AN: OK, even more obsessive re-writes were made for this chapter. First the action moved too slowly, like some expository essay, then it moved too quickly, then maybe too slowly again, etc. I lost my confidence numerous times. I hope that, in the end, it turned out alright and you like it!

SATURDAY NIGHT

Normally she delighted in sharing the lead, to feel through his behaviour the parallel longing and wonder between them and to shuck the sensation that the actions she chose stripped her motives naked in front of him. Often, even, she'd hide her motives completely under a cloak of reckless abandon brought about by Jess's own formidable ability to seduce.

Tonight, his moderate, soulful kisses and gentle caresses along her shoulders made her smile against his lips. Something about his quiet restraint gave her every indication he was testing her limits. So, with her heart a flurry of activity, Rory pulled him towards herself, taking what she may.

Jess was hers and there was no need to be shy. Her motives were theirs.

"Mmm," he murmured into her kiss. So she responded by nudging his body towards the bed. The two sat down, still kissing, and Rory took the control he so clearly offered. She leaned towards him, urging him down against the mattress.

From above him, her rambling fingers found the collar of his shirt and set about undoing the buttons, one by one, until the shirt hung open enticingly. She backed off from his kisses simply to see his skin, now exposed.

She saw him instead, serious, susceptible and open, drawn in to her advances, and breathed in sharply. She looked away from his intense gaze and subtle, beautiful smirk.

Ok she was still a little nervous. And her motives were certainly naked.

She gulped. She'd undressed him before. This was not new. But the difference here, now, had been brought about by their conversation earlier that night. She wanted this now, all of it, and he knew it.

"You're still blushing."

"What can I say? I'm a blusher."

"Yeah," he growled lowly, even as his eyes divulged a certain amount of wonder. It begat a marvellous contradiction in her: the sight of beautiful wonder both calmed her yet quickened her pulse, and this transformation—far from complete but sufficient enough—allowed her to carry on.

Rory slipped a hand under the tails of his shirt, drawing them apart, her fingers coasting happily over the heated skin of his torso.

Once the fabric had been nudged aside, her lips went almost immediately to his obliques where she dragged them against the enticing scent of his skin. She inhaled, the sound in harmony with his rush of breath. As she leaned further forward to brush her lips along his chest, his fingers set out as well, slipping further under the hem of her own shirt.

She felt his warm palm glide across her back to the point where she no longer felt the coolness of the room's temperature on that now-exposed skin, to the point where she embraced the heat of her cheeks because it was him who drew it out of her.

As their magnetism culminated in another kiss, Rory's hand found its way down his torso, delighting in a journey towards a buckle. A chuckle bubbled up from Jess's throat, which she felt on her lips, and Rory, eyes twinkling, broke the kiss and sat up slightly.

"Tickles," he said.

She shook her head with a teasing No and reached for him again. He pulled her hand, instead, to the collar of his shirt and paused, his open mouth curled into a subtle wryness.

Smirking herself, Rory acquiesced and guided the unbuttoned shirt off of his one shoulder and then the other—from his position on his back he rolled this way, then that, to help her slide the shirt down his arms.

He wriggled his wrists from the cuffs of his shirt and then it was forgotten. He rolled off of it, rolling her also until she was pinned, delighted, beneath his broad expanse and daring gaze, and then, in a moment, a barrage of kisses.

As his hand drew upwards insistently along the flesh of her waist, the hem of her shirt rose with it. Her skin was greeted by the warmth of his torso, the pleasure of flesh on flesh.

His hand grasped through too many wrinkles of fabric. Rory crossed her arms in front of her and writhed out of her shirt. He helped. The fabric was lifted over her head and he pushed it away from them, off the edge of the bed. She reached behind herself to undo a clasp before he would press his torso to hers.

Like his solid frame, his kisses were hot and perhaps more insistent than she'd ever experienced. His tongue wasn't coy anymore.

"Oh," she cooed against his mouth. Rory was dizzied to note they were sharing the lead after all.

As her pulse continued its reckless hammering, her observant knuckles slid down the sides of his ribcage to his waist until her hands held him commandingly by the thick denim blockade of his waistband, pulling him tightly against her, although he was already tightly there.

She smiled, between kisses, as her fingers slid between the roughness of denim and his hot skin, feeling the undulation of his abdomen as they made their way to a button.

Just as her fingers found their destination, he sat back on his heels, effectively pulling away from her. She gasped with pleasure when she, instead, felt the button on her own jeans pop free. He'd beaten her to it. Seeing her widened, welcoming eyes, he grinned naughtily and pulled upon her zipper, his own out of her reach.

A delirious giggle escaped her. Raising her hips, she helped him slide her denim off and it, too, fell to the floor.

From where he knelt beside her, he slid a forearm beneath her back and eased her further onto the bed. She seized his shoulder and rolled towards him, just to feel his heat more closely. With her other hand, she reached between them for the touch of his skin, fingers once again slipping just inside his fly and urging him closer.

Then he was nearly upon her. The forearm, which he now leaned on, remained tucked beneath her waist. He pulled the satin straps from her shoulders and, while he solidly thrust his body against her side, he kissed her chest.

"Mmmm," she hummed.

"Yeah," he agreed, the word a mere dance of breath, as he painted her with kisses.

His right hand swept down the periphery of her barely clothed breast, a tingly trail, finally tugging the dislodged fabric loose from her tangle of limbs and tossing it aside. She offered her chest to him but his hand continued along the length of her side until his broad fingers reached her knee.

She had been quarter-turned towards him. With a solid but unrushed advance, he pushed her knee aside and Rory flat onto her back. Rory's fist sought and clung to the first shred of blanket it found, as she quavered, knowing what awaited her.

Tantalizing her, Jess's hand traced its way back up along the front of her thigh and slipped up through the leg of her panties, under the satin—not to touch her where she expected, but to hold the curve of her hipbone. "Jess!" she demanded, her equanimity frayed.

"My, aren't we eager!" he kidded in a breathless whisper, as his lips came down to knead a path along her stomach. He only gripped her hipbone tighter.

"What a tease," she moaned. His light laughter danced along her ribcage.

His wrist rotated at her hipbone, under the fabric, and unexpectedly his knuckle was gently petting her, his skin, slightly rough but none-the-less compassionate, meeting her delicate flesh at last.

"Mmmm," he rumbled, which affected her almost as much as his touch.

Almost.

For, just as she became accustomed to the way his fingers lightly strummed her—and just as his rumble had begun to command her attention—the course of events reminded her just how much his touch could affect her.

As his tongue found her navel, Jess strummed, his gently curved, experienced knuckles cycling over her as they could a coin, until a welcome finger straightened and it found its own path. Supple, slow, but insistent. Rory gasped. His rumble returned.

He slid, never leaving her, but the angle was wrong. He lifted his body above her and half-crawled closer on the mattress, one leg kneeling now just to the side of her hip—his posture and expression a ruling authority of lust which took her breath away. She was instantly aware of her throbbing tension as she realized her own point of no return and then willingly crossed over its threshold.

"Ohhh…"

His rate of respiration responded to her call. Any moment he would take her, and she would let him for it was what she wanted also.

Now on his knees beside her, he perched, pulling her last shred of fabric roughly to the side while his other hand played. He was witness to his fingers' playground, clearly desirous of it. His breathing was shallow and he was beautiful.

He employed a thumb now and, after a while, his eyes raked up along her body, coming to rest on hers in a gaze so intense and serious it made her dizzy with amazement. He was reading her, gauging the merits of his ministrations in her responses. And he was reading them right. She palmed her forehead for a moment before gripping the blanket once more.

The fabric finally an impedance they could no longer abide, he removed her panties and returned to her, more freely. She met his hand, pressing eagerly.

His free hand grasped her abdomen. She pulled it along her skin up over her chest to guide his fingertips to her tongue. His mouth opened as her tongue got his attention. He responded aggressively, his knuckles to the hilt, his thumb perfectly placed.

She gasped, writhing in his hand.

Finally, when she could stand it no longer, she placed her palm over his hand, holding him tightly against her, and whispered, "And you?" Jess blinked languidly. She reached for his belt buckle and he finally acquiesced.

As he stood up out of necessity, he licked his fingers, an unintentional seduction pulling some primal urge from deep within her. Rory rolled to the edge of the bed, following him, and her fingers wasted little time with the fly of his weathered blue jeans. Rory nudged the fabric off of his hips, and off of him, and the articles slowly slid to the floor.

He glistened, and she reached out for the taste of him, but barely satiated the craving for his silky skin.

"Stop," he said.

Dizzy, she asked, "Is something wrong?"

"No, I just need to hold it together. And the way you're going..."

"Oh! Sorry," she tittered nervously. "Then?"

"Yeah." His voice was as quiet as hers had been, somewhere between a statement and question.

"I'm waiting for you to make the first move."

But he paused. She sat up and reached for the box of condoms.

"Yeah?" he whispered.

"Oh yeah," she assured.

"Yeah," he agreed quietly, roughly, his nostrils flaring and his head slowly shaking as he dressed himself with the sheath she'd removed from the package with her buzzing fingers. The heat returned to his eyes.

He crawled back onto the bed and shifted down slightly along the length of her body, kissing her where it counted. She felt the heat of his breath and the nipping of his lips as he murmured something she couldn't comprehend, but in her mind she happily imagined the most tawdry of amorous comments.

Rolling her gently away onto her back and, with the flex of the muscles in his shoulders and some subtle negotiations—made only slightly awkward by the incessant pull of gravity—he slipped his wrist underneath her shoulder, he nudged her with a knee, he held her torso at the side of her breast. Then he was above her, slipped into the embrace of her thighs.

"Slowly!" she gasped, perhaps startled by the immediacy. She reached down urgently, taking hold of him, slowing his body, which he obliged given no other choice.

Jess's eyelids drifted shut, reflecting hers, as she controlled his pace, her hand his guide. His skin was silky, beautiful, though mostly sheathed, and Rory gasped and shuddered at the new sensation, half-way, then more, inch-by-inch growing ever more acclimated, and Jess moaned. The sound waves traipsed across her skin, lifting all the follicles of her flesh.

"Don't move," she whispered near his ear, the change complete. She tilted her neck and caught sight of his bottom lip, firmly clamped in his teeth, as he nodded. A laboured breath curling against her neck was his only other response. In near-silence they stayed for some time, as she became accustomed to the feel of him, a startling moment, laden with more than she could ever explain later.

She kissed him.

And he pressed, desire personified, moving at last. Surprising, startling, but welcome.

With new movements, raw and natural and sudden, the floodgates opened. His hands on her body a tight, insistent leverage. She shivered under his intensity, or perhaps her own, kissing him still.

"Nnnn," he moaned senselessly against her mouth as his hand came beneath her to wrap more tightly around her shoulder.

"Ah! Hair! Hair!" she whimpered, as his forearm had now come to rest on her tangles.

"Shit! Sorry!" They scrambled a bit, his arm shooting out from beneath her, and she giggled at his sheepish glance, feeling a love for him anew.

The injustice soon passed. He was still there, she realized with a new gasp. She reached for the flesh of his rump and with a loving grind of her hips, assaulted him back, guiding him with her hands into a rhythmic oscillation she decided she liked very much.

Jess's appreciation of her movement was clear, in the sound of his voice and the features of his expressive face. It was all so beautiful and honest, she thought her heart might burst from her chest.

Unknowing how it would affect him, Rory hummed in tune with the vibration of her being. Her toes curled and pressed against his calf. It proved his undoing.

Suddenly Jess was wild with abandon, but for a moment more. When Jess cried out, so did Rory.

Then the only sound was of breath.

Several shuddering moments passed. He glided slower, sinuous. His hand gripped the back of her shoulder tightly. She wasn't sure which of them was shaking, maybe both. Rory moaned.

They lay there a moment, damply, as the ebb slowly released them, rendering them more weighty and earthbound. Rory stared at the ceiling, unseeing, her jaw slack with amazement, as the tide withdrew bit by bit in subtle throbs, until he pulled away slightly and the act was a beautiful memory.

He left her to bask in the circle of his arms—one still beneath her shoulder, the other tucked closely to her body—and of his forehead collapsed over her chest, his moist hair a cloud of softness caressing her collarbone. Leaving her to ponder the sensations of her body's ravage, the shakiness of his breath, and the poignancy of her emotions.

She gulped as Jess wordlessly looked up at her, his eyes raw, his features newly defenceless. One ragged breath escaped him as their gaze strengthened, telling her all she wanted to know: As they each returned to a more conscious state, he was feeling the same vulnerability she suddenly was.

In fact, she surmised as she regarded him closely, he looked positively morose.

"Are you comfortable? Am I killing your arm?"

"No. It's fine."

"I could move."

"Don't... Don't." He sighed and rested his head on her chest. "Stay."

She wanted to tell him that this was the textbook definition of a perfect moment. And it had been. Her statement would have been true, if she'd spoken it several moments earlier, before she'd seen the look in his eyes.

AN: Please, please review. I'd love some feedback, even if it's to tell me this scene sucked and it, in no way, would have happened like this. Criticism will help me improve. Was the chapter still too expository, as I fear it is? If so, how can I fix that? Thank you!

Fans of GG will, of course, notice that I took some lines directly from the show. But I like the subtle difference here.