(A/N: This chapter is for Amelle Kyre, because I mentioned to her a long time ago that I was considering doing a "smutilogue" - if Jane survived her ordeal - and she said she'd hold me to it! So here it is - well, part 1 of 2, anyway ;)

OOOOO

He woke up to… the strangest sensation.

At first he thought he was still dreaming – then his breath caught in his throat and he knew that he was not.

Jane was… quite clearly… awake already. The hand that had been circling his waist as she'd slept was moving now, fingertips lightly drawing patterns on the skin of his side and back – underneath his clothes. He gasped in a shuddery, hitching breath, and she used her other hand to push his hair back, out of his eyes.

"Hello," she whispered. They were lying face-to-face on the pillow again, just as they had been when she'd awoken the morning after her fever had broken. It wasn't lost on him that her greeting now was the same as it had been then.

"Jane," he gasped. It felt like her fingers were trailing fire. "What are… do you… are you sure –"

She smiled – it was very dark in the room now, but he caught it anyway. They were knights, after all.

Then she silenced him with her lips.

OOOOO

"But are you sure?" he asked again, panting, grating the words out from between clenched teeth. "Jane, this is… you have to… be sure. There is no going back, there is no… undoing this once it is done."

Already they had far surpassed the limits of what they had done in the woods, on the night before the skirmish. And now he was holding himself above her, holding himself very carefully and very still. And Jane understood, though this was all so new to her and she was so swamped by sensation that she was barely capable of coherent thought, that they were right on the cusp of… the next thing.

As Gunther had said, the un-take-backable thing.

But why would she ever want to take it back? Who else would she ever want to give this to? No one. No one on earth but this man. No moment in time but this moment.

He was levered up on his elbows, giving her room to breathe, but other than that they were pressed together, the whole length of their bodies, all clothing long since discarded. This was intimacy beyond anything Jane had ever imagined – he was so warm against her, so vibrant and alive. Hard muscle, taut and trembling in this moment, and yet he was covered (as was she) with a light film of perspiration that made his skin feel like satin as it slid against her own.

And they had already done things that felt so good, so oh-dear-God good – she was in a state of near total sensory overload; it was almost more than she could take.

And yet the final act of consummation beckoned and she understood on a deep, instinctive level that when they took that plunge, everything else they had done would pale to insignificance. She couldn't really comprehend a deeper… closeness… than they had already achieved, but she knew it was waiting for them nevertheless.

And oh God, she wanted it. With him. Always and only with him. The one she would die for. The one who would die for her.

The fact that there was a distinct possibility one of those scenarios could happen at some future time made this moment all the more poignant and bittersweet.

All these thoughts flashed across her consciousness like shooting stars, but she had no idea, really, how to articulate any of it. The best she could do was, "Gunther… yes… I want… I want… all of you."

A half-smile quirked his lips… but it didn't touch his eyes. Those remarkable grey eyes were very, very serious.

"Jane, I could walk away right now and never see you again and you would still have all of me, until the day I die. That was a done deal long ago. I am yours, all yours, whether we do this or not… and you have to be sure."

She gulped in a deep breath, tried to ground herself. "I am… more sure than… I have ever been," she managed at last. "Please, Gunther, I… I need this."

His arms had been braced on either side of her head but he shifted now, pressing one hand to the side of her face and running the other down, along the side of her body – and God, her nerve-endings were on fire – to gently grasp her hip, steadying her against him.

His lips were actually moving against hers as he murmured, "I love you more than anything, Jane. Anything."

"Not more than I love you," she said with absolute certainty.

He started to reply – well, to argue, in point of fact – and at a moment like this! How perfectly in character was that? But Jane was done speaking.

Operating purely on instinct now, she wrapped her legs around him, locking her ankles at his waist, simultaneously sealing her lips to his and very effectively cutting off whatever it was he'd been about to say.

He groaned, and then he was moving against her, he was moving… into her, and filling her in a way she had never even dreamed was possible… and then finally, she truly understood what total contact actually was.