It's damn near three in the morning, but Maggie Sawyer couldn't sleep if her life depended on it.
She was naked; she was sated; and she was flat-out, bone-tired exhausted. But sleep alluded her.
The cause?
The woman whose - also very naked - body was curled around hers, head on her chest, legs wrapped up so one knee was between Maggie's and one was slung just over her inner thighs.
Tough, badass, kick-your-ass-first-ask-questions-later Alex Danvers was apparently a major cuddler.
The slow, steady rhythm of Alex's breath soothed Maggie into deeper relaxation than she'd ever known; but not, alas, sleep.
It was the first time they'd done this: not the sleeping over - in hindsight, maybe passing out drunk or nodding off during a movie and waking up to water, aspirin, and a banana (or, as the case may be, slightly burnt omelettes and toasted waffles) didn't really count - but it was certainly the first time they'd... done everything else.
Alex had been, in a word... perfect. Alternately eager, heart-stoppingly seductive, and deer-in-the-headlights-style shy, she made love like she kissed: all at once sure, determined, eager, and so, so, so tentatively gentle.
Maggie had never cum so hard - or so much - in her life. Neither, she hoped, had Alex. If her falling asleep babbling had been any indication - half-completed thoughts about "never felt like...", "oh my god, Maggie," "still can't believe..." and "how did you even do that?" - Maggie quite hoped Alex had gotten everything she wanted and more. Because that's all Maggie ever wanted to give her.
Except at this current moment, all she wanted to do... was sleep. But Alex's hair screamed out to be played with, her face cried out to be stroked, kissed. Maggie did these things softly, slowly, gently, not wanting to disturb the look of utter peace on this woman's face. And suddenly sleep wasn't so appealing anymore.
When Maggie's wrist was too sore, too stiff, to caress Alex's hair any longer, she let her hand drift to a more neutral position on her shoulder. Her other hand came to rest on Alex's bare hip and Maggie breathed the most purely contented breath she'd ever taken.
Until, that is, Alex bolted awake.
She didn't sit up suddenly - not as such - but Maggie felt her entire body stiffen with sudden awareness of where she was; of who she was with; that she was in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar bedroom (they'd restricted themselves, prior to this evening, to movie nights on the couch).
Alex's sudden stiffness - not languid, sleepy, happiness, like she herself had been experiencing - turned Maggie's stomach into knots.
She's freaking out. She doesn't want to be here.
She kept her eyes shut, her breathing even; she fought not to cry from behind closed eyes.
Better to let her think I'm sleeping. If she wants to sneak out, why make it harder for her? For both of us.
Sure enough, after a few long moments where she felt Alex shifting her head to look up at her face - and Maggie thought she sensed fingertips hovering close, so close, to where a few stray strands of hair were still swept across her forehead; but she was sure she'd imagined it - Alex started gently but efficiently detangling their bodies. Maggie fought to remain in feigned sleep; she fought to make Alex's choice to leave as painless as she could.
It was harder, so much harder - and she hadn't thought it could get any worse than that - than turning Alex down after their first kiss. She hadn't been ready then. Neither of them had been.
Apparently, despite the months of dancing around it and forcing themselves to try with other people, Alex still wasn't ready.
Maggie's heart shattered when the heat of Alex's body left her; the pulverized pieces caught aflame when, a few moments later, the comforter - long ago tossed aside - was placed gently, even tenderly, over Maggie's apparently sleeping form. A few moments more, and Alex's footsteps padded across the bedroom and out into the rest of the apartment.
Maggie bit her lip and waited, listening with a heavy heart for the soft creak and final click of the front door.
Neither sound came.
She opened her eyes. She waited some more.
Nothing.
Brow furrowed, Maggie fumbled in the dark for her white button down - the one she'd worn that night all those months ago when Alex had first kissed her. Appropriate that she'd worn it last night. Except now the roles of who was rejecting whom were being reversed.
Abandoning her search, Maggie grabbed a t-shirt she'd crumpled into her drawer and pulled it on along with a thong that she found tossed in with her socks.
Brow still furrowed, she slipped out into the living room and flicked on a light.
She thought she'd seen Alex look like a deer in headlights before. Many times before. But never quite so much as just then.
Alex was curled into the corner of Maggie's beat up old couch, with her feet tucked under her, wearing nothing but last night's boy shorts underwear and Maggie's white button down.
A pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream was open in one hand; the other held the spoon currently stuck in her mouth.
Her eyes were wider than Maggie had ever seen them, despite the room being suddenly washed in light. Alex was frozen, back stiffened.
Maggie had never seen anything so adorable.
"Danvers." Her name wasn't a question, not exactly, but rather, an invitation. Maggie's head tilted to the side and a soft smile played at her lips.
I can't believe I thought she was leaving me.
"Dahwayoo?" Alex gulped.
"Come again?"
Alex held up the pint, her eyes still enormous, and chewed quickly, flinching and squeezing her eyes shut as the mouthful of ice cream slipped prematurely down her throat.
She pointed the spoon at Maggie, her eyebrow arching now, innocent doe-eyedness gone.
"I think I already did, Sawyer." She closed her eyes and shook her head, pushing her lips out in memory. "Many times."
Maggie gulped; now that the fear had left her, she was taking in the sight of Alex Danvers. Alex Danvers wearing nothing but boy shorts and her, Maggie's, button down. On her couch. Eating her ice cream, out of her freezer.
She could get used to this.
Something tugged at the back of her brain. "What were you trying to say? Before you took that gulp there?"
Alex smiled and dug the spoon back into the pint. "Did I wake you," she informed, putting the full spoon back in her mouth, upside-down so Maggie could best see the way her lips looked as she took it, slowly, out.
Maggie exhaled slowly and walked around the couch to plop down next to her. Alex's eyes raked her bare legs as she did, and Maggie grinned, remembering a particular moment from earlier when her legs were over Alex's shoulders...
She shook her head and put a hand on Alex's calf. "I uh... I was actually up. I... I acted asleep because you were so, uh... you tensed up big time when you woke up. I thought... I thought you wanted to... to leave."
"Maggie," was all she heard before Alex was in her lap, arms around her neck, hands everywhere they could reach. She had no idea what Alex had done that quickly with the ice cream and spoon, but she didn't quite care at the moment. She breathed in mint and chocolate and sweat and sharp lavender, and everything that was, perfectly, Alex.
"I wasn't... I wasn't trying to leave, why would I leave? Why would I do that?"
"You just... needed a sugar fix?"
And suddenly puppy dog Alex was back, and she squirmed and looked around guiltily. "I get hungry."
"You get hungry."
Alex buried her face in Maggie's shoulder, and if she never felt anything else again but Alex straddling her and pressing her body so close into hers, Maggie would be okay with that.
"I get hungry," Alex confirmed.
"Well then we'll just have to make sure we're always well-stocked, won't we?"
Alex came out of hiding and smiled deeply, taking Maggie's face into her hands.
"I guess we will."
Alex kissed her soundly, hotly, and just when Maggie started to groan and grind up into her, Alex broke the kiss and launched herself across the couch. Before Maggie could get her bearings, the spoon was back in Alex's mouth, and the deer in headlights look was back.
Maggie laughed and hopped over the couch to grab another spoon.
Turned out they didn't need an extra.
One was enough for the both of them.