SUPER SEKRIT MSG TO BLUE: I want to lick your spicy brains. And I don't mean that in a zombie-stalker kind of way.

Previously: His other hand skimmed over her back, over the satin, leaving fire and ice in its wake. She caught a moan before it formed, translated it into a sigh. Their mouths opened at the same time trading breaths, his tongue darting along her lower lip once, twice, then hers slid against his. They kissed for some time. But when she moved to straddle his lap, he stopped her.

She held still, waiting for him to say something. He simply stared into her eyes and shook his head. Swallowing hard, she got up and retreated to the bedroom.

Remaining on the couch until daylight, Jane tried to be angry with Lisbon for getting ahead of him. He had called her on her false submission, but he was not ready for her to take over. He tormented himself with fantasies of laying her out beneath him - out on the beach or in a hotel away from this house, taking her somewhere off the beaten path, away from people, away from ghosts. It would be just the two of them. He would give his body free rein with hers. She would surrender and be overwhelmed with the pleasure he would impose on her. He would make her need that pleasure so she could not do without him. He would make her beg over and over till when he finally granted her release she would yield herself up to him.

IIIIIIIIII

What was wrong with her? She knew what his problem was. He was still full of - Well, the fury had faded somewhat, but he was still drowning in grief and anger. He still wanted to see her pay a price. He still wanted to have control of her. But the control he craved had very little to do with ordinary life. He was letting it twist his sex urges into something that could get very ugly, very fast. Until now she had been coping reasonably well with his pathological behavior. So why had she suddenly lost the plot over a little surge of her own desire? She felt weak, and ashamed of her weakness. She remained upstairs in the bedroom for some time, thinking about what she could do for Jane, and what she needed for herself. Reluctantly she changed into the loose trousers and sweater that he had bought for her. While it was not really her style, it did not feel as foreign to her as that dress had done.

She went to him in the light of day. He had left the house and walked down the beach when she found him.

It seemed pointless to her to ease into a discussion. Her questions came out the way they did in the interview rooms at the CBI building. Lisbon had lost patience with both herself and with Jane. "What do you want to do to me? What do you need?" she asked as she walked up to him.

He had heard her coming, and turned around to look at her when she spoke. Jane took her measure and saw she wanted to boil their issues down to the bare bones. He considered just how bitter a broth this would make before opening his mouth.

"You want a checklist? That would make it too easy for you. I don't want you to pretend to give in like you were doing yesterday, playing the compliant little hausfrau. I want you completely undone. I want to see you shaking with need, and I want to see your eyes when you realize no one else can fill your need. I want to see you break when I deny it. I want to see you walking the knife's edge of madness. I want to see you fall apart when I decide to finally give you what you need. And I want to be the one to put you back together."

She could not speak for several minutes. Eventually she said, "I don't think I can give you that. I have never let sex be about control or possession."

"No. You would rather have it be superficial - endorphins and hormones, action and reaction - a nice roll in the hay and both parties walk away happy. You have never given a bedmate your whole self. You always keep so much in reserve. I am deeper inside you than any other man has ever been." He leaned toward her, and whispered in her ear, "When I take you, you won't be empty inside afterward. You will be full of fear because it will be the first time in years you've had something real demanding body and heart. For all your fear, you won't walk away from me, though. You're no coward."

He was using language as a precision tool, a laser scalpel, to lay her bare to the shock of want that flooded her, capillaries suddenly opening to flush warmth all over her skin. Yet at the same time, anger stirred in her as well.

"Jane, I'm not afraid of the spiritual union that sex can forge. I would be afraid of what it would be like with us. You are still angry, and that will change things. I know that it would be very different from anything in my past, because you are different. What you are asking is unlike what I have been asked for in the past. And yes, I have happily walked away from a single night with someone, without shame and without feeling lessened by it. I remember a nun in school saying it was wrong to have sex outside of marriage because each partner takes away pieces of your soul. I don't believe I lose anything because I carry part of them, too. It's not about taking - it's an exchange, giving and receiving in turn. But you - you get no joy out of your own spirit. What I want in return, you don't even believe in. You want to possess and take, but with no spirit, no soul, there's only animal. I can give you sex - but I won't run in your pack. If you need more than a simple night easy to walk away from, you will have to offer me more than that."

Anger blazed in his eyes briefly before he got enough control of himself to say, "The Earth is hell and heaven. The body is the soul. The animal is the angel. I run in your pack. This isn't if, it's when." As he spoke he stepped up to her, snaked a hand behind her neck and pulled her to him. He kissed her, sensually, slowly - the heat was a slow burn, and he said, "Come with me now - we'll go to a motel."

"Are you insane?" she demanded, stepping back out of his reach. "You want something real - here it is. We are not checking into a motel to have sex. You claim I belong to you. You've got me sleeping in your bed, wearing slinky satin pajamas that you bought for me. My skin has your mark on it. I am not the Other Woman. You will not treat me like a dirty little secret. Either I belong with you in your home, or I don't belong with you at all. If you can't get it up to finish staking your claim under that roof, then either let go of that house, or let go of me."

"I'm not in the mood to respond well to an ultimatum, Teresa."

"Ultimatum? Ha! You created this situation. You have a choice to make. You bring me here, and make me sleep under a wall painted in your wife's blood to show me how you punish yourself. You touch me and push me and use me to distract yourself from your grief. You might as well carry a club, drag your knuckles, and haul me around by the hair the way you talk about how you want sex with me. I will not let you take me, take pieces of my soul without giving back your own in return. I am as deep inside you as you are in me. I am already walking your knife's edge of madness with you - have been since you brought me here, and a long time before that. You have to know I-" She froze. She had almost confessed to being in love with him, but she could not say those words now, in the middle of this storm. He saw what she had started to say. He did know. "You want me to beg? How's this - I am begging you not to pull me into a one-sided fun-house reflection of making love. Please don't use sex to punish me. Please." She looked unwaveringly into his eyes for several moments then walked away from him, heading back into the house, not allowing herself to care if he followed.

He had seen something there in her eyes he had forgotten about - the unique mix of vulnerability and strength that she let him, and him alone, see. He had gotten deeper inside her than any other man because she had allowed it. She had given him power over her, and he remembered her words yesterday morning, before he put his teeth on her skin.

You had more power when you created your family... how much power do you want? Just enough to destroy me, or do you want more than that?