Tara woke with her lover's arms around her from behind—a familiar feeling, and very welcome. Not so familiar was the feeling of a firm foreign object pushed up against her backside. She gently maneuvered from Willow's embrace without waking the redhead and managed to turn the woman onto her back. It made unfastening the harness and manipulating the straps to remove the device from her lover's hips possible. She pulled the apparatus away then turned to look at her nude partner in the diffuse morning light spilling in softly through the sheer-curtained windows.

The shape of Willow's body had not changed much since they had become lovers almost ten years ago. Up top, she was thin and lean. Her breasts petite and well-suited to her slim frame. Her hips were wide and womanly, and her ass and thighs well shaped and muscular. Her nipples were red, favoring her complexion. Between her legs, the triangle of pubic hair was neatly trimmed. It was as red as the hair on her lover's head. There were still slightly pink harness marks against the pale skin of Willow's thighs and Tara worried briefly about chafing before noting the marks already seemed to be diminishing as she lightly rubbed them before Willow sleepily coughed and she relented. Her eyes continued their slow journey back up Willow's body, registering but not lingering on the scar visible at the top of her left shoulder, a reminder of her time spent in the Ban-Ghot Hell, knowing it traveled the length of Willow's back, diagonally, ending at the back of her right hip, back to the face she knew so well…

She ended her appraisal of her lover's body and concluded with a grateful sigh that overall, Willow was in very good physical health, given her history. In fact, Tara's smile turned lusty, she was in fan-fucking-tastic shape, for any American woman technically 30 years old, not to mention one who had spent several additional years trapped in a hell dimension. Willow was a bit of an exercise nut and, though Tara never brought it up, she knew her love was a bit vain about keeping her slight build through the years. Tara had a harder time of keeping her college physique, had resigned herself that her body would never be as tight as it had been when she was 19 and in love with her nerdy and impossibly straight fellow witch, especially after three childbirths, two full-term natural deliveries and one c-section, but Willow never made her feel less than beautiful, no matter what stage her body was in. Even so, she tried to keep herself as tight as possible, to please her beautiful redhead. The regular lovemaking was both one of the means and the end to that.

Gently, she pulled the sheet back into place and tucked it around her lover's body, then slipped out of bed, taking the sex toy and harness with her to wash in one of the newly renovated en suite bathroom sinks. When done, she returned to their bedroom and carefully placed the toy on the bedside table along with some lotion, just in case, then shrugged on her robe and quietly left the room, leaving the door ajar, to go downstairs. She would make her love some breakfast, to thank her for the wonderful night they just had, and to refuel her body. Xander would have the girls until tomorrow, maybe Willow would like to stay in and make love all day and perhaps tonight…

Willow woke slowly from one of the deepest sleeps she'd had in recent memory, the kind where she knew she was dreaming but wouldn't be able to remember the content upon waking. It involved riding in airplanes and lying on top of Tara and sitting in a conference room listening to monotone speeches and looking at charts and the afterglow of coming very hard with Tara shuddering in her arms in the throes of her own orgasm beneath her. Occasionally the face of a Ban-Ghot would flash briefly through the images, as they had since her return, but after so many years back, they no longer filled her with dread as they did the first year she had returned.

The quality of her sleep was the kind that didn't permit a clean break into the waking world, but she was slowly roused at the realization that the body she clutched to her own was in fact a pillow. She was only briefly disappointed as she realized the pillow was her own, from her bed. Or their bed. Hers and Tara's. She squeezed it tighter, burying her face in it to breathe in their scents. She sat up and looked sleepily around herself, for her aforementioned woman, but she was alone in the room. She happened to glance to her side and the bright purple dildo, clean and neatly placed, caught her eye. Then the smell of pancakes hit her, and her stomach growled. She quickly pulled on a tee shirt and panties from her dresser and descended the stairs to the kitchen.

The coffee maker was gurgling and Tara adjusted the flame under the griddle, two browner-than-perfect pancakes already on the plate, pulling the bowl of batter closer to her, when Willow's hands reached around her, the right reaching forward and turning the same burner off. She watched, bemused, as Willow then reached for the knot of her robe and fumbled with it. "Um, excuse me?"

"I woke up and you were gone." Willow managed to make morning sexy-raspy still sound pouty.

"I thought I'd make you breakfast. Hungry, no?"

"No." Willow gently turned Tara in her arms, allowing her to finally undo the knot. She spread the robe and looked down at Tara's body, licking her lips. "Not for food, anyway."

"Wow, really? After last night? You really are insatiable."

"We don't get to do this every day." Willow gently relieved Tara of the spatula and placed it on the counter behind her lover.

Tara smiled. "Almost."

"Not in the kitchen. Not any time we want. Kind of novel. We should take advantage, don't you think?"

"The timing is about right."

"Long-term cohabitation resulting in virtually to-the-hour synchronized ovulating cycles has its advantages, especially when you're lesbians. Lesbians who do the lesbian sex thing. Together." Willow's fingers were feather-light on the skin of Tara's hips as she further separated the flaps of Tara's robe. "I have to admit, it was a factor in getting an early flight home." Her hands finally came to rest on Tara's hips, consequently also keeping the robe from falling closed.

"We could've taken care of each other over the phone again."

"It wouldn't be the same." Willow's grasp became firmer, as she carefully steered Tara toward the heavy oak farmer's table Xander had made for them as a house-warming present that they now mostly used for an island two steps behind them. "Plus, you know, with the toy dick and again, the right time of our cycle. I mean, it was nice and all, the penetration I mean, so it was an ideal time to try it, but not our usual thing—which I didn't get to do yet. Up?" She patted the table behind Tara.

Tara laughed. "You're serious? Now? Here in the kitchen?"

The look Willow gave her was intense and oh so serious. "Uh huh. Right here. Right now."