A/N: No thinking caps in sight. Everyone's runnin' on impulse here. Also, look out for showers to play a major role in this story from here on out LOL.

Jane watched rivulets of hot water trickle down the middle of her abdomen, imagining the clean they left in their wake on their own before she helped by spreading frothy soap over the area. Once she was satisfied with her scrub, she stepped back underneath the spray and let it cover her from her crown to her toes, the heat a welcome balm to her sore upper body.

In the privacy of her own mind, Jane would admit that she always looked good directly after the gym. Her core popped, her biceps strained, and the veins of her arms slithered against her skin, making her look violent and alive. But today, thoughts of her own physique were far from her mind.

She had had to ask Maura for the guest room shower.

Of course Maura had obliged, had directed her to it even though Jane had been in it a hundred times. That was to be expected: Maura was nothing if not a gracious host. But, Maura, sweet Maura, unaware of Jane's conversations with Tommy and her mother, unaware of Jane's lustful thoughts just a couple hours before, had decided it would be best if she stayed and talked to Jane while Jane showered.

So, Maura sat on the closed toilet now, with her legs crossed, chattering on about her day. "I mean, I think our research question is truly important, and I love being a mentor to the students under our care."

Jane shook her head, and there was a resounding wet thwack against the shower door as the water hit it. She remembered that she was part of this conversation. "But…?" she goaded, her question distorted by the running water.

Maura heard her perfectly. "But sometimes I feel handcuffed by their inexperience? Oh, I know that sounds awful, but I'm terrible at delegating. I want to handle all the histological assessments myself, which is impossible."

"That's not true - you delegate all the time at work," Jane offered. She scrubbed her legs and feet next. She delayed the inevitable end of her shower, but she wasn't sure if it was because she didn't want Maura to go, or she didn't want to risk Maura not taking the hint and staying when she got out.

"That's true yes. But the people to whom I delegate are all experienced. Some are MDs, the rest have graduate level training in the sciences. Our students are bright of course, but very green."

"Well, if they got into BCU, I'd imagine they all have at least a little bit of competence," Jane assured her.

Maura smiled, and Jane knew by the way her voice changed. Her vowels got brighter, more feminine. "You got into BCU," she said proudly, indulgently.

"You sayin' you want me to join your research team?" Jane knew she asked like four questions in one. She wondered if Maura heard any but the most surface level of them.

"I'd quite like that," Maura teased. "I'm sure you would be good at research. You're very clinically minded. You like to solve problems."

"I'm not really sure brain smears are a problem I could solve, Maura."

"That you even know that's what I'm studying, and can spin it into a colloquial turn of phrase, proves to me that I'm right."

Jane sighed. "I'm good where I'm at. I think I'll stick to my gumshoe thing."

"You're very good at that, too. And I like you there. You do it better than anyone else. Jane?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to get you a towel, alright? Then I'll be downstairs. You can pick what we eat."

Early the next Tuesday, summer sun warped the air in the fifth floor apartment sprawling with crime techs. The humidity hugged Maura from behind and pressed against her from the front as she leaned over the body in the bed at the center of the bedroom, wood floors groaning for every time that she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She felt the temperature envelop her, as it was wont to do in early June, and what was stifling to the people around her made her skin prickle with a pleasurable awareness. She acknowledged the heaviness on her body, counted it as compounded by her recent pleasurable few evenings with Tommy Rizzoli.

The decedent had clearly had a pleasurable mid-morning himself - Marcus Bryant, the 6'2", 270 pound man face up in his own bed, had died during intercourse with his fiancee, Linda Martinez. By the time paramedics had arrived on the scene, he was clearly gone; they pronounced him on the spot. Maura wondered at the danger of desire - the way it spiked cardiac rhythm - as she turned his extremities with her gloved hands, as she surveyed his head and neck. His eyes looked up to the white ceiling as though he begged for the silent ceiling fan to turn on. She didn't have the heart to tell him that while she did commiserate regarding the heat, selfishly, she had no desire to heed his corpse's warning - Boston summer, suffice to say, made her want sex more than ever.

Maura assumed, however, that Linda Martinez would not want sex for a very long time after her ordeal - after all, there must be no worse way to watch the love of your life die than on top of you, inside of you. But, when Linda emerged from the bedroom to welcome the three detectives that had just walked in, Maura balked internally at that assumption.

Human beings, of course, were always in a state of want. To deny it, to discount it, was to discount one of the basest ways of being human. And there, in full effrontery to Maura's expectations was Linda Martinez, wearing nothing but a sweat-stained sheet and a teary eye, waltzing into the arms of one Detective Jane Rizzoli. She was clearly wanting with the way she grasped tightly onto the back of Jane's blazer and let their embrace be the only thing holding the sheet around her body as she wept.

"Ms. Martinez, I'm so, so sorry for your loss," Jane said with her signature sniffle and upturned brow. The show of sympathy was in and of itself an aphrodisiac, in a way that Tommy couldn't emulate. It was a nuanced sexuality that he did not have. Jane rubbed a palm up and down the woman's back as Ms. Martinez shuddered with grief, and the whole picture - Jane with an open stance and Ms. Martinez wrapped around her torso, nodding to say the thank you that her mouth could not - made both Sergeant Korsak and Detective Frost turn to give them privacy.

Maura, of course, had never been bothered with the trappings of social norms in this way, so when she long-tossed a glance to her best friend, entering their moment, that best friend caught it and gave Ms. Martinez one last quick squeeze before she headed toward the bedroom doorway where Maura stood.

Though jealousy passed over her in a drizzle, Maura understood it. On the happiest of days, people wanted Jane. On the darkest of them, when turmoil ripped around like a hurricane and cold tragedy saturated one's bones, Jane was something of a heat wave herself. Victims, witnesses, loved ones alike flocked to her in their times of distress, because she did not hesitate to give them the one thing that acted like a balm against their aches: sincerity.

They walked into the space together, Jane hot on Maura's Louboutin heels, Maura not eager to gain separation. This was their own form of physical sincerity, Jane wanting to chase and Maura wanting to be chased by her, no denials or saving of face to get in the way. It was a while before either of them spoke, both standing at the side of the bed.

"I'm 35 years old, Maura," said Jane, finally.

Maura swung at the curve of that non-sequitur, missed. "Yes, you are Jane. So am I. The relevance?"

"He's 35," Jane whined, pointing to the dead, exposed Mr. Bryant, dark and tall against the white fitted sheet.

"Oh, is he?" Maura asked, amusement playing off of the brown in her green eyes as she watched Jane fidget.

"At least that's what the EMT told us on our way up," Jane said. She hooked her thumbs in her belt and adjusted it - her nervous habit.

Maura loved it. She loved to watch Jane respond to nervousness with sexual assertion and grit. "And what is the significance of all this? Do you know how many 35 year-olds are in Boston at this given moment?"

"What does this mean for my sex life, Maura?!" the detective finally choked out. "I mean, you've got a standing dick appointment, but for me, it's been awhile. Am I gonna croak next time I happen to get lucky? Am I a walking, ticking sex time bomb?"

Maura laughed. Based on her display with Ms. Martinez earlier, she surmised that Jane would be very ok the next time she decided to have sex. Some of the techs looked up at them to see what was so funny, but when she noticed the waiting blush on Jane's face, she realized that there was a serious question that needed to be answered. Her heart melted, having very little to do with the scorcher outside. "Well, it's highly, highly unlikely. Researchers in Belgium found that you're more likely to experience cardiac arrest from a cup of coffee than from sexual activity."

"Not helping!" Jane whined, slumping and balling up her fists as she surveyed the decedent again.

"Oh Jane," said Maura, pity on her features. She put her hand on Jane's side, the one with two matching scars: one in front, one in back. "Of course you're not going to die during sex. You may be the same age as Mr. Bryant, but you're strong, in prime physical condition," she assured.

Jane breathed a sigh of relief and smirked at her friend. "I'll keep that in mind. Now, tell me all you know about Mr. Bryant. Besides the obvious."

Maura had to admire the tenacity directed her way. She held onto it, relished that no one else around them could claim it as their own.

Mr. Bryant's passing hadn't cleared suspicious death protocol, and so Jane spent the rest of the day investigating everyone close to him, including Linda, the woman she had so graciously embraced. She'd told Linda that homicide was just the norm in any death of a mysterious cause, a precaution until the very thorough medical examiner ruled out any foul play. Linda had understood, said of course, and asked Jane for another hug. So Jane hugged her, gave her the customary two squeezes, arms up high near her shoulders.

But then it appeared that Marcus Bryant had been poisoned. Maura was able to rush results to Jane's desk late that evening, around eight o' clock. Jane had been grateful, but when she was about to ask for further explanation, Maura abruptly announced that she was headed home - something about sleep schedules and productivity. In her mind, Jane knew it was true that more and better sleep meant better performance in all areas of life, not just work, but she also felt a little disappointed. She wanted to solve this no matter the outcome or the time that needed to be put in.

So, with the tox file in hand, she dropped her body into her unmarked and made the short drive from headquarters to Beacon Hill, intent on having Maura explain all the numbers and chemical compounds to her over a glass of wine. That would have to be bribe enough. She jingled the keyring in her pocket on her trek up the walkway, and with a smooth, practiced turn, she opened the door.

Tommy stood there, fully clothed in jeans and a sand-brown t-shirt, work boots on his feet, with his back to her and his lips on Maura's. He'd obviously rushed over after a job, whenever this rendezvous had started. Maura was decidedly less clothed: she had on just her black satin robe, and it was hastily tied. Their kiss was short, sweet, respectful.

But Jane still started her backwards walk. "Oh shit, sorry. I'll uh, I'll call you, Maura."

Tommy turned. "No worries, sis. I'm on my way out," he said kindly. His smile was one Jane had failed to resist a thousand times. It stopped her now. "Stay."

"Al-alright," she said, her posture ramrod straight. Things had been better since their spat, friendly on his end, cordial on hers, but guilt and stubbornness kept her from opening up all the way.

Tommy was no fool, and he noticed. "But I can still call you for the Alberti house in a few weeks, right? It's gonna be an all-day job, and with just me layin' pipe, I'm gonna need all the help I can get."

Jane nodded and deflated. Her brother needed her. "Yeah. Count on me, ok? I got you. Any job you need help on, if I can be there, I will."

Her sisterly goodwill softened both Tommy and Maura's hearts. Tommy had taken her place by the door and opened it, tapping his forearm thoughtfully against it. "Thanks, Jane. 'Preciate it. Bye. See ya later, Maura."

"Bye, Tommy," said Maura, and with that, he left.

That left Jane standing awkwardly in the foyer, with Maura maybe two feet from her. And Maura was smiling at her with that smile that meant Jane was about to be touched. Nicely. As if on cue, as if in perfect tune with Jane's thoughts, Maura came forward and ran a thumb and forefinger along the sides of Jane's jaw, culminating at her chin. "Aw," she teased, but the admiration in her eyes was sincere.

"What?" Jane whispered.

"You're very sweet," Maura answered, and then her hand trailed southward, ending reverently against the skin over Jane's heart. "Even though you give each other a hard time, it's obvious that you love him very much."

Jane blushed. "Yeah well. I gotta do everything I can to make sure he stays on the straight and narrow. If that means pipin' a few houses or fixin' a few sinks, I will. The more he can spread his name around as a reliable plumber, the less I eventually have to worry about him."

"He looks up to you. It's clear that he appreciates you, what you do for him," Maura said, and then she was walking toward the kitchen.

Jane followed, putting the tox file on the island counter. "Yeah well, he needs to appreciate you. What the hell was that? Leavin' your warm bed for what - his crappy Southie apartment?" Maura raised an eyebrow. It showed confusion, but was also an invitation to explain. "How does he not know that you like to spend time? To talk, to snuggle, all that?"

Maura's features were soft for Jane again, and she moved closer. "And I suppose you know all that because you know all there is to know about me," she said admonishingly, but she liked that idea. The idea of Jane knowing her. Jane was on a roll, gesticulating, and Maura tracked each movement with longing.

"No, I don't. But I know enough to know that I never wanna stop learning about you. You're just my friend, and I wanna spend as much time knowing you as I possibly can. And that's what you deserve in a man."

Maura laughed. "Why? When I have that in you? I like those things from you. I don't need them from Tommy. We keep trying to tell you that we're just having fun."

Jane pushed a palm flat against the counter and put her other thumb through the front of her belt. She and Maura were inches apart. Maura looked up in challenge, even if her bare feet made her almost six inches shorter than Jane in boots.

"Sex can be fun with someone who respects you, too, Maura. Who knows you and wants to spend time with you."

Maura swallowed up every word in Jane's whisper. "Maybe, but where am I going to get that? Whom do I know well enough for that?"

Jane's eyes turned dark and Maura had the thought of sticking her tongue between Jane's slightly parted lips. The danger of the exposed teeth there both gave Maura pause and made the desire grow. "Well," Jane said, pausing to touch their foreheads together, "maybe I could step up. Show you it can be better with someone who knows you, who likes you. A friend who you can also have a grown up conversation with."

Jane's words tugged Maura forward until she made good on her wants. Their kiss, compared to the friendly one that she and Tommy shared in the hall, burgeoned from a smolder to a blaze. Jane stayed put, hands achingly far, but Maura grasped at broad shoulders to bolster herself against the onslaught.

Jane kissed with insistence and with wetness. Intervals were regular and unyielding: lips forward and entangled, tongue upward and then heavily dropped, an agonizing retreat, and then repetition. Maura tried her best to keep the rhythm, hands wandering into Jane's hair. The mouth that had just bid Tommy goodbye now pleaded with her to never let Jane go. We fit together, it begged as it kissed Jane. When Jane ghosted a moan into it, all because Maura sucked her bottom lip, it moaned back.

And then Jane's scarred, long hands were on her. The ensuing swish of satin against her back, her hips, her spine, was unholy. Voluptas, voluptas, voluptas her mind repeated over and over - pleasure pleasure pleasure at the hands of this Roman heir, this very Italian descendant of the world's most infamous empire - Maura was being conquered. Latin sounded like ease for her, it narrated all of her studies as far back as she could remember. But it sounded like home when she said it for Jane; the heart Maura felt against her lips as she kissed Jane's carotid beat in Romance.

"Tell me you wanna stop this," Jane growled through clenched teeth.

The English jarred Maura. The semantics left her desperate enough to sound angry. "No. We are not stopping this," she said, and they kissed again. Their embrace nullified the purpose of her robe. It draped over her shoulders still, but the front was open enough to reveal the most intimate parts of her. She broke the kiss and looked down between them, doing a bit of conquering herself, knowing that where she led, Jane would follow.

She wasn't disappointed: Jane bit her bottom lip, with a sharp intake of air that sounded so much like vogghiu, vogghiu, vogghiu, like Latin's southernmost daughter, when she saw just what Maura was about to share with her. I want. I want, I want.

"It doesn't just have to be about showing me what you think I deserve, you know," Maura said. She didn't look up because she didn't want Jane to break the spell. While Jane continued thoughtful touches up and down her back, Maura untucked Jane's shirt, undid the buttons with care. "It can be about asking for what you want. About taking what you want."

Jane tried one last, very weak line of defense. A futile one that sounded dead on arrival. "You're sleeping with my brother. Just slept with him." As if that would keep her away now.

"I am. I am also about to be sleeping with you. Don't combine what should be separate," Maura answered. "Show me. You think it will be better between us because we know each other? Prove it."

Jane took the order in stride. She brought their mouths together again, this time with one long, soft kiss for reassurance, and let herself be led to Maura's bedroom.

As soon as they made it there, however, Maura was all business. Her bed, still made from the morning, had gone unused in her time that evening with Tommy because they had ended up on the living room floor. So, she pulled the covers back enough to expose most of the fitted sheet and flicked on her lamp. Jane watched with amusement at her methodicalness, which ended with her sitting cross legged in front of Jane and tugging at the tooth of her belt.

"Hey, slow down for a second. C'mere," Jane said, smirking to one side with closed lips. She pulled gently on Maura's wrists and Maura rose to meet her.

"Are you having second thoughts?" Maura asked seductively.

Jane couldn't say that this side of Maura wasn't fast becoming her favorite. "No, I'm not. No one's married here. No one's looking for a long term - there's no need for second thoughts. I just want to do what I said I would," Jane replied. Their eyes met, and then she wrapped her arms around Maura, one on her shoulders, one just above the swell of her behind.

This was Maura's favorite type of hug. Jane knew because whenever she did it, typically cold Maura ran hot to the touch. She kissed Maura's temple a few times, the smack of it affectionate and sweet, and then she kissed her lips again.

Maura paused, with her hands still on Jane's belt buckle, until her mouth reacted of its own volition. She was kissing Jane. She was holding Jane's pants up like Jane was her spouse and she had done this after every long workday: helped Jane undress, ushered her into bed. She was about to lay with Jane. The thought should have terrified her, should have given her pause at what she could lose if this all went wrong, if it all fell apart. But instead, it made her wet. Jane was right, it seemed - even just the knowledge that they understood each other changed things. Intensified them. "Let me take care of this," said Maura finally. She leaned further into Jane, sliding her palms around to the gun and badge now sitting heavily on Jane's hips, and removed them.

It was an act of intimacy. Jane had been in her bedroom before, had even slept here, but never like this, and Maura wanted to reestablish their connection by placing the objects in the nightstand drawer where Jane had kept them several times before. We are still us, it said, I will still take care of you.

Jane kissed Maura all through the action, pursed lips against a prominent cheekbone, until they had to break apart so that Maura could open and shut the drawer. "Should we get at it then?" she asked.

"Mmm," Maura agreed. "Let's."

Jane somehow managed to kick off her boots and push aside Maura's robe at the same time. It fluttered to the floor, and with her now bare arms, Maura pushed Jane's blazer and shirt away and tugged her undershirt over her head. "You got a pretty good head start on the undressin' part," Jane panted into Maura, and her slacks fell in a sensuous heap onto the carpet.

Maura said nothing in reply, choosing to unclasp Jane's black lace bra instead. It was a feminine contrast to the understated masculinity of Jane's black boy shorts, and soon they were light and dark writhing together on the mattress as they kissed.

Maura hissed when Jane began a wet trail from her neck to her left hip. She jerked away when she felt the twinge of a suck just over her hipbone. "Ah, ah. Don't be petty," she warned. "I'm mine. Not his or yours." Jane said nothing at having been caught, but smoothed the almost-mark with her tongue before sliding all the way down the bed and off of it. She kneeled on the floor, primed between Maura's legs, and looked up.

"Last chance, babe," she said, and Maura rolled her eyes.

"You're looking right at it, Jane. I'd say we're beyond the point of no return," she replied. Her fingers running through Jane's hair belied her annoyed tone.

"Good, because I don't think I can look and not touch," Jane said.

Maura knew that Jane's tongue was long. And broad. It'd been stuck out at her, it had licked Italian ice in front of her, it had been exposed to her whenever Jane had a toothache or sore tonsils. The knowing did not cut the feeling of it as it started at the very bottom of her sex and ended at its very top, splitting her wide and brushing against the electrified nerves there. It covered all of her at once because Jane wanted it to - there were no bashful strokes, no tentative tastes. Jane was intentional. There was rhythm, but there was also variation. Jane kept the pace, but varied the geography - once she would lick to the right, another she'd put pressure at Maura's entrance, a third she would bring it all up and flick the tip of her tongue ten, fifteen, twenty times at the apex. Maura's back arched and her head rolled back, but she kept her hand on Jane's scalp to encourage her. "Oh my god," she moaned loudly. It was salacious and unashamed. "I don't want to know where you learned to do this so well."

Jane smiled and it was so close that Maura felt it. She kissed between Maura's legs, lips open and confident before they sucked, and then she did it again. "You sure don't," Jane quipped, and then returned to work. After just a few moments, she teased Maura with her middle finger, slipping it in when Maura groaned her voracious approval, adding her ring finger when Maura clenched around her, seeking more.

Maura indulged in the feeling of just Jane inside of her, such a juxtaposition to the latex of earlier, delighted in the skin-to-wet-skin togetherness. Soon though, the thought made her quiver with that crazy heat, the one that threatened to undo her, and with a few more strokes, she was gasping into the haze in her bedroom. The haze that smelled like her and made her moans even louder. "Jane," she said wantonly on the descent, the release of it feeling so good in tandem with the clench of her belly as Jane brought her back down, fingers slow and curling. This was just another arena in which Jane's name, their friendship, brought her comfort. "You c'mere," she pleaded, echoing Jane from before. Jane obliged, and Maura sighed contentedly at the pressure of the body on top of her own, at Jane still inside. They kissed once, and then she buried her face in the crook of Jane's neck. "You're not naked enough," she said when she let Jane settle between her legs and felt fabric there.

"My bad," Jane chuckled, and then removed her underwear. She hissed when Maura took advantage by running one finger through her own wetness. "Don't tease. I'm already ready enough."

"I can see that," Maura teased. "And I'm ready to help you." She used her athleticism to flip them, and then she planted kisses all along Jane's jaw as she continued her exploration down below.

Jane gasped and her mouth dropped open when Maura slipped inside. As sure-handed and cocky as Jane had been, Maura was more so. She found ridges, elicited contractions, and pressed flesh with ease. The sound of it made Jane drape an arm over her eyes and grimace, content to submit to the assault, as long as it ended in release.

After two short minutes, it did - Jane froze, veins in her neck popped and full, and her orgasm was silent. It was, however, followed by a loud groan. "I definitely don't want to know where you learned that," she said.

Maura laughed openly. She extricated her hand slowly and placed it in the space between Jane's breasts. "Boarding school."

Jane propped her head up, eyes squinting and unfocused from coming. "Really? Wait, don't answer that. I said I don't want to know."

"Hmm," Maura hummed as she laid on her back and took Jane's hand in her own. She kissed the knuckles of it and tasted herself there. "I guess I was wrong. There are things we don't know about each other."

"Yeah well, learnin' 'em is fun," Jane said. She was quiet for a bit, and then she spoke again. "This was fun. I apologize in advance for talking about my mother right after sex, but she told me I should try to have more of it. I think she was right."

"Your mother told you to have more sex?" Maura asked, incredulous.

"No, more fun. But I guess she also kinda meant more sex. My point was that I could stand to do this more," Jane answered.

"I always tell you that you should," said Maura.

"I know. You were right, as usual," Jane replied. She closed her eyes, took note of the relaxation seeping into her muscles, of the way Maura's lips periodically against the back of her hand made her sleepy. "And hey, I didn't die."

"No, you most certainly did not," Maura said with equal amounts of humor and sleepiness. She rolled over and into Jane's open, waiting arms.