A/N: This is an entire chapter of smut. An entire chapter. I couldn't get them to stop once they'd started.

Thank you to everyone who has read and favourited/commented so far – it has really made my day!

Shepard was flat on her back on the bed. She was still fully clothed but her long hair was loose and spread out across the pillow, her lips red and puffy with the kisses they had shared. She grinned at him and stretched out a hand.

He hesitated, nervous all over again. He knew this was not going to be a ten minute fumble, not a situation where he could detach himself from his body and lose himself in physical sensation. She noticed his uncertainty, her smile faltering.

"Everything OK, Zaeed?"

"Yeah, Shepard," he said, haltingly. "Just been a while, is all."

If only she knew, he thought, as he knelt on the edge of the mattress and leaned over to kiss her, I haven't made love to a woman for over twenty years. He thought the idea of that might well send her running. Goddamn it, there was a part of him that still wanted to get up and leave.

He pushed that thought away as he fumbled with the zip on her hoodie, drawing it down and spreading it open. She was wearing a thin white T-shirt underneath, tight and clinging. She raised her body up, wriggled out of the hoodie and lifted her arms for him to remove the T-shirt.

Zaeed remembered how she had looked in that dress, months ago. He recalled how he had fantasised about the curves of her body, the hard muscle and soft skin, had imagined what she had looked like naked.

The reality was so much better than he could ever have dreamed.

He ran the palm of his hand across her collarbone and chest, feeling her skin smooth and warm under his touch. His fingers toyed at the edges of her white lace bra, her dark nipples clearly visible through the filmy fabric.

She murmured his name, her back arching off the bed as he cupped a breast in his hand, his thumb stroking over her nipple.

"Christ, Shepard," he said, his voice low. "You're something else, you know?"

She smiled and slid the straps of her bra down her arms, wriggling to unclip it. He felt his mouth dry up as he stared at her, lying half-naked on the bed, her eyes sparkling seductively as she undid the button of her cargo pants.

"Don't just sit there, Zaeed," she said, with a laugh. "Help me out of these things."

Zaeed pulled at the trousers as she unzipped them, sliding them down her long, muscled legs. He couldn't help but picture them wrapped around his waist, biting back a groan at the image. She looked incredible, her almond skin almost glowing in the shimmering cerulean light of the room. He tried to commit the sight of her to memory, that it might sustain him through future lonely nights.

"You're overdressed, Massani," she said, pulling him down towards her for another kiss. Her hands slid under his shirt and he twitched as she made contact with the soft skin of his sides.

She slipped his shirt off, running her hands across his back, tracing the puckered scars of old bullet wounds and the longer, thinner scars made by a would-be assassin's blade. He shuddered at her touch, his skin more sensitive in the heat of desire than he had thought it could ever be. He couldn't remember the last time someone had touched him as gently as Shepard was now. It felt wonderful.

He watched Shepard's face carefully as she unzipped his pants and stripped him bare. Her lip caught between her teeth as she noticed how aroused he already was, and she inhaled hard.

He couldn't resist smirking at her. "Better?"

"Much," she said, her voice husky as her eyes roamed over his body. To Zaeed's surprise, he was relaxed and comfortable under her gaze. Confidently, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close, until they lay chest to chest, skin against skin. He kissed her again, deeply, feeling as if he could never get enough.

He could have stayed for hours just like that, feeling the warmth of her body and the wonder of her kisses. Shepard, however, was in a less patient mood.

When she first wrapped her hand around his length, he almost hit the ceiling. He hadn't noticed her movement, and the shock of the contact made him shout a curse and buck his hips. Christ, it was good to have her touch him there. She made a few lazy strokes, her thumb caressing the tip, before she pushed him over on to his back and hovered over him, her eyes dancing in the half-light.

"Oh, God, Shepard," Zaeed hissed as she lowered her head and licked his shaft from base to tip. He watched incredulously, brushing her hair away from her face with one hand so he could see himself disappearing into her mouth. It felt indescribable, he thought, this most intimate of connections with someone he… well, respected was far too unsatisfactory a word. His heart fluttered as he searched for the right word, stuttered close to it, fled away.

His head fell back on to the pillow and he lay gasping as he felt the pressure of her lips sliding along his cock, her tongue flicking lightly across the head before she took him deeper again.

"Shepard, if you don't stop…"

"Mmm," she said, not stopping. She gazed up at him and he almost fell apart at the look on her face. At just how much she was enjoying doing this to him. She began to stroke his balls with her hand as her mouth continued its ministrations.

"Oh, Shepard, fuck," he said, desperation in his voice as his body arched into her, feeling the familiar tension in his groin.

Then there were only curse words, and exploding stars as he came. She wrapped her lips around him and held him in her mouth, her eyes on his. He could barely catch breath, his body loose-limbed and relaxed in the afterglow of the best orgasm he had experienced for a long time.

For a moment Zaeed couldn't move, swept away in the physical sensation of his climax, but also overwhelmed by what he felt for the woman who now lay beside him, fingers tracing lazy circles on his chest.

He lifted her hand to his mouth, kissed her fingertips.

"You're amazing," he said, simply. He had never been inclined towards compliments and words but lying here now, gazing down at Shepard looking more beautiful than he thought he had ever seen her, he couldn't help himself.

"Not so shabby yourself, Massani," she smiled up at him, her features open and calm.

"Haven't even done anything yet, Shepard," he said, feeling her huff a quiet laugh in his arms.

"Then why don't you put that right?" she said, rolling her body so that her breasts rubbed against his chest, making him growl with renewed desire.

Zaeed cupped her breasts as he kissed her, gently pinching her nipples between his fingers. Shepard moaned and arched her back as he moved his lips to her neck, planting open-mouthed kisses on her scented skin. He kissed his way down her body until he reached her breasts, taking first one and then the other into his mouth and suckling softly. She rewarded him with more quiet cries, sending shivers through his body.

He moved lower and hooked his fingers into the waistband of the white lace panties she still wore, tugging them down her legs. When he found them soaked, he couldn't suppress a groan.

Shepard heard him and gave him a wicked smile. "For you, Zaeed."

Christ, he thought, she was going to kill him. He'd survived a gunshot to the head, and he was gonna die right here from pure, mind-blowing need for a woman. Hell of an epitaph, he smiled inwardly.

Zaeed lifted one of her legs and began – oh so slowly - to press butterfly kisses from her ankle towards her thigh. She whined and shivered beneath him, her hips wriggling in desperation. When he finally ran his tongue along her slit, she lifted her whole body up off the bed, crying out his name.

He steadied her with hands on hips as he settled between her thighs and began to run his lips and tongue over her, suckling at her clit. He was stunned at how turned on she was, her breathy little gasps the soundtrack to the taste of her, the incredible wetness of her sex. He couldn't get enough.

If she noticed he was out of practice, it certainly didn't show. She seemed to be loving every touch, every contact he made with her. He had never been with such a responsive woman, her body writhing and trembling, the sounds she was making shooting straight to his cock. He was already half hard again, imagining what it would feel like to be buried inside her. Knowing that before the night was out, it would be a memory and not a fantasy.

Zaeed had two fingers inside her now, curling them and pumping in and out of her while his tongue concentrated on her clit. The noises she made were getting louder and she was almost out of control; he had to hold her still more than once as she wriggled away from his mouth.

Shepard suddenly clamped her thighs around his head and screamed. He felt her whole body shudder violently and a rush of wetness on his fingers as she climaxed, loud and intense. She collapsed on the bed, gasping and shaking, as he rolled over beside her.

"Was that good, then, Shepard?" he asked, a slight grin on his features.

"Fucking hell, Zaeed. You'd been holding out on me. If I'd known you could do that…" she said, breathlessly.

Zaeed felt an odd rush of pride as he looked down at her, sated and content, stretching out on the bed like a tigress.

"So," Shepard said, raising one eyebrow. "You gonna fuck me, Massani, or what?"

He didn't need asking twice.

Nothing in the world compared to the feeling of being inside her, he thought as he slid into her wetness. She was so hot and tight, and if he hadn't already come once he thought he would probably have lasted mere seconds. He said her name, she groaned, and they held still for a heartbeat, looking into each other's eyes and savouring the intimacy of the moment.

When he started moving - slow and deliberate - and she began to whimper, he almost passed out with the wonder of it. My god, he thought, it's never felt like this. Never.

Shepard wrapped her legs around his waist and urged him deeper, faster. They were both so turned on, so sensitive that he knew it would not last long, but he knew also that this would be the best he had ever felt, the night he would always remember until the end of times. Every second was delicious torture, his skin alive and tingling, his mind hyper-aware of every little detail. The sweat running down his brow, the way her fingernails felt digging into his back, the redness of her lips, the way she smelled.

They rocked together, still looking into each other's eyes, seeing desire and lust but also warmth and affection. He felt his chest constrict as he gazed at Shepard, this strong, tough, beautiful soldier who was, quite possibly, all he could ever want in a woman. Who wanted him, too. For the first time, he didn't feel uncertain. He thought, with some degree of shock, that he actually felt desirable again. And it was exhilarating.

"Zaeed," she breathed, curling into his shoulder and biting into his skin gently as her body shook. He felt her walls constrict, clamping down on him as she tipped into her second orgasm of the night, quieter this time but just as intense. The feeling of her tightening around him was enough to send him over the edge, gasping and murmuring her name as he came inside her.

They didn't speak for a long time afterwards. He curled her hair around his fingers, she stroked his chest in slow, dragging motions. They lay close together, skin against skin, breathing deeply. It felt easy, he thought, as if they both belonged here.

Christ, Massani, you're getting soft in your old age.

Don't give a fuck, he answered himself mentally. Just look at her.

You have a point.

When she turned to him and asked him to stay, he held her tight and kissed her hard.