Sorry for the wait. Life and inspiration and stuff.
Sexy chapter.
Things start to improve immediately. It isn't like the night with Hoyt never happened, but you're on almost as level ground as you were right before it did.
Your anxiety decreases, just from knowing that Jane has your back. You call on her for every little thing - sometimes out of want, but often just because you know she's eager to fulfill. Sometimes she disguises her real eagerness with comedic overeagerness, like nearly tipping her kitchen chair backwards in her haste to refill your iced tea. She likes to make you laugh. You fall asleep in her arms every night, and when the rare dream troubles you, she is never too tired to comfort you.
The group is so good at looking out for you that for a while you mistook it for a run of lucky circumstances. Someone always makes sure you know who you're working with, and some reason is always found which keeps you from being left alone in situations that might make you anxious. You like how they make you feel protected but not babysat.
Jane's anxiety decreases. Now that she knows you'll ask if you need her, her secret checkings-on-you cease. Her apartment sells right away. She starts therapy and although she comes home mocking Dr. Klein's therapist-speak, you can tell she's taking the important aspects to heart and making a genuine effort. You have many more long talks. The kind that are difficult but leave you feeling lighter and closer.
The average day feels good again.
You're lengthwise on the couch, your back against the arm, and Jane's back against your front.
Tonight you chose the movie, but in the past few minutes, it's fallen to a distant second most interesting thing going on in the room - number one being the lump moving lazily under in the blanket that's draped over Jane.
It turns you on, but that's not the primary reason you're smiling. You just like that she's that relaxed, that comfortable in your arms. Clearly she isn't doing it for show, maybe not necessarily even hoping to involve you, but neither is she trying to hide it.
You kiss behind her ear, and she smiles but stills.
"When I said I thought you might enjoy this movie, I didn't think it would be that much."
"Shut up," she grins.
"Please don't stop on my account."
"Like it?"
"I like watching you masturbate." You say it a little lower and a little closer.
"Mh," she makes a note that sounds torn between satisfaction and dissatisfaction. "Too bad they gave such a cool thing such an ugly word."
"It's not ugly. It's from the Latin verb mean-"
"Dead languages are a turnoff."
"Would you like me to help in a live one?" you ask, skimming your nose along the shell of her ear.
"Sure."
"Can I t-" Wait, no. You slip your hands down and find her skin just under the bottom of her shirt, watching for her reaction instead of asking permission. It makes you a little nervous, even though she told you to.
She smiles sideways in approval.
And you slide your hands up warm abdominals and under her bra, where two soft points rise to greet your fingers.
She rests her head back against your shoulder and you smile, playing with her, watching her tend to herself leisurely and with closed eyes.
"What are you thinking about?"
She smiles sideways.
"You."
"Me."
"Yep."
"Me, hmm... pruning my roses?" you tease. "Me, turning my cart toward the produce section at Whole Foods?"
"No, but if those were supposed to be turnoffs, you'll have to try harder."
"They aren't?"
"I like you. So I like the way you do lots of stuff," she shrugs. "Not just sexy stuff."
That slips between your ribs and lodges in your heart in a way you aren't sure it was meant to. Only when she looks at you questioningly do you realize you've gone still, and start again.
She has a way of being accidentally very sweet. But you know if you told her so, she'd only shrug, so you kiss her.
And that's how it goes for a few minutes. Just soft kisses while she touches herself. Your hands roaming her breasts and her abdomen, augmenting but not interfering. Doing what you think she might if she had four hands. You can tell from the almost-little-sighs in her breathing that she likes it.
"Are you wet under there?" you ask.
"Little bit, I think."
"You think?"
Her mouth opens and closes, like she doesn't know what to say. "I don't do it like that," she offers finally.
"Do it like- you don't actually touch..." you realize.
She shakes her head.
"Ever?"
Shake.
"In all the times you've come with me, you haven't been touching your own skin?"
You knew she did it through her clothes a lot, but you didn't know it was exclusively.
"S' how I've always done it. It's better. No fuss, no muss."
Personally, you strongly disagree.
"Okay.. tell me how you do it, then?"
"Well.. through everything, if it's sweatpants or PJs or something. Jeans or work pants are too thick and I have to go under 'em."
She's wearing sweatpants right now, but oh, that's an image you've always liked.
"I have to tell you something," you confess. "I've always really... really liked that fantasy of you. That's something I used to stop myself from thinking about."
"Wait, what? What is?"
"You in your suit. Sitting on your couch after work... belt undone and your hand down the front of your slacks.. working out the tensions of the day. I pictured you being quiet even though you were alone."
"That's not much of a fantasy," she snorts. "That's just me being a slob on a weeknight."
"Oh, yes it is," you kiss behind her ear. "I guess I'm going to have to make some subtle corrections to it, though."
So your after-work-couch-fantasy-Jane isn't teasing slippery flesh with her fingertips. Just underwear.
That is an aspect you liked - her fingers dipping just inside that hard professional facade and finding liquid heat and all the softness of a woman. You liked the juxtaposition. You liked the visual of Detective Rizzoli having a stoic orgasm alone in her apartment, refusing to let even the empty room see her succumb to moans.
You let her lay against you, doing what she needs to do. Watching that lump shift between her legs. Whatever is going on under there, it's remained quite subtle.
A couple of times it seems like she's close, and you coordinate your aid with what you think is an impending climax, but she stops. Breathes and cools down instead.
You wonder what you're doing wrong, or if she's having trouble getting there with you involved.
She rests her til-recently-busy hand on yours, and you guess this is over, until something about it gets your attention.
It's not the first time she's doodled on your skin with a fingertip. She does that sometimes, as an absentminded, affectionate thing, but her deliberateness now is different. A circle on the back of your hand. Just one, like you would draw on a piece of paper, stopping once complete. She keeps doing it, waiting a few seconds, doing it again.
The significance eludes you, but you draw a circle on her stomach in acknowledgement.
Then she does an X. So do you.
Circle again. You copy.
You're on the verge of asking whether this means anything when her hand takes yours and slides down, tucking both together between her legs. And suddenly you understand, ready to keep copying very, very obediently.
Even as the one in complete control of it, she tenses at your first move. You knew she would. Trusting her, you kiss her head and say nothing, letting her take her time.
Trusting you, she tries again. And with the back of your hand as her canvas, she is soon teaching you how to touch her.
She's still looking at the TV, definitely trying to pretend for the sake of her nerves that this is no big deal.
You watch her face, aroused and smitten and fascinated at the means of wordless communication that human being are capable of. You're embellishing nothing, duplicating her touch so accurately that it's nearly as if she's touching herself. This was a very good idea.
You find another way to promise your faithfulness, that you understand what she needs this to be, that she is just as safe as if the fingertips massaging at the seam of her sweatpants were still her own.
"Feels good to touch yourself?"
Not missing a beat, she nods.
You remember your other hand and bring it back to her nipple, earning almost a whimper.
"You're so beautiful when you're pleasuring yourself. So sexy."
She rolls her head to the side and arches faintly, not used to this much stimulation. Her free hand squeezes your leg gradually harder as you pleasure her in tandem.
"Maura," she whines, rubbing that fingertip in tiny, insistent circles on your knuckle.
You smile. You smile at how beautiful she is, at the trust and effort you know this is taking, at the way she's fighting to let you do it instead of knocking your hand aside and doing it herself now that she's close.
It hits you. You're going to give Jane an orgasm for the first time. She's had many for you, but you've never actively given her one before.
You've helped her countless times. You've spent many nights whispering words designed to push her over the edge; you've kissed her sensually and sucked her nipples for her while she did the rest on her own; most recently she's begun to grind out her own release against you. You've served as an erotic audio-visual aid and a very willing surface. But she's never let you stimulate her directly. And you're as honored as you are aroused.
"Going to come now, darling?"
"I-" Her breath catches and you feel her nod against you.
"I've got you."
And she shudders against both of your hands working as one, coming to your touch for the first time. Simple and quiet and monumental.
You aren't sure whether it's that, or the huge shaky breath and wet-eyed sheepish grin, that make you fall in love with her all over again.
The basement has taken shape.
Despite how hard you tried to get "den" to stick, Jane won't refer to it as anything other than her "man cave". It's kind of a streamlined take on her old living room. Most of her sports memorabilia has found its way out of boxes and onto the walls.
She insists on buying the furniture herself. It's a good thing a mini fridge is an appliance, not furniture. It's supposed to arrive tomorrow, and when she sees it it'll already have an inaugural six-pack in it.
You already know this is where she's going to hang out with her brothers when they come over. It's not that they don't feel at home in your living room, but this will be a room where it's not a disaster if somebody spills a little beer.
She's sitting on the new area rug where there isn't a couch yet. Elbows on her knees, looking up at the newly-hung TV although it's off. Sensing you, she twists around.
"We could bring chairs down there, you know," you smile, coming down a few more steps.
"I'm basking in new rug smell."
You get down on the ground next to her.
"You were right about the red. I thought it was gonna look bloody."
She's done the room mainly in tans and charcoals, but you talked her into doing one accent wall in a deep red. All three colors are represented in flecks on her torn jeans.
"It looks good," you nod, going quiet in thought for a little while. "Is red your favorite color because of the Red Sox?"
"No," she smiles. "I dunno. It's just.. a good strong color. Hey, how come you don't have a blue wall anywhere in the house?"
"Blue isn't necessarily my favorite color."
"You've said a different one every time I've ever asked, but you say blue most often. Course you can never just say blue. It's always prussian cobalt or something, but still."
"Blues are very pretty," you shrug. "But it's too hard to have a favorite when any color can be pleasing."
"That's such a you answer," she smirks, leaning back on her elbows. "Yeah, this'll be a proper room once the couch comes."
"When is that?"
"Friday. You know the first thing I want to do in my proper room on Friday night?"
You smirk. "I have a theory."