Disclaimer: I don't own Criminal Minds, Although I wish I did.

This is my first fanfic, so I hope you will be gentle.

Chapter 12

Hotch parked his car, and slowly made his way up to Emily's door, determined that this time would be different. This time he wasn't leaving, he needed Emily, he loved her, and he was going to make her see that.

Knocking strongly on her door, he called through it, "Emily, you either open this door, or I'll break it down!"

Emily flung the door, looking at him in disbelief. "Hotch, what are you doing here?"

Hotch closed the door and locked it, causing Emily's stomach to clench as she remembered what had happened, after the last time he had done that.

"You're avoiding me," he said, his handsome features etched with concern and something else Emily couldn't quite place. "You haven't picked up your phone in days."

Emily tensed, and returned Hotch's gaze levelly as he advanced on her. "I'm not avoiding you. There's nothing to discuss, Hotch." she said softly, trying to remain calm.

Emily's breath hitched in surprise as Hotch stepped directly into her personal space, his face mere inches from hers. "Don't give me that, Emily," he said, his voice low, his eyes frankly appraising her form even as she stood unwavering while he drew close to her. Emily's breath hitched again. Regardless of her irritation, Emily returned his heated gaze, not moving from the place where she stood, though Hotch had invaded her space as if he could claim her by doing so.

Hotch continued. "I've left you alone for several days now. You didn't even call me to tell me you were taking some time off, you called Strauss. Strauss, Emily! I had to hear it from her. I know I've handled things badly, but you didn't have to do that. I understand that you needed time, but now we are going to talk. And Damnit! This time you're going to listen to me." His posture was firm, his stance balanced- almost as if he were a predator, waiting to spring.

Emily's voice softened, her face softening as well. Her dark eyes were almost black with emotion. "Hotch... Aaron," she said huskily. "It just... it can't be. You know that. We ... can't. Discussing it further will only make it harder both of us." As she spoke, she stood her ground, neither retreating nor advancing as Aaron loomed over her, his imposing, muscular form dominating the space around both of them. Any other woman might have retreated from Hotch, his face and body showing both aggression and possession, but Emily stayed still. She trusted him, no whatever was happening between the two of them. She paused for a moment, swallowing slightly, her breath coming out in a sigh.

Hotch spoke softly "Don't tell me you don't feel it too. You can't deny what's between us." His voice was dusky, seductive, demanding.

Emily's face softened further, her voice thickened with longing as she responded. "I can't deny it. How can I? You've made it impossible. I'd damn you for making me feel like this, if I didn't love you so much." The depth of the sensations running through her were apparent in her every expression. "I can't be with someone that doesn't love me, all of me. I can't pretend that it's enough that I love you, knowing you don't love me back."

His eyes darkened, and the air around him began to crackle and shimmer with heat as he looked down from his height into her upturned face. "Damnit Emily! Listen to me carefully. I love you! I love everything about you! I love your mind, I love your heart, I love you!" Hotch was shouting at this point. He had to get through to her. She had to see, he couldn't be without her anymore. "You are the most important person in my life, other than Jack. I don't pity you! I hate all the pain this whole mess has caused you. I hate even more my part in that. I should have told you all of this years ago, maybe if I had you would trust me enough to believe what I'm telling you." Hotch stopped, and sighed, running his hand through his hair dejectivly.

At this point, Emily was frozen in shock, but she could feel hope bubbling up inside her. Could it be? Could he really feel the same way? She took a deep breath, and looked at him, really looked. Finally, she saw what J.J and Garcia had been telling her for months. She saw the truth in his eyes, that matched his words. Her heart began to pound, joy streaking through her.

Hotch looked at Emily, her silence both unnerving and fustrating. He couldn't take it anymore, he had to make her believe him. The memory of making love to her had haunted him everyday since, he wanted her so badly, he had to touch her. If his words weren't getting through to her, maybe his body could.

His resolute demeanor hardened, his spine straightening further. There was a long silence between them, the air between them fraught with anticipation, and tension, and need. His whole aspect bespoke fierce tenderness his determination to have her."I'm not asking you, I'm telling you," he said, moving in on her despite her hand on his chest. He moved closer still, clasping her to him, one hand at the small of her back pulling her hips flush with his, the other splaying between her shoulder blades. Her hand on his chest failed utterly to stop him from folding her into his strong embrace.

His dark imprecations continued. "I'm telling you," he repeated, as she gazed at him, wide-eyed, chest heaving with defeated longing, "I love you. But I can't keep going on this way, every moment I can't touch you, be with you, tears my heart into pieces. Don't you see? I'd rather have only one night with you fully, finally mine, as we're meant to be, and die the next day, than live the lie of pretending that all you are is a co-worker. You are my soulmate. I want the whole world to know. So tell me, Emily, that you don't feel the same, and I'll leave you alone."

The sheer forceful need in his voice shook her.

"I can't!" she cried, her face a welter of passionate need and self-denial, "You know I can't lie to you. Without you, there is nothing. You're not just the other half of my heart, you're the whole of it. When yours stops beating, mine does. When your lungs cease their breathing, mine lose all their air. I love you!" Her head sagged forward, coming to rest on his chest.

He still held her clasped to him, his muscular arms encompassing her as his gaze scorched her, captured her eyes with his heat. Despite all his control in other areas, he was quickly approaching his limit with Emily.

Bending his head until his mouth was alongside her ear, his voice a velvet caress, he whispered "Emily, tell me you don't want this, and I'll stop. I'll respect your request but you have to tell me." With those words of demand, his hand at her shoulders clasped her further to him, his face turning into her neck to trail kiss after kiss down to the collar of her shirt. With the first press of his lips to her skin, she whimpered, her head falling to the side to allow him further access. His hand at her shoulders made its way to her nape, his long, masculine fingers weaving into her hair, pressing and pulling her head back so he could adorn the front of her throat with devoted, passionate kisses and nips of his mouth.

"Aaron," she moaned faintly, the hand at his chest now clasping his bicep.

"Tell me you don't want this, Emily," he demanded again, before pulling her head back so she had no choice but to stare his hammering need for her straight in the face. He was testing her sorely. She was close to the breaking point, and she trembled violently, her knees actually giving way in the face of his implacable desire. Fear warred with unbounded love in her eyes, even as her scared heart warred with her hard-earned experience that all things came to an end, the good things sooner than the bad.

As she sagged under the onslaught of his unflagging, relentless pursuit, his arms clasped her even more tightly, bearing her slight form easily, the weight of her meaningless to him in the strength of the moment. "Oh, Aaron, please," she cried, the sound of her heart breaking audible in every word.

He did take pity on her then and he acted for both of them. "Silence means assent, Emily," he whispered, before claiming her mouth for the most passionate, most tender, most fierce, most all-consuming kiss Emily had ever received in her life. The calm, strong Aaron Hotchner, she thought she knew was nothing, compared to this man. Never before, she realized now, had she seen him like this, so full of desire and intentions that burned so strongly, it was almost impossible to breathe around him.

His heat had the desired effect. Emily melted under his mouth, her body molding under his hands as he pulled her yet closer while his mouth plundered hers. The hand not already clasping his muscular arm made its way to his jacket lapel, her fingers splaying and grasping at the fabric as Aaron's lips and tongue continued to claim her. He moved them away from the sofa, until he'd backed her against the wall. When she came into contact with it, his hand at her back let her go, travelling up to grasp the side of her face as his hand at her nape still held her mouth to his.

Their mouths finally parted, as he held her face in his hands, gazing down at her with limitless love and desire. He spoke no further words to her, then her silence was assent, and he moved now to claim her. Lifting her up at the waist until she wrapped her legs around him. He carried her to her bedroom, gently laying her on the bed. He pulled her in for another passionate kiss with one hand, even as the other quickly and surely unbuttoned her blouse. Even as their mouths melded, he slipped the sleeves of her shirt from her arms, until the fabric could be pulled from her.

He continued in silence, removing her white chamise, to reveal her paler, even more silken skin beneath. She was luminous, the purest aspect of womanhood set forth before him, each curve of breast and waist, each plane of toned muscle at arm and at stomach the epitome of all his desires. He unclasped her bra and cast it aside even as she pushed his suitjacket off of his shoulders. The decision was made she believed he loved her, and she was now just determined to take what she'd so long been denied, for herself. Her nimble small fingers found and undid each button on his well-tailored dress shirt, tugged and slid off his tie even as he lifted her at the waist while he tugged her pants and shoes from her. He was laving her belly and chest with soft sucking kisses, as she worked at his belt, and he paused long enough from his hand's exploration of her silken body, to remove his own pants, kicking free of all remaining fabric encumbrances keeping them from one another.

Where she was white, curved, luminous and almost ethereal, he was hard, bronzed and sculpted, and as solid as the earth beneath them. They were two different schools of aesthetics, each perfect in their own way, each admiring the other. Her dexterous slender fingers explored him as he pushed her back onto the bed, then crawled up over her, tasting her with his mouth as he went, toe to head, acquainting himself with each inch of her body. She sighed and whimpered as his hot mouth and calloused strong hands roamed over her, and his skin shuddered under her touch as her nimble hands made acquaintance with his solid masculine perfection. Her warm satin mouth pressed against what parts of him she could reach, as she arched to maximize her body's contact with his.

He paused in his slow worship of her body to kiss her again, one arm slipping under her back to clasp their chests to one another. Her long white toned arms clasped him to her, one hand at his nape holding his mouth to her as the other hand traced the cut lines of his shoulders and back. Their bodies writhed against one another, seeking the other's heat, though for what seemed like hours, all they did was kiss and allow their skin maximum contact, her foot drawing its way up the back of his perfectly muscled leg and sculpted buttocks, his hands roaming the curves of her breasts and her hips as each sighed and shuddered under the touch of the other.

Finally, he broke away from her mouth and resumed his worship of her. His mouth found its way to her full, milky breasts, sucking her in as if she were the world's greatest sustenance. She gasped, arching into him, her eyes snapping open as his tongue on her sensistized flesh circled and sucked at her, sending urgent spikes of desire through her. He continued his passionate onslaught, his devoted attentions to her breasts equally divided, until she was moaning and crying his first name in increasingly desperate tones. Only then did he shift his attentions downward, though one hand remained at her breasts, caressing her lightly with fingertips brushes and light squeezes as his mouth trailed its way first to suck and swirl at her navel, then descend down to her core.

Throughout, her hands splayed and plucked at him, stoking the fire already raging in him when he first claimed her mouth in his. Each brush of her fingers was fuel to the fire, each sigh and whimper a new piece of tinder, a new blast of heat. Her call of his name was all he ever wanted to hear, the tone of need and love and desire in her voice what he had longed to hear. That she was finally his did not weaken him, it made him stronger.

As he settled himself between her legs, his erect length stiffening further as her incredible scent enveloped him, his hands settled themselves on her, determined to hold her in place while he tasted her. He ached to give her so much pleasure that she lost speech, lost all sense of herself except for what he could give her. He set to work.

Her silken skin, already flushed the palest pink, bloomed to the most incredible rose as his tongue met her core. She cried out wordlessly as he gave her the most intimate of kisses, then cried out again as he brought all his skill and love to bear in pleasuring her. All other women before her were meaningless, and under his hands and his mouth, all prior lovers crumbled to ash in her memory. They remade one another, as she moaned under the sucking, lapping, nipping, curling actions of his tongue and his lips, and she responded to him as if he was made for her. When she finally came, his hands pressed her down into the bed as he continued to suck at her, preventing her from pulling away before he coaxed another climax from her.

She was astonished, stunned at her body's reaction to him, his mastery of her every sensation. She had never felt so cherished, and it stole her breath even as his tongue and hands on her forced shrieks and moans of ecstasy from her. She heard herself begging, finally, for him to join with her, her voice calling "I can't be without you any longer, God Aaron please... please..." Emily begged, in a tone of such desparate need that it seemed to come from someone else.

His mouth left her then as he resettled himself around and over her, one hand seizing her chin gently as he looked down at her. "You are everything," he whispered huskily, and panting, she agreed. "Everything, Aaron. Forever." They were the only words he needed. He shifted, one arm coming under her to clasp her against him as he braced himself on his knees, poising himself at her entrance. One last look in her eyes told him there would be no regrets, only promise, in the aftermath of their joining, and he surged into her with all the force of his need for her.

They both called the other's name out in shock at the end of his thrust, as he filled her completely, and she took him completely into her. It was if neither ever knew the meaning of home before now. Her arms were clasped tightly around him, her legs cradling him to her, and as he slowly withdrew and returned, she cried out, head back, at the sensation. Tears fell from her eyes even as they started streaming from his, a mix of joy and astonishment and longing now relieved overflowing from them as their bodies took over, joining them in a dance nearly as old as the stars shining in through curtins.

It was a dance like no one had ever seen before, one of such passionate completion and abandon that all joinings but theirs would forever pale in comparison- though no one would ever know, because this was a sacred dance between two souls, meant only for the other. When they completed their steps, each cried out at the same time, ending as they began with a call of shocked amazement and wonder. They lay there long moments, eyes shuttered from the force of their loving, until they fell back to earth, and slowly returned to themselves. There were caressess, and endearments, and expressions of wonder, before they both fell asleep wrapped in each other's arms, both finally at peace, now knowing they loved, and were loved in return. Neither knew what the future would bring, but both took comfort in knowing they would face it together.

Finally! I hope you enjoy reading this chapter, as much as I enjoyed writing it! More to come soon.