When Jo came in with arms full of groceries, Dean met her at the door, taking that load so she could go back to the car to grab the second. He helped her put them away and debated how best to ask his question. Should he go for the blunt approach, just blurting it out with no explanation? Should he go for the careful reveal, asking his question but also quietly shaping and framing it in the safest way possible? Or should he give words to some of the tumbling, uncertain, unsteady sensations inside of him, actually tell her that he wanted nothing more than to touch her and pretend moments of happiness bore no consequences?

She was reaching up to put extra salt on the top shelf of the pantry, a sliver of pale skin visible between shirt and jeans, when he made his choice without intending to do so.

"Remember how you said you haven't had a lot of dinner-and-a-movie experiences?"

She turned and nodded. "Yeah, I remember."

"Remember how we were working on fixing that?"

Now her face broke into a smile, and she tucked her lower lip into her teeth, trying and failing to stifle it.

"You mean when we made the mistake of making out in a movie theater?"

"I didn't think it was a mistake then. Just an… experience. And after a few more weeks to think about it, I am even more certain it wasn't a mistake. Let me take you out. We'll drink a few drinks, maybe shoot some pool. I might even let you drag me out on the dance floor again."

"You dragged me out on the dance floor last time." Her smile snuck a few millimeters bigger, and he fought hard to keep his own straight face.

"Like I said, I might even let you dance with me again. Come out with me?"

The question hung in the air between them, suspended by tangled, gossamer threads of nervousness and confidence. He knew she wanted to go out with him. The tenderness of their kiss last night, so familiar and so easy, gave him confidence, but the world around them, anything but familiar or easy, kicked up the flutter of nerves. She tugged at the bottom of her shirt, revealing her own hesitation.

"I like the idea of casual dating…" Her voice trailed off.

"I sense a 'but.'"

"But I also think honesty is important, and I don't think we'll be very good at casual."

He heard the echo of all his slammed doors when she was away on a hunt, heard the whisper of her head turning to see him come back. His skin crawled with the memory of feather-light fingers on his arm during "The Weight" and rough tugs in the faded seats of a movie theater. For one wild moment, as he looked at her unguarded eyes and the practical set of her mouth, he went back to a crappy motel room with Jo's ghost ripping out his heart. The feeling was not casual.

"Maybe we won't. We're not doing that well at nothing either." He reached into the bag on the counter and pulled out two jars of spaghetti sauce. "Let Bobby and Sam eat this, and we'll go get dinner together."

Her face flickered through several iterations as she considered the proposal. He walked to the pantry to put the jars of spaghetti sauce away. The homeyness of having a pantry would have made him smile even if she hadn't answered in the affirmative behind him.

"Alright. We can go get dinner." She paused, and he could tell she was smiling without turning around. "Let Sam get online and pick where. He has good taste."

"He may have good taste, but he didn't pick you." Dean cocked an eyebrow, turning around, and saw her approaching with two packages of pasta pulled from yet another bag. She slipped them onto the shelf and turned to drop a kiss on his cheek.

"Actually, I didn't pick him."

Dean grinned in spite of himself. "Be ready at 7? I've got two angels to get in touch with in the meantime."

"Sure. I'll be ready at 7."

Dean thought of Bobby's words as they both smiled; looking at each other at the same time wasn't so bad after all.

Dean had never had to share a bathroom getting ready for a date before. First Jo went in and changed, then he went in and changed, and then she went back in to dry her hair or something like that. If Bobby had not decided to take a shower at the same time they were getting ready, the difficulty could have been avoided. As it was, Sam sat on a chair in the living room, spending about half of his time watching The Maltese Falcon on TCM and the other half watching the pageant of Dean and Jo trying to get ready for dinner.

"Dude, could you not?" Dean had asked as Sam actually held up his fingers and rated him on his look: a six out of 10. He had been trying to use the window as a mirror to make sure his hair wasn't sticking up like Sonic the Hedgehog. Of course Dean had tried not to chuckle because Sam's basic niceness won out even when he was trying to be an ass; if the situations were reversed, Dean would have rated him a three, just to screw with him.

"Hey, show me how it's done. You're always telling me how you're a ladies' man."

"Who's the one going out tonight?" Dean had zinged back, but his moment of triumph had been cut short by Bobby coming into the room and asking him if he needed The Talk.

"Now, listen here, son. Now that you've started puberty, you might be getting some new feelings…"

"Shut up both of you," Dean had grumbled, even though the evening's distraction from hellfire and brimstone had Sam and Bobby both laughing, which was enough to make Dean want to smile too.

When Jo finally came out, Dean had snagged her arm and dragged her out so fast, before either of the other men could say a word, that he really did feel like a teenager. When he finally got to look at her, though, he took in the sight and knew it was one only a grown man could appreciate. Underneath her coat, flannel shirts and tight black tank tops had been replaced by some sort of cable-knit sweater that made it impossible to even see she had a shape beneath, and the mystery effect ratcheted up his blood pressure more than any amount of cleavage could have done.

"I'd have gone for sexy, but it's winter in South Dakota. I've got two different kinds of gloves in my coat and a hat with earflaps in my back pocket."

"You look fine."

"Well, I figured that if you were helping me with romantic cliches, we would definitely be walking down snowy lanes and throwing snowballs at each other and laughing for no apparent reason."

"It's a date, not a jewelry commercial." He had wrapped his arm around her and walked her to Bobby's truck, the only vehicle he trusted in this damn weather. She had nestled against him and made his chest contract.

Dinner had been at a little Chinese place in a shack that Sam had picked after reading online ("Great, authentic food. She'll love it!") and their round-top table for two had barely accommodated someone of Dean's height. One of his knees stayed wedged against the table leg, the other against hers, and the General Tso's Chicken he ordered had so much authentic spice that he drank five glasses of water over the course of the meal. Jo did not like her Moo Goo Gai Pan, though she gamely picked out the chicken and ate it. Dean felt a certain pride in the fact that if he had picked the restaurant, they would have both enjoyed it more.

Yet the experience did not diminish its own magic. Jo talked about how she would like to own her own bar again someday, to create another hub for hunters. Dean watched her animation as she explained how she liked all of them being at Bobby's, liked the camaraderie of hunters working together rather than always being lone wolves. She told embarrassing stories about herself in high school. Once she had gotten brave enough to ask the guy in her math class to the Homecoming dance and when he rejected her, she had gotten pissed and slugged him. He surprised himself by countering with his own embarrassing stories, such as the time he ended up being dumped in the school hallway by a blonde he liked more than he would admit. They talked about their dads, and for the first time since the H.H. Holmes case, he could hear a mention of her father or talk about his own without the crushing guilt turning his spit to sour milk.

She asked him about Hell for the first time, and he answered without detail. She listened without asking for more, and when she ducked her head to look at her plate, he saw the tears glisten in her eyes but did not feel pitied.

They touched hands as they shared food, took sips of one another's drinks when the waitress was moving slowly, and he took note of the ways she absently touched herself. From the brush of her fingers along her collarbone, hidden beneath the wooly cable-knit, to rubbing a thumb over her own bottom lip while she thought, she projected the same physical anticipation that had him on the edge of his seat.

When he went to the register to pay, she teasingly asked who would be paying this time, but he shook his head and pulled out some cash.

"When I went into town earlier, I offered to take a couple oil changes and tire rotations off a mechanic's hands. Told him to call Jodie Mills for a character reference. So Dean Winchester's paying."

Jo didn't say anything about that as they walked out of the restaurant, but Dean did not miss the way she ducked her head to hide an emotion too nakedly honest to reveal.

"You still want a snowy walk? It's a sidewalk in Sioux Falls, not a lane."

She nodded and took his hand. "I'll take it."

They fell into stride beside one another, and he marveled at the unfamiliar feeling of contentment. In this moment, with a woman beside him, he was Dean Winchester, the hunter who had been to Hell, the vessel of the archangel Michael, and she still looked at him with the same hungry, appreciative gaze he expected from women who knew nothing about him. She really knew him, and she still wanted to hold his hand. That was almost worth walking gingerly on wet snow in the frigid air.

"So Gabriel and Castiel are going to find the next Horseman and then we're moving in?" Jo's tone was hushed even though the nearest people were several yards ahead, a couple with two kids in snowsuits playing in the powder.

"Yeah. Shouldn't take them too long now that we've got an archangel on the team."

"Good. I'm not too interested in the world ending."

"Me either." He rubbed his thumb along the top of her hand, feeling the chilly flesh warm under his touch. As he wondered if any other parts of her needed to be warmed up, he prickled with heat that had nothing to do with the weather. His brain capitalized on the silence and danced off through a series of x-rated images.

"Do you want kids?" Jo's question nearly stopped him in his tracks. The air in his lungs tightened, and his hand squeezed down like a vice on hers before he could catch himself.

"You really know how to ask a question on a first date," he said, feeling his eyes widen.

She laughed, realizing her mistake. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry. Not like that. I was just looking over there at that family and asking you, hunter-to-hunter, if you wanted kids. Not like fishing for 'Do you want kids with me?' or something like that."

His body relaxed, loosening back to its pre-panic state, but then he really wondered about the question. Oddly enough, his first instinct was to say that Sam was the one who wanted kids. Thinking of Sam as the one who craved normalcy came naturally. He thought about his year with Lisa and Ben. Lisa had been all soft curves, forehead kisses, and tenderness, a mother through and through, and her gentleness had soothed him. It was Ben, though, who had lit up something incredible inside of him. Teaching Ben how to work on a car, helping him with math problems at the kitchen table, and giving him dumb advice on girls had been the best parts of a miserable year. Dean didn't think he would ever want the wife, the picket fence, the 9 to 5, but it was hard to imagine he wouldn't someday want a kid like Ben again.

"Maybe. I like kids." He shrugged. "None of them could ever be as big of a pain in my ass as Sammy was. What about you?"

She seemed to take the question as seriously as he had, thinking about it. He looked over at the family. The mother had her little girl on her hip now, both of them bulging with puffy winter coats, while the father threw snowballs with the older kid. They looked happy.

"Maybe. I've never been around kids before. Did you know I've never even held a baby or really known a pregnant woman?"

Unbidden, the thought of Jo pregnant, her belly swollen, her cheeks flushed, her eyes snapping, appeared in his head and scared the hell out of him. He ignored it.

"Well, if you want that someday, I hope you get it."

"Same to you, Dean Winchester. Whatever you want, I hope you get it."

Seeing a perfect moment to steer the conversation in a direction more suited for tonight, Dean put on his best grin.

"Well, you know one thing I want?" He raised an eyebrow.

She grinned back. "Are you about to pull out a pick up line on this beautiful night?"

"That depends." He stopped and pulled her in front of him, putting his hands on her hips. "Would a line work right now?"

"Maybe." She dented her lower lip with her teeth, and he fought the urge to lean in and nip it himself. "How about you give it your best shot?"

He thought about the world of cheesy pickup lines, considering spinning one of the hundreds of bad bar lines she would have heard before into something funny, but instead, the laugh in her brown eyes made him honest.

"I've wanted to touch you again ever since you jumped out of my lap at the movie theater. So I'm just going to ask nicely. Are you going to let me?"

"That's a damn good line." Her cheeks turned pink. "Though fairly specific."

"You going to answer the question?"

"I'm going to do a lot more than that, but we should probably get back to the truck first."

His insides flipped, and his body temperature ratcheted up. The five minutes it took to walk back to the truck, open the door for her, and then get in himself seemed to take an hour, and by the time he pulled his door shut, he ran on adrenaline. The parking lot was empty, and yet the thudding of his heart was so loud he felt as if it could give them away. He turned the key in ignition to start the heat up and surreptitiously pulled the condom out of his coat pocket to tuck it in cupholder. He liked to think of it as optimistic rather than sleazy, just as he opted to think of the truck as exciting rather than adolescent.

Jo leaned into him, coat already discarded on the floor.

"Ask the question again." The huskiness in her voice stroked him without hands, and his body reacted, muscles tensing and pants tightening. The cold interior of the car showed their breath in wispy clouds that mixed in the space between them.

"Are you going to let me touch you?"

"Yes." Her voice promised debauchery.

He grabbed her and pulled her to him, sinking his mouth onto hers. His fingers looped into her hair, settling into the silky strands, as he tasted her. She tasted like sex. When she ran her tongue along his lower lip, he tugged at her hair, pulling her head back enough to grant him full access to her mouth. Hot fingers pulled at coats and dug into the remaining clothing, frustrated to have anything in the way of skin contact.

He pulled down the neck of her sweater, revealing milky collarbone. He wanted to lick, just flick his tongue against the skin, but if the ferocity of her hands taught him anything, it was that she played dirty. He used his teeth instead, and she moaned softly. That sound sent his hands straight for the hem of her sweater. He wrestled it up. She grabbed with him, and he heard the rip of seams being pulled too hard.

"Damn, Jo," he muttered, taking in the sight of her. In the cold air, gooseflesh covered her skin, and her nipples hardened enough to stand out against the lacy black of her bra. He moved toward her only to bang his knee on the gear shift and his heavy boots on his door. She shifted too, and he heard her shoes patter the dashboard. The sensual set of her face turned to a half-grin.

"Pause to take our shoes off?"

It should have ruined the moment. Instead, they both smiled and then did just that. They paused to take their shoes and socks off, a small gesture of readiness in preparation for where this encounter was going. He also pulled off his coat, flannel shirt, and jeans, leaving only grey tee-shirt and black boxers between himself and the chilly air. The space separating them felt like too much. He slid closer and caught her by the hips.

"Come here."

She shivered against him at the growl of his voice, pulling herself onto his lap. He smiled, intrigued by such a pleasurable reaction to sound. He needed to try that again.

Jo put her mouth on his, and this time she ground against him as she kissed, working his erection from interested to urgent beneath her eager hips. Inexperience with romance did not translate to sexual innocence, and just as in the movie theater, she wound his desire up, sending it racing to levels that made him want to rip off her jeans and plunge into her.

Instead, he enjoyed the access available now, cupping her breast in his hand, savoring the erotic weight and bringing his thumb up to stroke the waiting nipple. It tightened more under his touch, beading to pebble-hardness, pressing against the lace as if asking to be freed. He dipped his head to kiss along the top of her breast, caressing the skin and edge of the cup while his thumb teased the nipple. She dropped her head back, the throatiness of her moan stopping his breath in his lungs. He replaced his thumb with his mouth.

When he held the nipple gently in his teeth and then sucked hard through the lace, her moan rattled the inside of the truck.

When she managed to stop those incredible sounds from escaping her lips, she grabbed his shirt and pulled it upward, scraping her fingernails up his torso along the way. Her eagerness galvanized him, and he somehow had it over his head in an instant.

He reached down to unzip her jeans, ready to have the coarse fabric out of his way, and slid his mouth back up beside her ear. He spoke without whispering, letting his words move boldly out into the air.

"I'm ready to have you naked, Jo." She shuddered against him, lifting her hips to let him guide her out of her jeans. He greedily snatched the underwear with the pants. He copped a feel of her butt, sinking his fingers into the flesh for one long, satisfying moment, before discarding the jeans on the floorboard. Her tongue slid up his neck, and the flames burning in the air, fogging up the windows, grew. She leaned back, grinding against him, a deliberate smirk on her lips, and unhooked her own bra. The audacity rocketed over him. She took charge, nibbling his ear, putting her hands between them to stroke his dick through the thin fabric of his boxers, audaciously touching herself, and the whole affair threatened to end in seconds, every muscle in his body keying toward release.

He caught her hands. "My turn."

Again, his voice seemed to freeze her. He guided her back to lay across the bench seat, taking in the sight of so much skin and trying not to bang into the steering wheel. Then let his tone give him the time to enjoy her without risking a quick finish.

"God, you're beautiful." The slightest of shudders. He could do better than that. He put his hands at her thighs and parted them. He allowed himself a long look.

"Let me just see how you feel." A gasp that sent goosebumps back over her skin. She liked it direct. His pulse surged.

He crooked a finger between her legs, finding her clit. She groaned. He added his voice.

"Now that's what I want. Right there." Another crook, a finger inside. She moaned from her toes, tightening around him, and the realization of what that tightness on his finger meant for penetration made him groan too. He played, dragging her own wetness over her thighs, dallying in and out of her, rubbing, smelling the hot, earthy scent of arousal, using his other hand to stroke himself, until the constriction in his throat made it hard for him to breathe. She bucked her hips into his fingers, and he actually had to grab the steering wheel to steady himself, his own body threatening to betray him. She grabbed onto his steadying hand so hard that her nails left crescents in the skin.

"Dean, now."

He had his boxers off and a condom on so fast he did not notice any individual motion, but he did notice when she splayed her knees wide, wrapped her hands together behind his neck, and gave him the devil's own grin.

"C'mhere."

He guided into her slowly, each millimeter making it harder not to just abandon himself in the moment, but when he looked at her face, the world seemed to slow to a stop. In an instant, he memorized her. Her parted lips, bright eyes, flushed cheeks, halo of blonde waves… they erased the cramped truck cab, discarded winter gear, the pain in his elbow that kept hitting the dashboard, and the sight of her like this became a part of him he was not ashamed to admit he would never forget.

Then she bucked her hips to him and sank his cock to her depths. He heard a guttural groan and realized it had come from him.

Her body gripped him, accommodating him even as he was too big, and the sensation was so delicious he breathed carefully, cautiously, not letting himself take in the bounce of her breasts as he stroked into her or the shuddery moans slipping from her lips. He tried to look at the ceiling, clenched his muscles, controlled his motions so tightly that it took every bit of his concentration.

She rolled and rocked with him, let out a sharp cry that portended the height of her pleasure, but then she stopped. Pulling him down to her, she tilted her lips against his ear, hot breath and wet mouth sending a shiver down his spine.

"That was nice. Now fuck me."

Every inch of his body tremored with the dirtiness of that pretty mouth against his skin. She took advantage of that moment of shock. She scraped her nails down his back and added one polite little word.

"Please."

He had never been one to resist good manners.