A/N: In my opinion, this chapter and those beyond really contain the juice of this story. I'm super excited to experience it with you all from here on out!

Maura spread open the ribs of the slip-and-fall on her table, snipping each one as she started from the bottom and moved up. Mr. Ortiz had fallen down the stairs in his apartment building late last night, carrying a bag of trash to the outside dumpster when he tripped and hit his head on the metal railing. It would have been quite a severe head injury. Definitely lethal.

However, because he was a strong, healthy man of 30, his family suspected underlying health conditions that may have not been previously diagnosed. It was a blind kind of hope, hope for a more reasonable explanation for his passing away than pure accident. It wasn't an impossible hope, though, and so Maura began her exploration to exhaust all avenues as to the cause and manner of death.

The clock above the door signaled mid-afternoon, but the only sunlight in the basement was from Maura's office, and the lack of it created an aura of timelessness, of separateness from time and space in the morgue. It was why Jane looked both haggard and wired when she burst through the doors.

"The Bryant case is done. It wasn't the fiancee. It was her brother," Jane said by way of greeting, her steps long and aggressive.

"Hello to you, too," Maura snarked, switching to the other side of Mr. Ortiz's ribs and snapping with ease.

"She's devastated, Maura. I just got back from telling her," Jane said. She stopped pacing and stared at Maura's back. "I just got back from telling her that her brother poisoned the love of her life because he didn't think that Marcus was good enough for her."

Maura straightened up and turned around. "I'm sorry. That couldn't have been easy."

Jane sighed, deflated. All she had wanted was to be heard, and Maura was listening. "It's part of the job. But this one just- it haunts me I guess."

"What do you mean? As far as motives go, this one seems to be one of the more routine," Maura asked, curiosity honest, innocent.

"I-" Jane started, and then stopped herself. She picked her glance up from its place on the linoleum floor and looked right at Maura. "Life is so fragile. She felt so alive when I held her in my arms, when Marcus died. But the wail she just let out, when I told her that it was her brother, sounded like somethin' you'd hear at a funeral."

"She was shaken," Maura said simply. It happened all the time - Jane dealt with distraught witnesses, heartbroken victims, and everything outside of that. But clearly, this one touched her. Marked her somehow.

"Yeah, and I guess I was shook up, too. Someone my age had all that shit taken from her, her fiance and her brother, all in one fell swoop. It made me think. And it made me feel like I hadn't done enough."

"Jane," Maura chastised, and then she went to her. "You had no idea who they were before you got that call. How were you supposed to stop what happened?"

Jane shook her head. "I mean, like I hadn't done enough in my own life. I, I need to live more. I need to love harder."

They embraced, and Maura kissed the bridge of Jane's nose. The touch was featherlight. "I don't think that's possible."

"There's a lot more I could be doin' with my life, Maura," Jane said, still hovering close, wanting more of whatever Maura would be willing to offer.

"That's true of everyone. But I don't think I've ever met anyone who loves half as hard as you do," Maura admitted, her whisper the ghost of desire against Jane's features. "I'm not predisposed to guessing, as you know, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty that your love needs no improving."

"Thanks," Jane replied, transfixed. Her hands went to Maura's hips and they shared a short kiss. "I did somethin' impulsive."

Maura smirked. "What's that?"

"I took the rest of the afternoon off. I promised myself I'd do somethin' worth rememberin'," Jane said.

"Hmm, like what?"

"I dunno. I thought I might go to that luxury car lot over in the North End and test drive a Lamborghini. That's as far as I got."

"You need connections for that," Maura said, and Jane fell into her arms in a dramatic heap.

"Why didn't you tell me?!" she whined, and it made Maura laugh against the curtain of her black hair.

"I'm sorry, you're right, I should have. But I have another idea," Maura said, suddenly struck with an epiphany.

"Oh yeah? Fashion Week? A library grand opening downtown?" teased Jane.

Maura swatted her arm. "No. I was going to say that if you give me a couple more hours, you could test drive me, but since you insist on being funny…"

"Ah ah, don't be so hasty. I like this idea," Jane pulled back and raised her eyebrow. Maura raised her own as if to say make it up to me. Jane tried. "My place? Less chance my nosy mother walks in on somethin' I have no desire for her to see."

"I could be persuaded. I would need to go home and take care of some things first. How's your definite maybe?" Maura asked, pleased with herself when Jane turned seven different shades of red before clearing her throat.

"Bring it," Jane said firmly. She crossed her arms more to convince herself than to convince the woman standing across from her.

"Are you sure?" Maura almost didn't want to ask.

Jane shrugged. "I said I wanted to live a little. So, let's live a little."

It was still light outside Jane's bedroom window, five pm practically still high noon on a Boston summer evening. That meant natural rays, clear eyes, and nowhere to hide. So, when she laid in bed, skintight black boxers on and the toy she once said never to both inside of her and exposed to the waiting air, she gulped.

She didn't hate the visual. Actually, when she thought about where it was going to go, she quite liked it. It was just… she was supposed to be sharing that visual with someone, and that someone was taking her sweet time behind the closed bathroom door. And Jane was a woman of action: give her too much time alone with her thoughts, and she scrambled. She wavered. She was close to wavering now.

But then Maura emerged, in her white satin robe with the black lace trim, sash completely undone and hair up in a loose bun. Jane didn't see much point in the robe, and didn't much care. Again, she was struck by the visual. "H-hi," she breathed out, pressing up on her elbows from her back when Maura came close.

"Hi," said Maura, smiling when she, still standing, put her hands on either side of Jane's head and kissed her. It was more a greeting than anything, but Jane chased it and deepened it into something dirty. Maura moaned when Jane's tongue swiped just behind her front teeth. "It's been too long," she lamented.

"Yeah. That was my fault. I was an idiot," Jane said earnestly. She squeezed Maura's ass in her hands when Maura straddled her, desperate for reacquaintance. At first she was content to feel it behind the satin of Maura's garment, but as they kissed, the need for skin to skin contact grew too hot and she slipped under it. "Work should never take precedence over you."

The intimacy of Jane's words, combined with the feeling of her scars drove Maura to sit up sharply. She slid her hips backwards until she could line Jane up between her legs, making sure that Jane watched as she did so. She wasn't disappointed when Jane's eyes, now completely black, looked only at the wet slit that was about to take everything in.

"I thought I was gonna-"

"You were," Maura said, "you still can. But you're nervous about this. So, I know I said you could test drive me tonight, but I think I'd like to test drive you first. I promise to move things nice and slow."

Jane worried at her lower lip and her hands slid up Maura's thighs, letting the sides of that open robe flutter. Maura looked good enough to set her heart to racing: skin flushed with desire, legs open in preview, nipples perfectly at attention between her arousal and the breeze created by the ceiling fan. "Ok."

"Ok?" asked Maura, one last time.

"How am I gonna say no when you look like that? You look so fucking good," Jane said, propping her head up so that she could see what was about to happen even better.

"Hmm," Maura smiled, and then adjusted herself onto the toy until it disappeared completely.

Jane finally met her gaze then, mouth slack.

Maura reveled in the wordless compliment. She wound her hips slowly, slowly enough to hear the soft, wet click as the silicone moved inside the both of them.

"Fuck…." Jane groaned, loud and long, head thrown back on the pillow. She rubbed her palms up and down the tops of Maura's thighs again, seeking out touch as she accommodated the amalgam of sensations: the shallow pressure inside, the slick slide of Maura against the cotton on her body, the rocking that ratcheted up the intensity even higher. She needed to rock back. So, Jane slid her hands up to Maura's hips and gripped tightly, and thrust one time. The ensuing whimper from Maura drew one out of her.

The motion folded Maura forward, and she put her hands out on Jane's ribs to steady herself. To remind herself of her purpose. When she opened her eyes again, Jane's were waiting for her. When she sped up just a little bit, sliding forward and rocking backward so that the mattress began to creak, she reached up to the tie in her hair and set it free. Jane moaned her approval. Jane, actually, did a great many things to show that she approved. She squeezed the swell of Maura's backside when Maura hit that sweet spot. She stretched her legs out straight behind Maura when she realized that it deepened everything for the both of them, and she made such indecent sounds with her mouth, with her low grunts and gravelly tone.

"How does it feel? How are you feeling?" Maura asked, knowing the answer full well but wanting to hear it anyway.

"Like I'm gonna fly apart," Jane said. Just as she spoke, Maura's robe slid off one shoulder, and she whined. "Can't you take that off? I wanna see you," she pleaded, and Maura couldn't remove it fast enough. She sounded sad, but Maura knew better: she knew the one or two formants, the soundwaves, that made sadness in the voice turn into want, and Jane was so sorely wanting. The lust on her face as it surveyed Maura's nakedness looked painful.

Maura swiped her thumbs back and forth on Jane's abdomen to comfort her, scratched lightly at the skin there to moor her to the bed. "Hmm. Well, you said you wanted to do something worth remembering," she said, her smirk cheeky and her narrowed eyebrows playful. "So let's take the training wheels off."

Then, she altered course, letting Jane watch as she picked up speed. The headboard tapped the wall behind them in warning: quietly, but with rumblings that signaled more.

"Christ," Jane cursed again, feeling a familiar buzz-tap of ecstasy between her own thighs. She reached forward with her thumb, intent on giving Maura as good as she got, but it was swatted away.

"Don't. Just enjoy what I'm giving you," Maura panted. She drove herself crazy with the pace she set, she felt herself wanting nothing more than what Jane had offered, to let Jane rub circles on her until she fell into her own oblivion, but that could wait. She felt Jane growing hot and she wanted to set her ablaze.

Soon enough, she got her wish. Jane pushed her head back on her pillow and writhed with the building pleasure bomb at the base of her spine. With a few more expert movements, Maura detonated it, and Jane had a vice grip on her waist. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," Jane drawled out, with shimmers of high-pitched femininity that married quite intoxicatingly with her masculine lilt. Her legs stretched out again, until the strongest waves of her orgasm had passed and she went limp.

Maura admired her own handiwork below her, Jane's heaving belly and the sweat-matted hair at her temples. The light, almost unnoticeable smattering of gray strands amongst the sea of black at Jane's temples made Maura heavy in Jane's lap with want. She doubted anyone saw Jane this up close, this undone. She wasn't sure if she could speak, so she settled for her hands on Jane again: slow, calming strokes at her sides, taking special care of the jagged scar from the shooting just months prior.

It was full minutes before Jane found words. "I think you just made me your bitch," she said, fingertips tapping on Maura's legs, still a little out of breath. "What the fuck, Maura."

Maura chuckled, and her own voice was hoarse, tired to her ears. She apparently had not been silent during the exchange either. "That sounded very aggressive. But I'm going to take it as a compliment."

"You should," Jane said on a sigh. "That was… Jesus. Again, you've done this to my brother, sucked the soul out of him, and you don't have a ring on your finger? Hell, I wanna marry you."

"Oh, I don't let him… finish inside. But even if he asked to, I would say no. Right now, that's a privilege reserved for you," Maura replied.

The statement alone revved Jane's engine again, but she played it cool, obtuse. "The coming or the ring?"

Maura winked at her. "The first, though I would have to say I would consider the second if it were you asking me."

"Well, the stakes aren't exactly the same when I do it," Jane said, still thinking about the soul-shaking release she'd just received. "Wait, what?"

"I would. Think about it, I mean. We're very compatible emotionally, intellectually…" she said, pretending to think. She rolled her hips again before she said "physically, too, as we're now learning. But, there isn't a need to go there, because I maintain that it's possible to just enjoy sex with someone without an expectation that it will lead elsewhere." As she said it, she pulled herself out of Jane's lap and laid at her side.

"I don't know about that," Jane said, and then felt Maura's breaths grow even and slow. "Uh uh, babe. No restin'. I'm about to figure out just how to return the favor."

Maura hummed with pleasure when Jane flipped over and settled on top of her. "I don't think it will take much," she said, running her fingers through the hair at the top of Jane's head lovingly. She couldn't help it.

Jane closed her eyes at the way it made her heart slow and ache at the same time. "Be patient with me? As I learn?"

"I don't think your learning curve will be that steep, but yes. Oh," Maura said, moaning sharply when Jane entered her without warning.

Jane kissed Maura's chin to soothe what she thought was shock, or pain. When Maura slid her hands under Jane's waistband, up against her ass, and pushed her deeper inside, she realized her error. And it made her cocky. She started easy, playing with speed, intensity, direction of movement, taking note of what made Maura whine, or shudder, or cry out. She kissed Maura, their lips clinging, rowing together, tongues in search of one another all through her work, Jane cataloguing whenever something felt so good that Maura would bite, or suck. Jane raised their arms above Maura's head, entwining their fingers, concentrating on only the motion below, using only her lower half for leverage.

And when Maura liked something, Jane felt it, too. For every indulgent action Maura perpetrated, Jane's body reciprocated. She thanked god that she discovered just the right combination of shallowquick and to the right, the one that was making Maura whisper sinful things in her ear like you feel so good like this and listen to how wet I am for you, because she wasn't sure how long she was going to last with the toy seesawing in her and the cotton of her boxers hitting just the right angle. She started whispering, too, and in the fire it all sounded nonsensical, yet somehow right. "You move like you were made just for me," she groaned when Maura arched up to meet her. She was slipping fast.

Maura held onto Jane's back and spread her knees wide, having learned what made her orgasm come quicker, and more recently, exactly what Jane liked. She kissed the skin just below Jane's ear as Jane collapsed further into her arms, thrusts more hurried and more regular. Jane said all the nasty things that Maura wanted to hear, without words. There were grunts, and whines, and whimpers and moans, all foretelling the collision course they were on. "I like to think… it's more because I know you. We're close enough for me to have learned you," Maura said, turning her face inward so that she could catch Jane's lips with her own. And Jane must have very much liked that retort, because then her long fingers were between them and Maura only needed a couple of touches before she slammed her head back and let dopamine consume her. Jane wasn't far behind, and Maura clutched onto her desperately, Jane's dismantling beginning just at the end of hers.

The feeling was too much, too overwhelming, and so Jane flopped over onto her back immediately. Her nerves fired off with tidal waves of pleasure, and she struggled to regulate. She was back to panting. Maura was much the same, reaching a hand out blindly for Jane to take. She did, and kissed the back of it, her lips barely able to pucker with the force needed.

Maura appreciated it anyway, and then let her hand fall onto Jane's belly. Jane's breaths pressed against her knuckles. "Do you feel alive yet?"

"Huh?" Jane asked in reply, too gassed to think. "Oh, yeah. Fuck what I said earlier. I want to spend all my time doing this."

Maura laughed through her own heavy breathing. "What a way to pass the time. And I told you that your learning curve wouldn't be very steep."

Jane smirked. "I learn best by doing."

"That you do," Maura agreed, turning on her side and folding her arm under her pillow. Jane had discarded their most recent addition in the bedroom, and now Maura could drink up all of her: her entire body laid out, tanned, tone, and bare. "What's your verdict, hmm? Was it as good as you made it sound those last few minutes?"

Jane blushed and bit her lower lip. "I guess I got lost in the moment. Too much?"

Maura buried her face in the crook of Jane's neck and inhaled her favorite scent. It gave her the hit she was looking for. "I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing you like that," she admitted, her affection as naked as the two of them.

Jane put an arm around Maura's shoulders and sighed into the kiss she placed on her temple. "I'm glad, because that was so good I don't think I would've been able to control it."

"Mmm," was all that Maura said, content to let silence settle over them for a long time. The ceiling fan above cooled the sweat on her skin, and Jane's arm grew heavier around her until it dropped to the mattress again.

"No sleeping sounds like a shitty rule right about now," Jane said lowly, and Maura realized that she was hovering in twilight consciousness.

"Technically this is your bed, so you can sleep as much as you'd like," Maura replied in good humor. She propped herself up so that she could kiss the placid eyebrow just over Jane's left eye, usually so expressive and in motion, now so still. "It would be me that has to leave."

"But I don't really want you to go," Jane responded, and it would have sounded petulant if she weren't so sleepy.

"Well, if you want to spend some more time… maybe have dinner, I might have a workaround," Maura said. "I brought some BCU paperwork with me, and I could work on it at the counter until you wake up. Then we could order in."

"I like the way your brain works," Jane said, opening her eyes just enough, wanting one more look at the woman above her, wanting to communicate something she couldn't quite articulate.

It didn't matter, because Maura kissed her softly before it could be said. She pulled the sheet up just under Jane's navel, and waited for her to flop onto her stomach, the way she liked to sleep. Then Maura got herself up and headed for the shower.