Lizzy slid her hand up from where it rested on Red's thigh, slowly, teasingly, and when she cupped him through his underwear, she groaned. "Oh my god, Red."

Red looked down with his forehead still pressed against hers, breathing heavily as he watched her fondle his growing erection. It was quite a sight to behold. Hardly how he expected his day to go when he woke up to busted air conditioning and humidity that wouldn't be out of place in the tropics.

"All right?" Lizzy asked, slightly breathless; Red nodded, unable to look away. "You know, I've always wanted to do this, too. I wanted to stroke you like this, feel you stretch and swell and twitch in my hand. I wondered how long it would take for me to make you lose it. I wanted to see you let go, whimpering with need, helpless to do anything but come all over my hand."

"Jesus, Elizabeth."

"Does that surprise you?"

"Not as much as you probably think it does. You haven't exactly been shy lately about showing your… interest in me," he said, his voice low and gravely even to his own ears. "But it does make me wonder… why now?"

"Why not?"

"Elizabeth, please. You know as well as I do that there have always been plenty of reasons for the two of us not to do this," Red said.

His protestations weren't for his benefit, but for Lizzy's—he was wary of her overstepping her own boundaries, but not wary enough to put a stop to it if it was really what she wanted. He was more than willing to lay his heart on the line to be close to her whichever way she chose. He'd been down this road before, after all. A more treacherous version, even. Between this and having to pretend to be her father, he would choose this every time.

"There's just as many reasons why we should." She pressed a kiss to his jaw, her lips dragging against the stubble he didn't bother shaving that morning. "Aren't you sick of it? Erring on the side of caution with me? Tom is dead, Kate is dead… Hell, even Sam is dead. The task force lets you get away with actual murder. Who the hell do we answer to anymore?"

"I don't think it's a question of… answering to anyone, I think it's a question of trust."

"There you go again with the trust issue. I bet you've slept with plenty of people you don't trust."

"I have. But have you? I don't mean whatever petty honeypot schemes you dreamt up as a teenager. I mean as an adult, when entering into a serious relationship. Whatever else our relationship is, there's no denying that it's serious." Red's hand clenched at Lizzy's waist when her grip passed over a particularly sensitive spot on his cock and he bit back a grunt. "We don't need the ghost of Tom Keen wreaking havoc on us when you come to the realization that sleeping with a man whose identity you don't really know is still a problem for you."

"I may not know who you are, but I know who you're not and that's way more important, as far as I'm concerned," Lizzy said, and then she took his mouth again.

Red parted his lips for her, eager to let her inside again, eager to feel her tongue explore his mouth with such obvious relish. He wasn't sure how long she would go on like that, kissing him deeply while jerking him off through the fabric of his briefs. She could uncover him easily, but for whatever reason chose not to. He could uncover himself, but the last thing he wanted to do at that moment was upset the fragile balance between them.

After a few more dazzling, distracting moments, Lizzy pulled back from the kiss and retrieved her hand as well. Red was as relieved to have the reprieve as he was disappointed. His cock throbbed at the loss of contact, but the cloudy haze over his mind receded a bit along with it.

Red's briefs were barely adequate at containing him now that Lizzy had worked him over. She cleared her throat and fanned herself.

"I think I need another one of these," she said, and snagged a second ice cube from her glass. It was smaller than the first, having melted a bit already in the heat, but Red followed its travels all the same—from the sharp line of her jaw down the soft column of her throat to the swell of her breasts disappearing beneath her camisole.

It wasn't long before he wasn't satisfied with mere observation, and he dipped his head down to lick along the trail of moisture the ice left in its wake, tasting the salty tang of sweat and the watery traces of the tea.

The hum of Lizzy's approval buzzed against his lips and tongue. She arched her neck to give him more room, and he felt her moan as much as he heard it when he bit down gently on her tender flesh.

He pulled her into his lap and, immediately, she rolled her hips, pressing the hard length of him into the heat between her thighs.

Desperately, Red dug his fingers in her glass to fish out another ice cube, spilling tea over the rim in his haste. Slipping his hand under her camisole, he picked up the trail from where Lizzy abandoned it, drawing the ice between her breasts, which rose and fell quicker with every chilling swipe.

When he grazed a nipple under the fabric, it tightened, perhaps with a twinge that bordered on pain; she tore her mouth from his, letting out a plaintive whimper.

Red leaned back a bit to push Lizzy's camisole up far enough to uncover her breasts, and replaced the ice cube with his mouth, equal parts soothing and teasing. He pulled away to blow across the dampened skin and she shivered, dragging him close again until he took pity on the poor, maligned nipple and gave it the proper attention it deserved.

She rocked in his lap along with his movements, challenging his ability to concentrate on wringing pleasure from her body with the same single-minded ruthlessness he applied to other aspects of his life.

Soon enough, the pair of them tipped over some invisible precipice in their ardor, and in an urgent scrabble of limbs, they somehow both ended up on the floor. Lizzy's camisole came off, and so too did her underwear, tossed carelessly away in a frenetic attempt to get Red's face between her legs.

They would be sore and stiff by tomorrow.

They were both too aroused to care.

Red couldn't remember the last time he had felt so feverish with need—the need to please someone, the need to taste, to smell, to touch, the need to bury himself in this moment, in this woman, and ignore everything else.

Heels braced on the balcony floor, Lizzy clasped Red's head against her with both hands, pressing herself into his attentions, dripping her arousal down his chin. Red was over the moon at her fervor, savoring the flavor of her with each ardent lap of his tongue.

"Fuck. Fuck. I need you," she gasped, and began tugging at him by the armpits ineffectually until he shifted up her body and met her gaze.

"Inside?" Red asked.

"Yes, goddamn it. Take these off."

At some point, the head of Red's cock had worked its way above the waistband of his underwear; Lizzy shoved at the fabric in an impatient attempt to free the rest of him. He handled the problem himself, stripping off the briefs swiftly before returning to the cradle of her thighs.

Red reached down to position himself, but when Lizzy's hand came to rest at the back of his head, his eyes snapped up to meet hers and they both froze, just watching each other for a lingering moment, intense in its intimacy. Her thumb ran back and forth over his short hair, raising goosebumps on his flesh.

Lizzy's cheek twitched in a hint of a smile; Red took that as his cue to continue, pressing easily into the clenching heat of her. The hint of a smile became a full grin as he began to move over her and he couldn't help but bend to kiss those smiling lips, his mouth curved into a smile of his own.

"It's good, right?"

Red chuckled into the crook of her neck. "Very," he said, and when he snapped his hips at the end of his thrust, she gasped and arched into him.

"Fuck. Do that again."

He did as he was told, and ground his pelvis hard against hers for good measure. She let out a low groan and clutched his ass with her free hand, pulling him in even tighter.

"Oh, god. Red. Shit, that feels good."

Wherever Lizzy found the most pleasure, Red followed. Long, hungry strokes. Short, sharp ones. Slow or fast. Shallow or deep.

Eventually, it was all too much, for both of them.

Lizzy wrapped her legs around Red's hips in a punishing grip. Her nails tightened in the flesh of his neck as his breath caught and his body tensed, pulsing into her gripping, grasping body while her eyes drank in the expression on his face. By that point, his hips moved mostly of their own accord, his climax driving him roughly into her body again and again. She cried out as she fluttered around him, bucking involuntarily with the clenching of her muscles.

Afterwards, they stayed like that, limbs tangled and clinging, until their bodies began to calm.

Red rolled over onto his back, staring up into the dark and churning clouds high above them. It was a crack of thunder that roused him from his torpor, only moments before he felt the first spatters of rain fall onto his naked body.

"Oh," Lizzy said. "Feel that breeze?"

Red nodded. "Maybe the heat wave is finally gonna break."

"Not a minute too soon."

Red pressed his lips to the scar at her wrist and then gave her a gentle tug.

"Come on. Let's get inside. With our luck, we'll be struck by lightning if we stay out here much longer."