"I love you. And I've known since…I've known for years that I want it to be you and me, always."
"Hailey, will you marry me?"
"You don't have to do that. I already did the proposal part."
"Well, I'm old fashioned, okay?"
"Yes. Yes, I will."
Jay stands to his feet, staring down into her eyes with the softest smile on his face as they lean in close to one another.
"Yes," Hailey whispers once more with a happy grin and teary eyes before he's swallowing the word and pressing his lips to hers.
He pulls her against him, kissing her quickly and wrapping a hand around her neck while she clings to him, digging the tips of her fingers into his back and meeting his lips with the same sweet ferocity he offers her.
He holds his fingers in a tight, but gentle grasp around her neck and slides the other down around her back, holding her close against him.
She presses her lips harder against his, parting them to seek out his tongue with her own and he opens his mouth over hers, welcoming the warmth and familiarity as they deepen their kiss.
She had waited so long, too long, to kiss him before they were them and now doing so feels like second nature, an extra limb, a favorite pastime.
From the slow and sweet kisses he greets her with in the morning to quick pecks in her kitchen over coffee, and stolen ones on her couch after a long day on the job and doing the thing that works between them.
Every little moment with him and all the grand ones too makes her reminiscent of the stretch of time when they were just partners and nothing more, and it has her smiling at him as she pulls her lips from his to meet his eyes.
"You just asked me to marry you," Hailey says through tears and grinning lips.
"Technically you proposed first," he says with a teasing smile and a spark in his eyes.
"And we both said yes."
"We both said yes," he nods.
Hailey nods back at him, letting out a heady breath as she lifts a hand to the side of his neck and slides the other to the top of his shoulder and down between them to his chest.
She stares at him with her happy grin, eyes darting between his eyes and his mouth before she leans in to kiss him again in another sweet mesh of lips and soft moans of contentment.
It's just another kiss, but it's blissful and brilliantly mind numbing, and then his hands are sliding down over the jean-clad curve of her backside and squeezing her against him.
Hailey breathes out another moan against his lips as she slides her hand down his chest to his waist and hooks two fingers into a belt loop. She steps forward making him step back, her hands now guiding him as they move toward the bedroom.
They stumble past the doorframe with roaming hands and bumping noses as they kick off their shoes and pull and tug at each other's clothes until they're standing in their underwear.
"I think I need another shower," Hailey mumbles between the kisses she presses over his stubble-laced jawline.
Jay chuckles, nodding as he reaches for her hands and walks backwards into the bathroom, pulling her with him.
He lets go of her and moves toward the door of the shower stall, pulling it open and turning the handle on the wall. He holds a hand beneath the flow of water until it's the perfect temperature for them both, and then he turns around to face Hailey.
They remove the few pieces of clothing left between them and step into the stall together, standing under a stream of warm water and pressing their lips together again.
It's a rush of groping hands, brushes of tongues and quiet moans that are swallowed with more fervent kisses as Jay backs Hailey up against the marbled wall of the stall.
The combination of hot water raining down over them and the cool tile on her back and Jay's mouth on her neck has goosebumps rising on her skin as she holds him close.
She can't help thinking of the night before when she was in this very same shower stall, heart pounding and chest aching for an entirely different reason than it is right now.
Right now, with Jay pressed up against her, a hand wound tightly through her hair and the other on her lower back, holding her close to him as the shower head rains down over them.
He pulls his lips from hers only to drag them across her cheek and down the column of her throat, leaving a blazing trail of openmouthed kisses over her skin. He takes his time to lavish her neck, nibbling and sucking softly on her pulse point until she's moaning again and gripping tighter to him.
"Jay," she breathes out in a mew of impatience over his shoulder.
He hums out a response against her neck, his mouth continuing its sweet and torturous assault over her skin.
"I want you," Hailey breathes out, squirming against him.
"You have me," he smirks against her skin before pressing another kiss below her ear.
"I need you. Stop teasing me," she whimpers then, reaching down between them and wrapping her hand around him.
"Says the one with her hand around my – "
Hailey shakes her head at him and grips him tighter in her hands, making him lose his words as she sets her other hand on his waist and pulls him closer.
She's ready for him and ready to come undone in the way that only he can make her, so she parts her legs for him and guides him between them until he's right where she needs him to be.
She gasps loudly at the feel of him pushing his way inside her, his hand in her hair twisting tighter and holding her head to his as he kisses her again, slowly and wondrously. She has both hands on his waist now, gripping him with white knuckles and moaning into his mouth as she lifts a leg around him.
He drops a hand to the underside of her thigh, squeezing soft, wet flesh tightly in his palm as he hooks her leg against his waist and begins thrusting in and out of her slowly.
She pulls her mouth from his and leans her head against the front of his shoulder as he holds her and loves her, as that familiar bout of tension and ecstasy builds inside of her quickly.
Jay drops his mouth to her shoulder and kisses her once, then twice, before dragging his lips to her neck, sucking and nipping at her skin as he goes. He slides his hand from the back of her head down her arm, brushing the tip of a finger over the curve of a breast, and tickles his way down her ribcage and below her bellybutton.
He tightens his grip on her thigh with one hand, holding her up and against him as he quickens the pace of his thrusts inside her, and settles his other hand between them. He presses his thumb against her in dizzying circles until she's panting above him and clenching around him and trembling against him.
She can't help smiling against him as he brings her over the edge with his hands and lips and thrusts because they had said yes to one another.
Yes to a new chapter, to marriage, to a future together. A lifetime. Forever.
She cries out his name over and over between parted lips and ragged breaths against his shoulder, her fingers digging into his skin as she comes undone, and then he lets himself go inside her.
He drops his head against the side of hers, panting in her ear and holding her tightly for another few moments as their heaving chests begin to slow. He sets her leg back down, but keeps his hands on her, holding her steady now as she stands on trembling legs so that she doesn't slip and fall.
He presses a sweet kiss to her neck making her shiver – from his lips or the now lukewarm water, he can't be sure, and then asks her, "Wanna shower for real now so I can bring you to bed? I think we have a little more celebrating to do."
She smirks. "Celebrating, huh?"
"Damn right," he grins at her before he kisses her again.
"Did we really get engaged or is this some crazy fever dream?" Jay asks against her neck a short while later, both spent and cuddled beneath covers. He presses his lips to the underside of her jaw and tightens an arm over her waist, pulling her closer with her back to his chest.
"Pretty sure that actually happened unless you changed your mind already," Hailey says, and he just knows there is a smirk on her face.
"No, definitely not," he says, shaking his head and squeezing her against him. "And I can promise you, I won't be changing my mind."
Hailey turns in his arms and smiles softly at him, then lifts a hand between them, moving it up his chest to hold the side of his neck.
"So…" she sighs.
"So?" He drawls out, quirking a brow at her.
"Tell me more about how you've known for years you wanted it to be you and me. I'm very curious as to when it started to change for you."
He chuckles beside her, grinning wildly at her with bright green eyes, his fingers moving back and forth over her lower back.
"I wasn't kidding when I said years. I think it was a few months after you joined the unit. I knew there was something, just a feeling I guess," he says quietly as he stares at her, his smile turning softer, sweeter. "I just kept ignoring it though, but then we started getting closer and you helped me through all of my crap – my PTSD and my stupid decisions, that undercover stuff, but you stayed through all of it. You could've asked for a different partner and left me out to dry, but you stayed. You stayed and helped me even when I didn't always deserve it, and that was probably more than anyone has ever done for me before. And then…"
"And then?" Hailey presses.
"And then you got with Adam and I don't think I've ever been so jealous of another person in my entire life."
Hailey smiles sadly at him as she remembers those couple months with the officer and how the only reason they started their casual thing was because she was reeling from almost losing her partner.
She remembers the lingering glances with Jay and how they seemed to become more frequent, how when he'd look at her it was as if he could see right through her. He'd somehow come to know her better than anyone ever has, maybe even better than she knows herself.
"You know it wasn't serious between us, right? And the only reason it even happened to begin with was because...was because…"
"Because what?"
"Because I think I was already starting to fall for you then, and because I thought you were dead when we found you lying in the street after you'd been shot. I sat next to you in the ambulance after and all I wanted to do was throw my arms around you. And then I left and Adam was there and, and it just happened."
Jay nods at her confession, remembering all too well that night and how foolish he'd been.
"So, we have both known for years then," he says with that same soft smile on his face.
Hailey laughs beside him, but nods her head slowly. "Yeah, looks that way. I don't think I would change it though. Might have taken us a while to get our crap together, but I think we're better for it, ya know what I mean?"
"Yeah," he says, nodding again. "Yeah, I know exactly what you mean."
"Uh oh," she snickers, lifting her hand to his face and running her thumb over his cheek. "You have that look on your face."
"What look is that?"
"The one where you wanna say something, but you're not sure how to say it because you think it'll upset me," she says with another brush of her finger against his cheek. Maybe she knows him just as well as he does her. "You can say whatever you wanna say."
He takes a deep breath, then quietly says, "I know there's something you're not telling me. I can see that something is bothering you, worrying you."
Hailey swallows nervously, not surprised in the slightest. He is a detective afterall, and she'd be more surprised if he wasn't so observant. She drops her gaze to his chest, unable to look into his eyes as her heart begins to race and her body tenses with another onslaught of guilt and shame and fear.
He tightens his arms around her, squeezing her against him and staring at her panic-stricken face as she sighs heavily, breathing out his name. She meets his eyes again, but he shakes his head at her.
"I'm not gonna push you," Jay tells her with a soft smile. "I just need you to know that I'm here when you're ready to talk about it. And that whatever it is, it won't change this, it won't change us. I'm not gonna change my mind or leave or love you any less."
She stares back at him, in disbelief and even a little bit of shame, his words hitting her low in the gut and only worsening the ache in her chest.
"I wanna tell you, I do," she all, but whispers. "But I don't know how. I'm just not ready yet and I – "
"I'm not going anywhere, Hailey."
She can't help the twinge of a smile that peeks out on her face at the familiar words, and then he's pulling her closer to him, his arms around her tight like a vice.
"It's you and me, always," Jay whispers before he leans in and presses his lips against her forehead, soft and slow.
"You and me," she whispers back, nodding at him when he pulls away to meet her eyes again.
She holds onto him, clinging to the sincerity of his words and the softness of his eyes, and breathes out a quiet sigh of something that isn't quite like relief, but maybe more. Maybe better.
Hailey is sure the truth will come out, it always does in the end, but she's also hopeful that once it does and the dust of the wreckage has settled, Jay will still be there. Standing by her side through all of it, holding her hand in his, and loving her still.
Because he's her partner, on the job and at home. Because it's him and her, always.
Through good or bad, right or wrong, and for better or for worse.