Chapter Nine

Partners

Maybe it was because she'd slowly but steadily been working through all of his defense mechanisms from the airport to where they sat together right now on the bed or maybe it was just his hangover wearing off, but Woody almost cried at her last words.

"Oh…okay…" She didn't want him to deal with it alone. He'd had Matt on the case to get drunk and talked to but there conversations rarely got further than 'What kinda sick bastard does this to little kids?' before they were both passed out in a chair.

Yes, the two men were partners but Woody was quickly realizing that being partners on the job was much different than being partners at home. And that was what Jordan was offering. Not just the sex, not just the comfort, but the actual act of listening to everything that was upsetting him She was offering the whole package and after all he'd been through Woody was happy to lean on her.

Four hours. It took him four hours to sum up everything that had happened on the case from the color of the walls in the room he and Matt shared to the brand of tennis shoes the perp was wearing when they finally got him.

Throughout the retelling, Woody moved from sitting up across from Jordan, to leaning back against the headboard, to a brief but healthy cry in her arms, and finally to the both of them snuggled up together in each other's arms on top of the covers.

It was then that they moved on from talking about the case to talking about EVERY case that had ever left a deep and lasting impression on their souls. Some of the cases were ones they had heard of, others they had even worked together -- like the case with the cancer patients seeking euthanasia, a case that had had a particularly strong effect on Woody.

"I should have figured it out then.." Jordan said shaking her head where it lay against Woody's chest.

"Figured what out?" he asked softly and kissed the top of her head.

Jordan looked off as if remembering the very moment it should have been clear to her.

"When we found that woman near the end of the case and she was dying of cancer, bald from the chemo, the look in her eyes was just pleading and you left the room. I should have known right then that someone close to you had died of cancer." She whispered. "I should have tried harder to question you about it, to…to get to know more about you…I'm sorry for that Woody," she said looking up into his eyes.

Woody just shrugged. "Don't sweat it. It's not like I asked you a ton about your life anyway…" he trailed off and glanced at the clock, realizing with a little yawn that it was past two a.m.

"Well…so?" Jordan asked and looked up at him again. Her stare made Woody's eyes leave the blinking digital clock and he furrowed his brow trying to remember the question.

"So what?" he asked laying on his back more so that Jordan could snuggle into his side.

"So….ask away..anything you want to know…I'll tell you," she said after a moment of hesitation. Woody's gaze down into her eyes told Jordan he knew she was dead serious and he returned the sentiment.

"You too.." he whispered leaning forward to kiss her lips gently, sealing the deal they had just made to bare their souls for the other to see. It was a scary though for both of them, even as the conversation slowly began.

Woody told Jordan about his childhood. The mother he barely remembered, the father who had always been loving and fun but had turned cold and distant after he lost the love of his life.

He told Jordan about the nights he'd have to make dinner for Cal, get his brother to do his homework and then finally do his own when Cal was asleep for the night.

Jordan told Woody about the affairs she knew her mother was having, the pain that came with being a child and so confused about what exactly it was that was going on.

She told him more about her brother James and how Max had given him away because he found his wife holding the child under water in the bath tub. She told him about her first kiss, the way a J.D. Salinger book had changed her life and all the dreams she had to become a heart surgeon when she was a little girl and how the journey had ended at the county morgue with her as a Medical Examiner.

In the span of one evening and early morning, Woody Hoyt and Jordan Cavanaugh learned more about one another than they had in a five year friendship. And right before they fell asleep to the sun rising over the city skyline, they promised each other to only learn more as their relationship progressed.

"I love you, Jordan," Woody whispered softly as his tired eyes slipped shut and he tightened his arms around her.

Jordan squeezed back and trailed a fingertip up and down his spine once softly. "I love you too Woody," she whispered against his neck just as sleep claimed her as well.

It was noon when they woke again. Woody woke to the sound of a large truck honking out on the street and Jordan to the movement of the man in her bed who she vowed never to be far from again.

"Hey." Woody smiled and looked down at her with new eyes. Eyes that had seen not now only her body but her soul, laid out for him without fear or expecting anything in return.

"Good morning, Woody," she said back with a raspy voice from having talked so lengthily and emotionally the night before. She sat up and stretched, making the robe she wore to bed slip off the shoulder closest to Woody who had sat up beside her.

Before she turned her head she knew he was there. His warm breath on her neck, a hand reaching out to hold her hip, letting her know that while last night they had rekindled the emotional aspects of their once battered and bruised relationship, he wanted to show her now just what it was to make love to the person who knows you best in the world.

"Shh…just let me take care of you…" Woody whispered when her mouth opened to say something.

She turned her head a little more to look into his eyes and there she found a piece of her heart that had been missing for so long. With the loss of her mother, never knowing her brother and the recent strain on the relationship she had with Max, she almost didn't recognize the feeling at first. Home. She remembered now. Woody was home. Woody was family.

The idea took her breath away for a moment and as if he realized it, Woody gave it back to her in one long, slow kiss as he laid her back on the bed.

He began with tender touches, to her sides, her long arms, the tops of her thighs and relished in the chills it sent coursing through her body to his.

When he could feel the poke of her nipples through the thin, silky fabric of the robe and the warmth emitting from between her legs he sensed that it was okay to move on.

"Yes." Jordan answered without hesitation when he reached for the belt of the robe. She was rewarded with a look of sheer hunger and longing for what she knew Woody had been missing since this damn case began and took him temporarily out of her life.

Woody looked over her naked body with a new appreciation for the all that this woman before him had been through before, with and after he had loved her. Like a well coursed map he could trace the history he'd just heard the night before through scars on her body, worry lines on her face and the deep burning in her eyes that he'd always been so attracted to. If nothing else, Jordan Cavanaugh was the most passionate woman he'd ever met.

With a slow, tender smile he stretched out over top of her, tenting his body over hers and assaulting her lips with enough deep, hungry kisses to make up for all of those that he'd missed in those long, terrible, lonely nights in the mid west.

They both moaned and sighed against each other's mouths as their bodies tried desperately to touch and be reacquainted. Woody waited for Jordan to make the next move. Quid pro quo, this was for both of them after all.

He nodded and moved his kisses to her collar bone when she slid her hands down his smooth, warm back to the waist of his sweat pants. With one fluid motion Jordan dragged them down and let him kick them away from the bed as he settled finally, tenderly, completely down on and into her with a sigh he'd been holding since the morning he'd left for Kansas.

Jordan sighed back to him with a little nod that told him she'd missed him just as much. They moved together then, fluidly, perfectly in synch. The times they had been together before Woody left had been everything she hoped but what they had now was everything she hopes for and much more.

When the moment came to end their fevered dance Jordan pressed her lips to Woody's ear and whispered a soft and clear 'I love you' which drew a long happy sigh from her partner as he pinned her hips to the mattress as he came.

"I love you too, Jordan…I swear to God I do.." he promised as they snuggled into each other's arms a moment later.

They lay quiet for a few long moments, just holding each other in the early morning light. The sunlight hit the edge of the mattress where their night of talking and their morning of rekindling their physical bond had left the covers in disarray.