Sorry for the delay. I wanted this up by Christmas but life gets in rhe way. HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!

Chapter 6

Mac's POV

The room is bathed in an ethereal pink glow; results of twilight hour and the sun reflecting off a dusting of clouds. I'm not alone as I lay watching the sky darken through the sliding glass door of my bedroom. A very sexy sailor lies next to me sleeping on his stomach with his head buried in the pillows.

We've been in bed for over two hours, enjoying every second with each other. I hoped the dress would get Harm's attention but I didn't expect it could be the catalyst to help him whisk me off to bed. He looked at me like a man who finally found what he was looking for. And he looked at me like I was the only woman left on Earth. Stars and the planets seemed to align when his hand touched my bare back; I knew we'd never be the same again.

I'd expected for clothes to fly off the first time we tested this thing between us. But Harm's not anything of not an infuriatingly patient man. The strings on the back of my dress he undid slowly and I realized he was unwrapping me like a gift.

His lips replaced his hands as he kissed his way down my spine and then took a playful bite of my six. I didn't wear a bra and the delight of seeing my naked breasts as the garment pooled to the floor gave me a sense of pride. "Beautiful." He said as he took one into his mouth. I could have died a happy woman right then and there.

"Ou…oing…tha ress." Harm's head is in the pillow and his words are a muffled, incoherent mess.

I laugh, "I'm sorry, what?"

He turns his head to face me and speaks with a voice that is thick from sleep. Damn if that ain't the sexiest thing I've ever heard. "I said, you knew what you were doing wearing that dress, Mac."

"Yeah, maybe." I giggle. Admittedly I knew what I was doing when I wore that tiny green bikini in Miami and the white nightgown in Russia. Both may have been slightly inappropriate but, third time's a charm I guess.

"Maybe? You looked…delicious."

He licks his lips as if he was savoring the finest of meals and I blush as I recall his head between my thighs. "So it's the dress you like and not the blue bikini?"

Harm grins lasciviously, "Oh, the bikini I wanted to tear off you with my teeth." He chuckles. Harm grows serious a moment later and then pushes himself up to a seated position. "You've been seducing me."

"Mmm, enticing more than seducing." I say as my index finger runs over his chest and down stopping where the bedsheet meets skin. I sigh and take my hand away but Harm is quick to grab my wrist that he kisses. "Maybe doing that, wearing those things were stupid but, I just…I tried to tell you how I feel. I guess it was too subtle."

He holds my hand, gingerly tracing my wrist with his thumb. "You said you're in love with me."

I nod. "I did…I do. I do love you. It wasn't just about this." I wave a hand over the bed. If the only thing we have is this Christmas, I'm willing to accept it. It will hurt like hell but, I'll let Harm go.

Harm pulls at the wrist he captured and I am helpless but to follow his lead when he arranges us so that I'm straddling his lap. He's hard again, the flimsy fabric of the flat sheet does nothing to hide it. "Say it again, Sarah."

His voice is low and filled with such insecurity that it breaks my heart. I get it now, why he's kept me at arms length. Harm needs the words. "I'm in love with you."

Harm's Pov

"I'm in love with you."

She sits on my lap and I feel my heart beat wildly when Mac confirms her feelings for me. Her hair is messy, her lips are swollen from kissing and her skin has this glow that is ravishing. She's the most gorgeous thing I've seen in my life.

I've enjoyed the company of many women. Dress whites and gold wings are not as overrated as Mac once claimed. Despite really caring for a couple of my past lovers, no one has ever told me those words.

Women have used their casual 'I love Yous' which had little meaning to me. None of them were a forever kinda thing but, being in love with someone is…new. It's something powerful that I never wanted to deal with because those messy emotions weren't something I was prepared for.

Mac is in love with me. If the mind blowing sex didn't happen, if we remained nothing but friends, she'd still be in love with me. It scares me that she had the strength to say the words. It scares me more to really ruminate on the fact that I've also fallen like a rock. She's right, it wasn't about sex and it never had been.

But, I'm still just a man with wants and needs. That damned dress had the most dizzying effects and I hope Mac didn't notice my shaking hands as I undid each string. I was desperate to see her nude but didn't want it to end too fast either.

So, I unwrapped her slowly realizing this would be the best Christmas gift I'll ever receive. Her skin felt lovely, smelled incredible and after licking and sucking her beautiful breasts, I wanted more.

My fingers hooked on the matching red panties, the lacey kind with flowers woven into the pattern. I slipped it off each slender leg, kissed her thighs, lingering over the bullet wound from our melee with poachers. A lovely purple and blue butterfly tattoo sat on her bikini area, the 'classified' spot I couldn't wrangle out of her two years prior.

"Do you like it?"

My fingers pressed against the image and then traced the outlines of each wing. "I do." And then I lowered her onto the mattress.

She was soaking wet and responsive. Each touch, each caress was met with a moan. Her body writhed at my touch. Her hips raised when one finger entered her and once my mouth covered her sex and I sucked on her clit, her body began to shake. My name on her lips sounded like a prayer at first and then it was shouted as I made her come…thrice.

When our bodies joined I completely forgot my own fantasies of her mouth or the way her lips would look wrapped around me. She was tight at first and felt so good that I could have died a happy man right then and there.

Mac took whatever powers I thought I had. She made me feel what I hoped never to feel and as I felt my body falling to sleep, I reached for her, draping a protective arm around her middle.

And now she's on top and I'm panting out her name. Her deft fingers pulled away the sheet that covered me and wrapped around my shaft. She was stroking me with a long, firm pressure and it's killing me when all I want is to be inside her again. "We don't…have to…again."

Mac's lips hover over mine as her palm tightens and her thumb sweeps over the moisture at my tip. "I want to. I want you."

"God, I want you too. " Her warm depths envelope me seconds later and Mac watches me as she begins to move.