"I want you to be everything that's you, deep at the center of your being."

Confucius

As July had become August, so we found September. Red's birthday was met with no little fanfare. We rung in her twentieth year in celebration, welcoming her deeper into our Pack and Tribe. Even Old Mrs. Altera had made an appearance, puffing hard on her pipe and making handsy advances on Quill and Embry. It was a testament to her age that she'd seemed to forget Quill was her great-grandson. He looked entirely mortified.

It was well into nightfall by the time we stumbled our way back to the cabin. Half the Pack had lingered behind, dancing around the quieting bonfire. Red stopped short in the kitchen doorway, causing me to smack against her back. I caught her before she fell and laugh. "What are you doing, Birthday girl?"

Twisting her neck, she looked up at me. "Where the hell is the counter top?" She asked bluntly, instead of replying. She turned in my arms, looking up at me with accusatory eyes.

I flushed. "I uh...I'm replacing it." I'd forgotten I'd taken the counter top of the island, leaving it open and gaping.

"Oh." Red blinked, tugging herself free. She eyeballed the half dismantled island with a disgruntled expression, cheeks flushing. "But it had so many... memories."

Sex. She was talking about sex. Red did not talk about sex. Since the leech's death, there had been no mention of sex, current, past, present or otherwise. It had been months, two to be exact, but I was a patient man. For her at least. I didn't know what was up; was it because she wanted to try 'dating', or because the pack-mind still freaked her our? Or the scent thing, was she still upset about that? Or maybe my ridiculously cocky bedroom attitude had freaked her out (it freaked me out, to be sure). I didn't know. I didn't know how to bring it up without sounding like an asshole, so I didn't bring it up at all.

"Yeah. It's kind of hard to eat lunch with my guys off the damn thing when all I can think about is how much I'd rather be eating yo...yeah. Um." I blinked, shifting awkwardly. "Anyway, I'm thinking about turning it into a headboard for my bed."

It startled a laugh out of her, mouth curving up into a smile. "We'll that's certainly more appropriate. Pervert." Slapping me in the stomach, Red hitched herself up on one of the bar stools. Her cheeks were pink and I knew she was embarrassed. Looking up at me through her lashes, she gave me a nervous, half smile. "Well, what are you going to do about your couch?"

Blinking, I frowned. "We haven't had sex on the couch." We hadn't had sex on anything that wasn't the counter or the bed, mournfully. We traded kisses, shallow and wet, but never quite enough. We slept together, her curled up against my stomach, legs tangled into mine. For fucks sake, we cuddled. But we did not have sex. On the couch, or other wise. I would remember, I was sure of it. At this rate, I would have settled for a blow job, but I didn't know how to ask for that either, and frankly, I was pretty sure it would have freaked Red out. She'd never done it before, after all.

"Um. Exactly." She blushed deeper, shrinking in on herself slightly.

My palms went instantly clammy. Was she...? I was damn hard to tell with Red sometimes. "Are you...I mean. Are you...uh. Propositioning me?"

"Jesus Christ," she hissed through her teeth, clenching her eyes shit and running a palm down her face. "I'm trying to Sam. You're not making it easy! Fuck. This is just...I'm not good at this. I don't do this. Dammit, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... I mean, you haven't said you want-"

"Oh I want." I cut her off, grabbing her frantic hands in mind. "Seriously, I want. I just...you wanted to date, and you didn't say and I didn't want to sound like a dick so I didn't ask, but Christ, yes, I want."

"So." She blinked and licked her lips. "So are we...I mean. Are we?"

"Um." I hesitated; without the buffer of alcohol or anger, we were awkward. "I mean...do you...is that what you want?" Scratching at the back of my neck, I shuffled in the kitchen, close enough to touch her but completely baffled as to where I went from there. "I mean, I think I uh...cleared up any questions on what I want."

She blushed, pink steeling over her cheeks. "Well I...when I said we should date and stuff, I didn't think we wouldn't...um. Have sex. But you didn't-"

"We've already cleared that up," I cut her off firmly. "I want you. Like...badly."

Red sighed, looking up at me with a face of distaste. The was the exact face she made every time she was forced to talk about her feelings. "Look. I mean, I'm pretty sure you're aware I've come into this relationship with some uh...you know." She snorted, waving her hand flippantly. "Baggage. And I'm really trying not to have like, a hundred and seventy-eight hang ups a day, but I've got to put this out there. Sex is kind of...one of those hang ups."

"Red." I deflated, feeling like an ass for pressuring her. Obviously she wasn't ready for this. And if she felt like she had to give it up for...for whatever reasons, I felt worse. It was kind of a boner killer, but all things considered, that probably wasn't a bad thing.

"It's not what you think. It's just that he uh...Him. Edward. He was very adamant that we not have sex." I growled, and she laughed. "Yeah, yeah. You already know I didn't have sex with him. Anyway, he shot me down a lot. And rationally, I understand why. But...but emotionally, that shit gets hard on a girl after a while. Rejection is not fun for one's psyche. Repetitive refection is a giant mind fuck."

"I want you."

A smile curled at the corner of her mouths. "Yeah, you cleared that up."

Reaching out, I took her hand, letting our laced fingers hang between us."What do you want? I mean, if you're not ready, Red, I can wai-"

"I'm twenty!" She threw her hands up. "I am more than ready for sex, okay? Been ready for a while. God, I use to throw myself at him." Another growl, and she laughed. "You and I've been together for...well, shit. Not that long, but it feels like forever. I mean, with everything we've been through. And we've already had sex! It's not like this would be our first time. So yes. Yes, I'd like to be having sex with my boyfriend sometime in the relevant future. I was starting to feel like you just weren't-" She flushed, words falling short.

Boyfriend. She'd never called me her boyfriend before.

It dawned on me belatedly that I'd made her believe I wasn't interested in her. "Cleared that up. Red, I told you the next day that I was very much interested in having sex again. In fact, to quote, I think I said 'I don't want to stop having sex, Red'." Not that I really wanted to remind her of that conversation; I didn't want to intentionally put her off any possible bedroom time.

Her mouth fell open, eyebrows rising comically. "Yes but then didn't make a move!"

"I didn't know I should!" And the imprint was hardly any help, the simple and constant desire to be as close as humanly possible thrumming beneath my skin at every moment. I could hardly tell what was her needs and what was mine. It occurred to me then, that maybe our needs were one in the same.

"Are you fucking kidding me? I stay here like, three nights a week. I sleep in your bed," she said frankly. "In practically nothing. I walk around your house in nothing but your shirts, or towels! Which, as often as the Pack drops by, is like taking a huge risk. I know for a fact Paul saw my ass this morning when he barged in here while I was cleaning out the fridge. I haven't worn underwear in a week!"

"...you're not wearing any underwear?" Boner renewed. Really, what more could be expected? I was a man and a wolf, and very, very hard up. The idea that she'd been waiting for me to fucking jump her was hot. "Paul saw you naked!"

"Just my butt. You flashed him a hell of a lot more than that in your stupid head." She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed. She was flushed as red as her unzipped jacket, straight down her chest. "This is stupid. Are we on the same page now, Sam?"

"We uh...we both want to have sex?"

"Preferably with each other. Although, Paul seemed to like what he saw..."

I growled at that too, and against she laughed. "Sex. With each other. Now."

"I love it when you go all cave man on me baby." She squealed as I hauled her up off the bar stool and over my shoulder. "Sam!"

"Pick a flat fucking surface," I all but snarled. "Horizontal, vertical. Doesn't matter. Bed. Couch. Floor. Wall. Door."

In the end, the decision was made for us. After all, the floor was just closer. I pulled my shirt over my head, stomach muscles twitching as she trailed her fingers nervously down my abs, thumbing at the button of my jeans. The cold linoleum bit at my knees as I pushed her jacket off her shoulders, throwing it over my head. "Naked."

"Is that a...a verb," she laughed as I pulled the neckline of her shirt aside to nip at her collar bone. "Or an adjective?"

"Demand," I grunted, yanking at her jeans. Kneeling as I was, between her legs, they caught around her thighs, calves pressed awkwardly against my hips. "Fuck! How did...how did we end up naked the first two times?" Honestly, that part of the memories of our previous encounters was entirely blank to me.

"Uh...let me...here, like this." Shimming up the floor, she wiggled them past her knees, letting me haul them off upwards. I dropped them carelessly behind me, one of her ankles catching on my shoulder. With her other leg bent and tucked against my hip, Red flushed, knees slamming shut almost instinctively.

"You're nervous," I murmured, curling my fingers her shin and pressing a kiss against her ankle. She gave me a jittery smile, fingers toying at the hem of her thin shirt.

"No buffer," Red replied, with a half-laugh. "We're not drunk. We're not angry. It's just...just us."

I let her leg to, leaning forward to nudge her knees apart. Sliding my hands beneath her thighs, I cupped the back of her knees, holding them tight against my sides. "That's a good thing."

"We're laying on the kitchen floor half naked with the lights on." Her lashes fluttered as she worried her lip between her teeth.

Narrowing my eyes, I pressed myself forward, pinning her beneath my stomach. She was covered in me, legs moving up to wrap tight around my waist. Her body lost half it's tension instantly, and suddenly I knew the problem here. "You don't want me to see you naked!"

She flushed guiltily, chin tucked to her chest. "It's awkward. I mean. This. You and me like this, it's awkward." Looking away, she pushed her hair from her face. "And I mean, you're like...you've seen you! You know what you look like. Ugh. I'm sorry, I'm having a girl moment. I'm just...I know what I look like."

"It wasn't awkward before," I reminded her, but I understood. "And Red, you're beautiful. I've seen you naked, and I have zero complaints. What's the problem?"

"You know what I mean," she murmured, as I nudged her face to the left so I could kiss her jaw. "I don't know how to proceed."

Snorting against her jaw, I nipped her. "Just go with it. It'll work itself out."

"I've never done this before." She wriggled beneath me, hooking her fingers into my belt loops. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"You've done this twice." I slipped my hand into her hair, tugging gently to expose more next. "Looked like you had a pretty damn good idea. I know, I was there." I still remembered the way she arched her back up off the counter top, thighs clenching tight around my hips, and that had been the first time. Red might not have known what she was doing, but her body did.

She sighed, and gave me a long-suffering look. "I meant before you, I'd never done anything. Nothing. Other then Edward, I'd never even kissed any one. I've kissed two people in my whole life! You know that. It's just...this is still all new to me." With a suddenly shrewd look, Red frowned at me. "How many people have you slept with?"

I'm shamed to admit I froze, and felt my eyes go wide. "This is kind of...a horrible time to ask that."

Her eyes narrowed, palm flattening against my bare stomach as if to push me away. She didn't, but it was still felt. "We're a couple. Couples are suppose to talk about that shit. How many people have you slept with Sam?"

Dropping my upper-weight to my forearms, I sighed. "Nine-ish."

She blinked, mouth pulling tight. "Nine-ish?"

"I've slept with nine," I elaborated. "But I've fooled around with a...a few more. Not a lot."

"Nine!" She barked at me, scowling. "Nine is a lot more than my zero."

Feeling the sting of her words, I pulled back to move away, but her fingers tightened in my belt loop. "Your one. And it was before you. Way before you. It's like, nine in...in nine years." I was pretty sure I lost my virginity at sixteen anyway, but sixteen was an entire world away now. It almost didn't seem real.

She melted a little beneath me, but the frown didn't leave. "That's not so bad. Any one I know."

No part of me wanted to tell her I'd slept with Leah. It had only happened once, way before phasing, when we were young, dumb kids. She'd been younger then me, sixteen to my nineteen, and it had been awkward as soon as it was over. I never quite knew when we put it behind us, after Emily maybe. I'd been a different person after all, inside and out. My silence was answer enough, and I pulled away again, only to find her free hand in my hair.

"I don't really want to know," she said with a soft sigh. "I don't know why I'm pushing this. Sorry. I ruined everything."

"No, no. Nothings ruined. You're right, you have ever right to ask. But..." I felt myself flush inwardly, irrationally embarrassed about what I was going to admit. I was possibly more embarrassed that I was embarrassed at all, then the admission itself, if that made any sense. "I haven't been with any one since I met you. Well, since that night, when I picked you up on the road."

"Really?"

"Really. I don't know. Things were different after I met you." I knew. I fucking knew. She had all the facts, I thought, but the bigger picture was yet to be painted. How much could I tell her before I just told her?

Red tugged me down, kissing me softly. "Now I feel even worse, holding out on you."

"Pff," I huffed, pressing our foreheads together. "Apparently I was the one holding out on you. Try to be a gentlemen and shit, this is where it gets me."

"Moment's totally ruined."

"Are you sure?" I asked, curious and hopeful. I certainly didn't think the moment had to be ruined. Hell, just the warm, damp, naked juncture between her legs pressed tight against the front of my jeans was more than enough to renew my interests. Way more than enough.

"Kind of." She flushed apologetic. "Sorry. I just...feels weird. Even more awkward. I'm sorry. God. I suck. Not even in like...the fun kind of way." Her face burst with a new wave of red. "Christ. I'm sorry. I can't even-." She giggled nervously, and the giggles gave way to full on, slightly-hysterical laughs. "Fuck. Sorry. I'm sorry. It's not funny, I know, I just-"

I kept my sigh in check, and scooped her up off the floor, keeping her body up against mine. Carrying her to the living room, I pulled us to the couch, letting her body sprawl across mine, my hands resting gently on the small of her back. She shook with her laughter, body vibrating against mine, and hell, if that's all I got, I wouldn't complain.

Red got herself in check, chin propped on my chest. "Want to make out?" She asked, with a consoling tone.

So we made out; hard, wet, open mouthed kisses, her little body grinding down on mine, legs spreading to straddle my hips. As it would turn out, the dissipated mood? Not all that hard to rekindle.

tbc