He blinked in the sudden light and then scooted closer to her, reaching for her hand, which she reluctantly gave him.

"Look," he said, "I'm sorry for being such an asshole earlier."

"An asshole? Anthony, you pulled the phone off of the wall and called me some very hurtful names, all over some ridiculous disagreement; that's more than just simply 'being an asshole.' You were belligerent."

"Hey, I'm tryin' to apologize here" Tony said, dropping her hand.

"You can't just apologize every time you take your anger out on me," Jennifer said, "I understand that you're depressed and frustrated, but you can't keep behaving like this. I can't take anymore of it."

"I know! Damn it!" Tony clenched his hand into a fist and beat it against the mattress, making the whole bed shake. "I'm sorry, I know I've treated you like crap, and you don't deserve it. It's just…I feel like…fuck, I don't know."

Jennifer swung her legs over the side of the bed, moving closer and lying down next to him.

"How do you feel?" she asked, taking his hand. When he didn't respond, she touched his cheek, making him look at her and holding his eyes with her own. "Talk to me, Anthony. I want to be here for you, I want to help, but I can't unless you tell me what's wrong. It hurts that you don't feel that you can talk to me, especially after all the years that our relationship was based on nothing but talking."

He pulled her closer to him, wrapping both of his arms around her waist and laying his head down on her bosom, his cheek resting between her breasts. Jennifer held him and ran her fingers soothingly through his thinning hair as he confessed how impotent and out of control the heart attack had made him feel and how he felt as though his body had betrayed him.

"You know how when you see a huge, fat fuckin' bastard eating a Big Mac and you think to yourself, 'That's a heart attack waiting to happen.'" Tony said, "Do you think everyone saw me that way?"

Jennifer shrugged. "I don't know," she replied, "I can't speak for anyone else, but I never did. I saw powerful, dominating, virile."

Tony said nothing; he simply nuzzled his face deeper into Jennifer's skin, feeling her warmth and taking in the scent of her perfume. The sensation of his stubbled cheek on her flesh made Jennifer's breath catch and her heart race, but she bit her lip and tried to calm herself and not expect too much.

She and Tony's sex life had been practically nonexistent in the three months since his medical emergency. Although the doctor had cleared him for physical activity, Tony's fear of having another heart attack touched every aspect of his life and made sex, previously his favorite activity, a source of anxiety. Lovemaking between them lately consisted exclusively of oral or manual stimulation, usually him trying to please her after losing his erection. Jennifer was patient with him, and gentle, all while pretending that she wasn't frustrated by the lack of physical contact.

But now…now his mouth was on her, kissing the bare skin of her chest and neck, his breath hot and sensual, lighting a fire deep in her belly. She eagerly met his lips when he came up to her face. He kissed her softly at first, the barest brush of his mouth over hers, and then desire took over, he deepening the kiss and she gently sighing as their lips moved together. All rational thought disappeared with the pressure of his lips and the wetness of his tongue as it slid over hers. It had been so long since he had kissed her like this.

Tony rolled over and pulled her against him, so that they both lay on their sides, facing each other, with their mouths locked together. One of his hands ventured over Jennifer's back, then into her pants, caressing her bottom through the fabric of her panties and moving to her crotch, stroking hard and making her groan. His tongue pillaged her mouth and his fingers invaded her underwear, pulling the silk away from her skin and penetrating. He let go of her lips, delighting in her strangled screams as he pleasured her, pulling his fingers out and thrusting back in until she clenched around him and then fell back against the mattress.

"Anthony," she said, reaching for him, "I want you inside me. I want you to make love to me." They shared a long glance, heavy with meaning, during which he silently asked, "But what if I can't?" and she reassured him, letting him know how much she wanted this, needed it. She pulled away from him and unbuttoned her pants, then pushed them down her legs and threw them aside. Her eyes locked with his as she straddled him and began slowly, teasingly removing her shirt, button by button until it, too, was gone. Tony watched raptly as Jennifer reached behind her and unclasped her bra, her firm breasts bouncing slightly as they sprang free.

After she undressed, Jennifer made short work of Tony's clothes, and, when they were flesh to flesh, she kissed him, her tongue dancing languidly with his as one of her hands moved lower and took hold of his manhood, stroking him gently and being rewarded with a long, low moan from Tony. Just as she began to increase her pace, however, he pulled away from her, his breath heavy and fast not from arousal but from fear caused by his racing heart and the sharp but fleeting little pain in his chest that he experienced from time to time if he exerted himself or got too excited.

"Anthony," Jennifer said, "Don't be nervous. You're all right."

"I know...it's just...I was thinkin'..."

"Don't think," she replied, bucking and rolling her pelvis against his, "Just feel. Let it come." She bent down to fasten her mouth on his neck, licking and sucking at the skin there and then moving upwards, running her tongue along the lobe of his ear. Tony felt lust envelop him as he fell under Jennifer's sensual spell, and his hands traveled over her body, taking pleasure in the feel of her, the softness of her back and belly and thighs as he moved his palms over her skin. He took hold of her breasts, caressing them and running his fingers over her hardened nipples, making her sigh and moan.

While he was absorbed with touching her body, making her quiver and driving her wild, Jennifer maneuvered so that the tip of him rested against her opening, and then she brought her hips down and joined them. The pace that she set was slow and gentle, and she urged him to lie back against the pillows while she did everything, working to pleasure them both.

Tony was lost in the thrill of being inside her, her warmth and how impossibly tight she was after months of not being touched. Unable to restrain himself, he began to buck up into her, recovering his stamina and his zest for lovemaking. He wrapped an arm around Jennifer's back, easily flipping them and switching their positions until he was looming over her, balancing himself on his hands as he stroked in and out of her. Jennifer moaned as she savored the sensation of his warm skin, the dense hair on his chest prickling against her stomach and breasts, the medallion around his neck hanging down and brushing her cheek.

She rose up to meet his every thrust, and then gently grabbed the chain of his necklace and pulled him down to her, burying her face in his neck and pressing herself against him so that every inch of her body was covered by his. Tony heard her sigh and felt her shudder in orgasm. Her release sent him over the edge, and he came with a litany of softly-muttered profanities and collapsed on top of her, utterly spent and still wrapped up in pleasure. Whenever he moved to pull out, Jennifer crossed her legs behind his back, holding him inside of her.

"Don't," she whispered, "Stay here." Tony happily obliged, not wanting to leave her, to break their union and make them two separate bodies. He placed a kiss on her forehead, savoring the tang of her sweat-slicked skin and then kissing her cheek, skimming his mouth along her jaw. She returned his kisses and stroked his back, and Tony realized that he felt truly happy, truly alive, for the first time since his heart attack. Jennifer was his remedy, his salvation, his rock.

Not knowing how to properly communicate all of this to her, he simply said, "I love you. You know that, don't you?"

Jennifer nodded. "I know."

"And I really am sorry…ya know, for how I've been lately. You deserve better than that. You're the only fuckin' thing that got me through all this shit." He claimed her lips, and she eagerly kissed him back, pressing herself more tightly against him.

"Apology accepted," she said when they broke apart, "But from now on you talk to me if you have a problem, ok? It's what I'm here for; it's what I do."

"Yeah, I know," Tony replied. After a moment of contented silence, Jennifer pulled her hips away from his, disengaging them. Tony looked at her confusedly.

"I'm hungry," she explained, reaching for her discarded clothes, "You should eat too. If dinner isn't too cold by now."