"That's not what you want to say. Just say it, Jane, and get it over with."

It came out way too harsh and he cringed at my stern tone. But it was that or sobbing miserably and I preferred to safe myself some dignity.

"I will not be here for much longer."

There it was. It surprisingly didn't hit me as hard as I thought it would. Maybe I was prepared to have this conversation sooner or later or all the defeat of the last few days had made me numb to another one. I took a deep breath and nodded.

"I didn't want to bring it up again. But I'm sick of Alex. I can't take his tirades and his drinking and that his only manner of talking to me is yelling. I am sick of waking up each morning to be disappointed because he didn't die that night and I'm off to another day with him." In his words I felt all the sadness of a desperate child. "I don't want to flinch every time he moves his hand or jerk awake at the faintest noise at night. I know I promised not to talk about it until you did. But I can't do this any longer without having at least a silver lining in the near future. For myself, I need to know that I'm not just waiting for him to die to finally feel better."

I nodded almost instantly without really knowing what to say. It broke my heart in more ways than I could count to hear him say all that he said.

"What is your plan?", was the only thing I could get out of my mouth. I needed to force my brain to think logically or his sad eyes would break me.

"I know that I have to leave completely if I ever want to escape Alex." Patrick gave me time to let his words settle. Or he needed the pause himself to swallow the rasp in his tone. "I thought about buying my own trailer and still stay with the carnival. But considering that I'd need to take money out of his stash since he keeps every share, I'd never live it down if I stay in his reach."

"And when you leave, you can never come back." Finally, I teared up, unable to stifle the overwhelming anguish just a moment longer. The Boss would kill him if he broke his promise. Not himself, of course, but he had his ways for sure. Some peon would always be there and willing to do anything to gain a spot with the carnival. Like the Boss had said himself. He had people lined up to do anything he said, no matter what it was. And there was no limit to a carny's wrath especially when it comes to revenging a broken agreement.

Patrick nodded and had to lower his face to rub his eyes with the hand he was leaning on. When he looked back up, his gaze was intense and bloodshot. "But you mustn't base any decision on this. Please. I want you to be happy and I know how much you love this life. I saw it when you walked by my tent yesterday. Never have I seen you so beaming and my God – You were so breathtaking. You were born for this, we both know that. I just wanted to tell you of my plan in advance, without any expectations. No demands. I made this mistake of not telling you one time already and I'm not going to summon that anger again." He laughed and it was the sound of someone who got stabbed and couldn't believe he'd die now of all days.

My reciprocated laugh came out more like a faltering sigh and I was so close to crying that I couldn't breath. Instead of answering, I sat up and kissed him. My arms folded around his neck and I pulled him into my lips, desperate to express everything that I wanted to say but couldn't find words big enough to encompass how much I felt for him.

Patrick pulled back, confused that my lips silenced him. He scanned my face and then it dawned on him. I could literally see the deduction fall into place behind the perplexity. Not a second passed until he answered in another kiss. We silently fought over who was getting the upper hand. I placed my palm on his jawline, caressing his stubbly cheek. My arm inevitably pushed his down while our kisses grew so fast that I could barely take a breath. With the pressure of his palm just under my breast, he easily convinced me to lie back. I could feel the heat of his hand through the knitted mesh of my sweater. The curve of his thumb and index finger followed the edge of my bra as if he only barely refrained from touching me. I swallowed between swirls of his tongue between my lips. Desperate for a catch of breath.

My arm freed itself from under him and wrapped around his shoulder, pulling his chest into mine while my other hand crept over his neck down to his side. As if my hands were familiar with it, they found their way under his shirt. I felt the dip of his spine on his lower back, the crest of his shoulder blade as he tried to keep himself from putting too much weight on my upper body. I sighed as he ushered a knee between my legs and the heel of his hand easily found support on the cove just above my hip bone while his fingers eased under my sweater and gripped my waist like my body was made for him to touch.

And I was. As much as I was born for show business, I was alive for this. There was no way I'd let him leave without having touched him. No way I could live without hearing him moan at least once. No matter what was going to happen, we'd have always shared this. Our little love story complete. A picture book of moments to remember.

I gathered his wet shirt in my hands as I moved up his back until he realized what I was doing. The look on his face was glorious as he backed off from kissing me to pull his shirt over his head. Droplets from his wet hair sprayed over me and caused me to giggle.

His smile under the halo of his golden locks, his broad shoulders and lean chest – I sat up, trying to reach for a kiss but falling short as he knelt over me. Instead, my mouth found other spots to kiss. He shivered as my lips touched his skin, carefully evading an old yellowing bruise on his ribs. His fingertips ran up my sides, carrying the sweater with them and patiently lifting it over my head.

I smiled as we both halted to look at each other for only a moment. My fingers followed the slightly darker hair on his stomach down over his navel and almost to the hem of his pants. The muscles under his skin straining from the shivers it caused him. I was simultaneously insecure and certain. A weird combination of feelings that caused my nerves to tingle and my mind to swim. It caused me to be almost shy to look at him now that he was aware of it, as if I hadn't guessed what he looked like underneath his clothes every chance I got. But I couldn't resist. Not right now when all I wanted to do was touch him while every caress just felt right. I pulled him back down onto the bed while he was still busy cataloging every inch of me. He ended up pressing one kiss on my mouth but quickly moved his lips along my collarbone, down the middle of my chest. My eyes wouldn't leave him, burning picture after picture of this moment into my senseless mind.

His hand followed his kisses down between my breasts and I almost yelled at him to touch me already. Instead, he smiled at the pink dots on my bra and continued his kisses down to my stomach. I was so infatuated by his lips on my skin that I only recognized his hand on the clasp of my bra when he swiftly opened it. My breath caught in a kiss again and it felt like time sped up. I pulled off my bra and threw it somewhere, anywhere. I didn't care. I only cared about his hands that did finally find my breast, seducing me to a sigh the moment his palm barely moved over my bare skin.

There was his low chuckle again. The sound of a euphoric dying man. Desperate and overjoyed at the same time. I wouldn't let this sound settle before I led my hands to the button of his pants. Struggling it open and beginning to shove the hem down until Patrick had enough mercy to take over. I wouldn't wait for him to finished, already working on my on jeans, shoving them down halfway while I watched him climb off the bed to free his ankles. I watched him, standing naked apart from his underwear in his trailer and I couldn't help my impatience.

"Take it off." I demanded, too hungry for the rest of him to add a please as I struggled my jeans off the bed and let my baby blue panties follow before he could realize they weren't matching my bra.

"Wait." he clearly struggled to get a clear thought even though I deemed it impossible for him to not be a smartass. In the dark, he rummaged through boxes and emptied them on tables. He seemed almost desperate with his erratic hands until he finally found what he was looking for in the mess on the table. He held a small metallic square in his hands as he returned to me. I bit my lip to keep me from giggling as he opened the little package with his teeth on the way back to me, to have his other hand free to pull his underwear down. He looked almost distraught when his eyes found mine again but his face quickly softened into a smile. I watched him slip off his underwear and put on a condom. It felt so forbidden that I blushed and he kissed my cheeks in response while climbing on top of me.

I was shaking in anticipation. We were really doing this. This would be it. The big first. But Patrick kissed me softly and took my hand. My heart wanted to jump out of my chest. His warmth was otherworldly. Too real on my body to be true. How could such an ethereal moment exist. The way he kissed my neck made me move my hips because I needed more of this feeling, restless for more ecstasy. I needed more touch or I'd go crazy, melt out of my skin, explode. All of it.

Patrick tuned into my movement and suddenly it was perfectly right. Right enough to make me moan which in turn made his grip on me tighten. Though he did nothing more.

I kissed him, demanded more. Tilted my hips. He ignored all my silent begging. Having him so close, feeling him between my legs but being denied that last drop of pleasure made me lose my mind.

"Please." I whimpered. The desperation in my voice made him look at me and the expression on his face made me breathless. I recognized it, the intent wandering eyes, trying to safe this moment in memory. He had his hand in my hair when he kissed me and I reached for it to hold onto when he finally gave into my plea. I pressed my eyes closed, whimpering again at the dragging pain. His forehead pressed against mine and I breathed into him when he moved again. Not really a moan but not just a breath.

I felt my sadness leave my body with every rocking motion he did. Every moan he uttered told me that everything was going to be fine and I believed it. Because this was perfection, the way it always should have been. And soon enough, I lost myself, my thoughts.

God, I loved him. But love didn't really capture it. The wholeness, the fullness, the all consuming. If he was to leave me, I'd die, I was sure of it.

I concealed every thought I love you with a moan of mine. I bit my lip when I thought my little moans became to loud and he eased me with a kiss, slowing for a moment. I could feel his rapid heartbeat on my chest before he deflected by kissing my breast, starting a slower rhythm, shaking with effort. All the while his hand wandered down my stomach between my legs and I grabbed at the sheets at the sensation of his thumb merely brushing by. It was too much. He fleetingly kissed my neck before propping himself on the other arm to watch me writhe under his circling touch. I kissed the inside of his wrist and left my lips pressed against his skin as he sped up again. Whining into him, I felt my insides tighten.

All too much. Way too much and I needed to scream. Instead, I bit his wrist, trying to keep as silent as I could muster when I suddenly became lightheaded, like one of those dreams when you feel like falling but instead this feeling never ended. I fell while my hips moved on their own and my back arched into him. I felt my fingers and toes stretch as if they wanted to shove me off the bed when they had before clasped around the linen.

The world around me cracked and tumbled while I succumbed to the tingling that burst through me in a current.

Patrick's moans almost disappeared beyond my clouded mind, a sweet melody too precious to overhear. But I did feel his pulsing and a new warmth inside of me and his forehead leaning against my shoulder as he tried not to put too much weight on my heavily breathing chest when he came to a slow stuttering halt. It was a quiet moment that felt almost holy in its nature as we were lying entangled with each other, peaceful. Even through my tiredness, I remembered to safe the feeling, his smell, the warmth. I wanted to keep it with me until the day I passed. This needed to be one of those moments that passed by me with my last breath. I wanted to relive it forever and I wanted to remember every little detail of it. His shaking breaths against my ear, the little bitemark I gave him. How the hair on his arm was all over the place, just like the curls on his head.

Then the moment was over and I would remember the way coldness crept over my body when he kissed me on the head and excused himself. I was too out of it to look at what he was doing. I heard rustling and toilet paper ripping and he came back with his underwear on. It was weird how I was suddenly not sure of what to do with my body. I stared at the ceiling, naked and sprawled in a strange bed. I closed my legs, somehow shameful about what I'd so freely opened up to him. Did I need to put on my panties, too? How weirdly sobering to have him get up instead of cuddle. They didn't do that in movies, I thought and chuckled over myself. I hadn't seen any movies where they did what Patrick had done to me either. In films it was all naked shoulders, soft swoony music and a blur. This hadn't felt swoony.

"What are you laughing about?" he asked in a raspy voice as he crawled on the bed again, kissing the dip of my hip where he had first put his hands under my sweater.

He laid next to me and started kissing me again, soft this time and with a finger under my chin. This did feel like a blur and cheesy music and I dissolved in all the expectations that were fulfilled for me with his gentleness.

When he settled next to me, it I remembered what to do with myself again. Suddenly, as if I rediscovered the functions of my body with a touch of his. I turned to him and inched my leg between his knees until I felt the intense heat between his legs on my thigh. With my proximity, I forced him to bow over me for the next kiss and it felt so good to be encompassed by his warmth again. His hand skimmed the way my body twisted at my waist and it wouldn't settle as if he hadn't yet explored everything.

"Don't distract me with your kisses, Ruskin." He muttered, half lidded and delicious.

"You distracted me first. I don't remember the question." I admitted and uttered a raspy giggle.

"What were you laughing to yourself about?"

My brows arched with the realization that it hadn't been a rhetorical question. "I was just thinking about how this isn't at all like in the movies."

Now he chuckled, too. Letting his index finger drag over my breast in indistinct patterns. "No. There's a lot more distractions to it than you'd think."

"A lot less lensflare and blur, too. No music." I teased.

"There can be music, if you want." He offered casually and I was completely taken aback by the proposition that we could actually do it again. Reading my face, he quickly tried to correct himself. "We don't need to. I just thought, if you'd like music… We could have music, too."

I couldn't help my grin. My tongue almost slipped and told him how much I loved him. I bit it back. "No, it's fine." I tried to be cool and not sound too excited, but the prospect of having sex with Patrick Jane more than once made me dizzy. It hadn't occurred to me somehow that if we did have sex, it would open up a whole new possibility of things to do with each other, to experience together. It was so overwhelming that I was almost panicked by the outlook. Did you make an appointment for it like you made agreements on a date? Tonight we go bowling and tomorrow night sex? How often did you need to do it or when was it too much?

Or does it just randomly happen and I just always had to wear matching underwear? I didn't even have enough bras to match every one of my panties.

And – Oh my gosh. We needed to buy condoms and keep them somewhere. In a trailer with our parents. With my family. Where not even tampons were granted a slightly more private spot and I gave up on diaries long ago because there was no way of hiding anything from anybody.

Patrick chuckled to overplay his worry. "You look horrified."

"I am. I'm bad at keeping secrets. What if anybody finds out?"

"They'd be shocked and distraught because people never do this kind of stuff. And we will be exiled and have to leave the country." He whispered amused and I didn't wait for him to finish his first sentence before I nudged his ribs. It only offered him a chance to pull me closer. "We don't need to tell anyone. It will be our secret and no one will find out because no one will ask questions."

Our secret. I liked that thought. It gave the whole thing a dirty and forbidden taste. Intoxicating, like everything that Patrick said with this devilish smirk on his face.

I played with it in my head, the way I'd return too late tonight and my parents would ask me where I'd been, why I took so long. They would be slightly irritated but I'd just say I've taken a walk with Patrick. And my mom would probe further. Just a walk, she'd ask and I'd answer: Yes. Just a long walk. Down to the training grounds and further into the city. A long stroll.

And I'd say it without blushing even though I'd undoubtedly have to think about Patrick's tongue on my nipples and the way his thrusts made me moan.

Just thinking of it now, my body burned again, chasing away the fatigue, bringing me to life again. I rose to kiss him and he pulled my whole body on top of him in one sweeping motion. I grinned into our kiss and this time it was me who decided to kiss his neck while his fingertips followed the line of my spine down to the curve of my butt. The way he grabbed it made my hips roll and I felt the twitching of his own intrigue at my movements.

I tried to catch his gaze, barely able to focus because of the moan stuck in my throat. I had to push myself up to sit on his lab and hold him down with a hand on his chest in order to gain his attention.

"When will you leave?" I breathed while he thrust his hips upward, eyes glazed over like a sleepwalking man.

He shrugged, obviously busy with something else than talking about the future.

"During the winter or after?" My words were barely distinguishable because the movement of him under me coaxed me to forget language completely and just kiss him until I couldn't remember my own name.

"Before next season." His voice was strained and he tried to pull me back down after his unsuccessful attempts at sitting up.

I finally gave into his efforts and let myself be pulled down again. He promptly spun us around and easily placed himself between my legs. Nevertheless, I evaded his lips.

His face was a mask of confusion and lust that made me feel stupidly powerful.

With my stern voice, I haggled for time. "Stay here for this winter and I will go with you in spring."

It felt so easy to say it, compared to how long I've struggled with the decision. We had each made our mistakes in the past and mine was that I was too scared to give into what I wanted. And that I had only realized what I had when it was gone. I wouldn't commit the same mistake again.

Suddenly he was very clear, scanning my face, desperate to discover the lie, the doubt that the redness on my chest or the micro movements of my brows would unveil in front of him. But there was no deception to be found, not even for myself, and I kissed him with all the anguish of words I wouldn't be able to admit yet.

That I wanted no one else to hold my hand. No one else to tease and make up with. No other man did I ever want as close to me as Patrick. No other's moan or laugh in my ear. My life was full of him. Time with him by my side and thoughts filled with him when he was not. My future was with him and only him.

He nodded into the kiss and needed to pause as if to say something under his shaking breath. But his only words were another kiss and another after that. And moans beyond those.