Warning: This chapter is not for the celibate.

Gregory's hands kneaded into her hair, fingertips running up the lines of the base of her skull. Sighing into his touch, Olivia closed her eyes as he turned on the light in their bedroom. After the darkness of the hallway the light stung, even through her eyelids.

Wincing, she quickly put her hand in front of her eyes. "It's too bright."

Shutting the lights back off, he waited a moment for his eyes to adjust before heading for the small lamp by their bed. "Better?"

Leaning into the doorframe, she nodded slightly. "Thank you."

Gregory dropped his jacket into his closet and perched on the bed to remove his shoes. Olivia watched him from her position against the wall, waiting with crossed arms. Something was bothering him. The usual elation that came with a financial victory of the magnitude of his new hospital deal was nowhere to be seen in the slump of his shoulders.

Dropping his shoes in the corner, he added his tie to the top of the pile. He unbuttoned his shirt with his back to her, sliding the shirt off of the smooth muscles of his back. Gregory had evolved from the young man she married.. Muscles changed, skin loosened and aged, but the bones were the same. The heart of the man had the same fierce passion she fell for so many years ago. He was pulling on his robe when he discovered her watchful gaze.

"What?" In the soft light, his eyes looked black and endless.

She shook her head and pushed off the wall towards the bathroom. "When we're fighting you never let me watch you undress." Dropping her ruby earrings into her jewelry box, she pulled the pins from her hair and let all of it fall in a dark tumble onto her shoulders as she headed to the bathroom. "Sometimes, I even start to forget how attractive you are when you are out of your suit and tie and just Gregory again."

Obviously touched, he kissed the top of her head and reached around for her hairbrush. "I'm sorry dinner wasn't more enjoyable."

"It wasn't that, I thought dinner was lovely" Olivia replied softly as she wiped the makeup from her face. "I'm just tired."

Gregory brushed out her hair with practiced hands. "You barely ate anything, paid little attention to any of the conversation, Bette was so concerned about you she practically followed us home."

Laughing in gentle suspicion, Olivia rested her hands on the counter and watched him fuss over her hair in the mirror. "I thought she might have cornered you."

Finished, Gregory set down the hairbrush and rested his hands firmly on her shoulders. "She worries about you."

Olivia turned around to kiss his cheek. "Bette, Sean, Cate, you- everyone worries about me." She slipped from his hands started reaching for the zipper on the back of her dress.

Gregory's hand closed around hers and he took the zipper from her fingers. "Let me do that."

Exhausted, Olivia let him slip the zipper down her back. After freeing the shoulder straps the dress flew away in a black puddle of fabric on the floor. The air of the bedroom was cold against her heated skin, by the time he had the nightgown over her head, she was trembling slightly.

Kissing her forehead, he pulled back the covers, "Bed Olivia."

Without arguing, she shivered into the blankets. He picked up his clothes and started hanging them back in the closet. She waited and listened to him move around the bedroom, but their bed was large and lonely without him next to her.

"The clothes can wait Gregory." She assured him dryly. "Come to bed." Sensing his odd resistance, she reached her hand towards him and let her eyes beg. "Please?"

Giving in, he crawled in next to her, folding warm arms around her stomach. The light was still on over his shoulder and as he reached to shut it off she asked him. "What's wrong?"

Silence reigned for a few beats. Too long for his denial to carry any weight. "Nothing, why would anything be wrong?"

Rolling over so she could see his face, Olivia found the pain in his eyes even in the dark. "You aren't happy about your business deal-"

With a finger over his mouth, she stopped his interruption. "I know what shaky business deals look like in your eyes. That's not it. I know it's nothing about money or work. That would inspire you. You didn't look this way when I left in the morning."

He kissed her hand and kept hold of it. "And it's just become relevant now?"

Olivia caressed his cheek thoughtfully. "I missed it this afternoon. I couldn't focus, but now it's clear." She pulled their entwined hands to her chest and stared at them. "Something happened this morning. While I was out."

Gregory rolled to look up at the ceiling, avoiding her eyes. "I wanted to tell you earlier."

"You didn't expect me to come home ill." Bitterness slipped into her tone and Gregory seemed to be touched by it.

He squeezed her hand sympathetically. "It wasn't your fault." With her head resting on his shoulder, Olivia's hair was soft on his neck. His fingers went to it, losing themselves in it as his lifeline. His salvation. The silence grew, but she waited for him. Gregory couldn't be rushed.

His voice was rough with emotion when he finally spoke. "I got a phone call, from a nursing home in Wisconsin."

"Wisconsin?" She echoed with a suppressed yawn.

"Nicholas died this morning. In Wisconsin." Finally admitted, the bottom dropped out of his voice.

Olivia instantly sat up, the blood draining from her head fast enough to throw spots into her vision. "Nicholas, your father, Nicholas died?"

Sitting up next to her, he leaned against her forehead. In the darkness, she could hear the hatred in the catch of the breath in his throat even if she couldn't see it in his eyes. "He was no father to me Liv," Gregory lay back down, cradling her to his chest. "I don't even know why I'm upset. It seems foolish to even waste time talking about him."

Brimming up into her eyes, Olivia's tears let the tightness out of her heart. Instead of fading away as she blinked, they ran down her cheeks, soaking into his robe. Gregory ran his hand over her head, brushing her hair back behind her ears. He didn't even realize she was crying until the dampness of her tears got through to the skin of his chest.

Nudging her up from his chest, Gregory took her tears from her face with a fingertip. "You aren't crying for him." When she didn't answer, anger stirred up from the well of hatred in his heart. His fingers dug roughly into her chin, pulling her head around to meet her eyes.

"You aren't allowed to cry for him." Dropping his hands to her shoulders, he sat up and shook her once harshly enough to click her teeth together.

"He's not worth it Liv, he's not worth anything." Boiling from his heart, Gregory's hatred reached out with blistering fingers that dug into her arms, nearly bruising the skin. "Not the nursing home, nothing!"

A single note of panic escaped from her throat, a tiny moan of protest as his hands vented his anger into her flesh.

Gregory released her immediately. Tumbling out of the bed to his feet, and shaking his head in slow disbelief. "Liv, I-" Turning away, so he couldn't look at Olivia's frightened expression, he started a broken apology. "I'm sorry, I can't think about him without wanting to kill something."

Fumbling with the belt, he tied his robe shut and reached for the lamp. "I'm going to go sleep in the guest room. I shouldn't be near you, I can't control myself-"

To leave the room he had to turn around and face her. Gregory had to walk past her wounded eyes. He tightened his jaw and took a step towards the door.

Olivia was smiling. Tears clung to her eyelashes and glistened in the soft light. "I love you."

Dumbstruck, Gregory stared at his wife, caught speechless. "I hurt you."

She patted the bed next to her and shook her head emphatically. "You didn't."

"I did." Gregory tucked his hands sheepishly into his pockets. "You were crying for that monster."

Catching his robe, she pulled him into the most intense kiss of their recent history. Olivia poured all of her sympathies into his lips, as if she could pass her heart over to him for safekeeping. In his hightened state, the force of his distrust transformed into sorrow. Raging fires of old wounds fading back to manageable embers contained with the power of her kindness.

"I'm crying for you." She whispered as she leaned back into the pillows of their bed. "I'm crying because your father beat you." Olivia gained momentum, remembering every tiny pained admission about Gregory's past. Gaining confidence as she went. "Because he tried to blame you for every wrong in his life. Because he made you feel less then human. But he was one who was inferior. He wasn't worth the dirt on the bottom of your shoes and he got off making you suffer."

Olivia's passionate defense of him made his heart feel swollen in his chest. Gregory found her hand and she pulled him back to bed. She ran her fingers over his face, wondering how many times Nicholas had beat that face bloody. "And no one helped you."

Her voice faded, growing strained. "No one saved you."

Gregory brought both of her hands to his heart and pressed them into his chest. "You saved me Liv." It was his turn to shake with unshed tears. "You taught me what it was to love someone. To really love." He crushed her to him in a desperate embrace. "You saved me." He whispered again. "You..."

Olivia wrapped her arms tighter around his back. Physically reaffirming her commitment when her words failed to escape the ache in her throat.

Gregory buried his face in her neck and cried.

With a pillow shoved between her back and the headboard, Olivia waited him out. When she was afraid she always sought comfort in Gregory's arms. He was her safe haven, the strong arms that filled the void when her father died.

He lay in her lap, Gregory's tears had grown bitter with years of aging in his heart. He made no sound when he cried, no sob would escape his control. He gave her no explanation and shared nothing of his thoughts. Olivia only knew Nicholas Richards in a few scattered stories, nightmares that had been all too real for his son.

Her memory only knew her father's kindness, his laugh and his kisses on the top of her head. Olivia would have given anything to give Thomas' love to Gregory. To trade in the horror of his childhood for the love in hers. Maybe Gregory would be different. Maybe if he had known trust and affection he would be able to share them with his family.

Gregory's hand reached up to caress her cheek, surprising her out of her musings. "I was never going to cry over him again. I promised myself that when I was seven years old."

She leaned into his touch, smiling at him in the dark. "There's a place for tears Gregory. Tears let our feelings out before our hearts explode."

Sitting up, he leaned against her forehead, relishing the clean peppermint smell of her skin. "You used to tell the children that every time Cate lost a doll, or Sean broke a toy." Gregory's hand found her knee and sent a jolt up her thigh.

Electricity arced between them. Racing along the back of her head and trailing down her spine. Her headache was long forgotten in the intoxication of his touch, her fever eclipsed by the heat of his body. Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Be kind to your heart, listen when it hurts."

Gregory's kiss interrupted her before she could finish, one of his hands continuing its journey up her thigh while the other teased her shoulder. "I can't remember the last part."

The start of a moan escaped the back of her throat as his thumb ran along the underside of her collarbone. "That doesn't matter." She whispered breathlessly. Tracing her fingers around his eyes, Olivia could feel the old dampness of his tears. He leaned closer, fighting the space between them, searching for the softness of her mouth. The quite forgiveness in her response to his kiss, spoke to the void in his soul. That empty place Gregory fought to ignore at the cost of his own empathy, his own understanding of the hearts of those around him.

She shoved the robe off of his shoulders, pushing into him, pressing the kiss back until he lay on the bed. Taking over, Olivia drug one leg slowly along his body, crossing at his hips and pulling herself on top of him. Gregory locked his fingers into the back of her hips, desperate to have more of her touching him. Kissing down in a crooked line, she teased the length of his chest. Driving the hunger in his eyes as he found the hem of her nightgown and started up towards her stomach.

Steadily gaining speed in her chest, her heart matched the need of his fingers. Rough against the soft skin of her stomach, they climbed steadily upward, pulling silk with them as they journeyed. Turning her attention to his arms, she started licking a line from his throat to his shoulder, forcing him away from the delicate bones just beneath her breasts. Unwilling to be deterred, Gregory struggled with her for a moment, but she tucked his hands under her knees. He always went to her breasts, cupping them, making them as much his as they were Olivia's. A deep chuckled escaped him when he realized she had figured him out. Tonight would be by her rules.

Rocking forward to his stomach, Olivia teased him as her breasts rubbed against his naked chest through the silk of her nightgown. He distracted her with a searching kiss, running her lips between his teeth as if he meant to devour them. As she tried to catch her breath and regain control he slipped his hands free and surprised her by cupping her bum and digging his fingers in with a wicked light in his brown eyes.

Shaking her head at him in mock dismay, Olivia let him wander his hands up the silk of her back. "That's going to cost you, you sneaky boy." One of her hands slipped beneath the waistband of his pajamas and caressed him with chill fingers. Gasping in surprise, Gregory squirmed beneath her, but he couldn't escape.

Olivia was covering him, smothering his senses with the heat of her body. Her perfume was exotic with the spicy scent of her arousal. The moon was creeping through the balcony in silver lines along the floor, making her hair glisten above the bare skin of her neck. Fighting a losing battle, Gregory struggled with the cries of his body. Thinking about corporate law as Olivia let him finally caress the curves of her breasts, he bit his lip and held on as she rid him of his pajamas bottoms.

Moaning in pleasure, she allowed him to pull the creamy silk over her head and off. The moonlight kissed Olivia's skin with an ethereal sheen as it glinted off her sweat. Even the driest tax law he could force into his mind couldn't distract him from the promise of her nude body. Groaning as she took him inside, Gregory crushed her breasts to her chest as she pulled him in and held him there.

The cadence of her breath dropped to the a low pleading moan. Forcing back the nearly painful intensity of his motion within her, Olivia bit her lip and ordered her body to wait. The pure animal desire pouring from Gregory's touch was exquisite. Rocking faster, she took him to the brink of his self control. Every part of him ached with tension of denial. Worst of all, Olivia was still half smiling. She was winning, she had him to the point where he was helpless and she knew it. Her victory leapt from her blue eyes in an electric jolt, challenging him to a duel he knew was already lost.

One of his hands snuck down to tease the most sensitive part of her body, drawing a delighted gasp from Olivia. His fingers toyed with her, becoming steadily more invasive as she stripped him of every thought but the wet tightness closing in on him. Gregory went rigid as he exploded into her with a muffled cry. Olivia released her control, letting her head float in the shared rush of their bodies.

Snuggling into his side, Olivia waited for her heart to stop pounding in her ears. Every nerve was alive with residual sensation, making her giddy. Even above the sheets of their bed, the summer night was warm and friendly. As if the anxiety of the day had been released along with their passion into the silence surrounding them. Reaching down for the sheet took her away from his arms and he held her closer when she pulled the sheet over them both.

"Let it love." Gregory realized with a snap of his fingers. "Let it love, because that's all that matters." Tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, he sighed up to the moon shadows on the ceiling.. "That's what your father used to tell you. I can't believe I forgot."

Leaning up, she kissed his cheek gently. "You didn't forget."

Chuckling, he pulled her just a little closer. "No, I guess I didn't."

"I don't think you've forgotten half the things you seem to think you have." Olivia ventured as she toyed with the hair on his chest. "Like trust." Resting her hand over his heart she looked t him with complete conviction. "You can remember how to trust me."

Covering her hand with his own, Gregory wondered if she was right. If somewhere beneath all the layers of deception all he wanted was her trust, her unconditional acceptance. When he looked into her blue eyes, still glowing in the aftermath of their love making, he could believe it. Underneath all her reason, Olivia loved him without reservation. That he knew.

Without thinking, he answered her with his heart. "Maybe I already do."