AN: Guys, I was so absolutely thrilled about every single one of your reviews and comments. Wow! Seriously! I'm absolutely blown away and so very floored that you enjoyed that last chapter the way you did!

And now, while the following is a very different kind of emotive than the last, it's very much still M.

Ninth Hour

So, while their clothes had been long lost in the past two hours, one by one, as he'd started peeling them from her in the most intoxicating ways, only to replace them with his lips and hands and teeth, and they'd gasped and come and come again, like it was only ever possible when you're drunk on adrenaline and hormones and firsts…

Their conversation hadn't exactly stopped for that.

"I'm surprised you still wanted to…" he'd breathed down her neck, as they'd just come down from a high but hissed the air through her teeth, when he again found that spot at the juncture of her shoulder, and dipped his tongue into her collar bone.

Her mind was fuzzy, and she was utterly confused for a moment. "What? Why?" she gasped, pushing back against him and he groaned. And completely ignored the implication of the phrasing 'Still want to', alluding to the fact that he'd most likely been well aware of her hots for him that whole time, and hadn't done fucking anything about it until she made the first step – meaning they could have been doing this for way longer.

"Well, because…. Hahhh."And this time he'd been the one to roll his eyes back in his head, and lose his voice for just a moment, when her hand reached down between them and stroked skin that was firm and hard and slick from use.

"Because…" he tried again, his voice a little too high, too pressed. "Tears aren't particularly sexy."

She'd stopped her movement to throw him a look, and he'd cried out in protest, even when she shook her head slowly, like he was being densest of all. "Oh, you silly man…"

And with a yank at the back of his neck, she'd pressed his lips back against hers, and arched into him, but not too much, because they only had two condoms left and needed to make this last, her legs curling around him as if they belonged, and her hand picked up where it left off and this time it wasn't his tongue at her collar bone, but his teeth.

Or much later, when she was coming, crying, and he whispered in her ear, hoarsely, harshly, out of breath,

"So, is this better than your half-a-one-night-stand?"

He flicked his fingers inside her, and she gasped.

"It counted," she ground out, defiantly.

"How long were you… with that guy… afterwards?" He murmured against her skin, broken up when his tongue dipped into her navel and his fingers curled and she cried out.

"About… a… year… almost," she moaned. Speaking was the most difficult task in the world, how had she never known that?

He chuckled."That wasn't a one night stand, love. That was sex on the first date."

"But it wasn't meant … uh… uugggn," she broke off, with a guttural groan, when he entered her in one stroke, and his face was in front of her again, the ends of his hair tickling her forehead and cheeks, and those midnight blue eyes drank her in as she trembled, and he started moving.

"Doesn't count," he said, again, and she could only nod anymore.

Or even later still, when that soft mob of inky satin hair was between her legs, and his hands dug into her thighs to keep her from writhing too hard, and her toes curled, and her head fell back against the cold elevator wall with a painful thud, because his teeth and tongue had found a rhythm that made her chant his name and wail and cry, as he made her recite the names and traits and habits of all the people whom she'd ever been with, and every love she'd known in life, and every deep connection she'd ever had that he envied her for so, and what they'd meant to her.

And although her mind was a tumbled mess and she couldn't think, she howled it all out, because he'd flick his tongue into her every time she gave a detail, but would stop every time she didn't talk, and so she garbled on like a screaming, crying person on confession, not making a lot of sense in this most exquisite of tortures, but it was the most intense orgasm she'd ever had.

Or now, when she lay sprawled against him, head pillowed by his chest, and they both heaved in the aftermath and it felt like a soft, safe, wanted cocoon, and he whispered things into her ear that made her giggle, and other things that worried him… more things she knew he'd never told a soul, and it made her heart ache and swell at the same time.

And things that made her fear tomorrow, because she never wanted this to end, but she felt it, the fatigue in her bones, the burning behind her eyes that even hormones and adrenaline couldn't keep back.

And she panicked, and even if her own eyes were burning, she grabbed at his arm, and flew startled eyes at him, because he'd yawned, again, and she asked him to tell her everything, anything.

"Little things. About you," she said, a little breathless.

He smiled at her, then looked back at the dark, shadowy ceiling, with his arm under his head, thinking.

"I like to keep my place clean. I have a green thumb," he said, with a flinch, and an apologetic smile, as if to say, 'there's not much more to me, really, what can I say?' and she lifted herself up on her elbows, still cuddled to his side, to get a better look at him.

He shrugged, a little lost. "I can cook?"

"Mmmmhhh," she purred, eyes wide and exited. "Tell me more."

He chuckled, eyes glinting, as he lifted that one, very enticing eyebrow at her, and with a jolt, he moved, rolling her, turning her over so he was back on top of her, smirking, and she shivered.

His voice was back to that husky lull, when he brought his face as close to hers as he could without touching it with his.

"I played the Prince in a Snow White play once. Voluntarily," he whispered, smirking.

She giggled. "More, more!"

He chuckled again, voice rumbling in that delicious, sexy way, and he brought his lips to her ear, as he hovered above her. "I share my umbrella with old ladies. I visit an abandoned house from time to time just to feed the stray cats there," he whispered, voice seductive and so, so amused. "I own a tux and look fabulous in it."

She shuddered, even as she laughed, and grabbed at his arms and hips, digging her fingers into the hard planes of soft skin. "More," she breathed.

And his lips traveled, kissed behind her ear, her throat, when he continued, whispering. "I write Haiku for fun."

And she moaned, when his tongue dipped into the shell of her ear.

It was later, when her head was back on his chest, and his arm was tightly wrapped around her shoulders, that he said something that made her fear the morning again, which came faster than she'd ever wanted in her life, and was already long here, she guessed.

"I was asked a while ago, at a party – well more of a celebration, really, my study group –" he whispered, when she'd almost fallen asleep, and broke off and shook his head, "unimportant. Anyway, I was asked when I had a last 'first'. You know, first anything."

She smiled.

"I had no answer, then. But…" he trailed off.

"I had a damn lot of firsts tonight," he said.

She swallowed. "'Firsts are best because they are beginnings,'" she quoted in a whisper, cheek against his chest, without the accompanying blush she would usually sport when quoting Young Adult romance novels, but she felt he knew her now, and she didn't need to worry anymore.

He inhaled deeply, and when she craned her neck a little to look at his face, he gave her a look that suddenly looked vulnerable, again, and she leaned up to look him in the eye.

"I had a lot of firsts, too, tonight," she whispered.

He smiled, and then it turned into a smirk. The one that made her shiver, as he dove upward, once more, and found her lips again, and she fell back against the wall with a thud and a sigh.

And god, it felt good, so good, his lips, tiny sweet kisses, at her temple, her nose, her forehead, and she closed her eyes and dug her hands into his upper arms as he continued the soft caresses, with a murmured name that wasn't quite hers, but should be.

"Usako," he whispered. Lips warm and soft and clenching her heart because she wanted to keep this. She wanted to keep him.

But sleep called to her, wanting to drag her away, and for the first time she was not mad at what kept her awake but what caused her to fall, but then she found his hands, warm and strong, moving her, and her throat constricted, when she realized what he was doing.

He had started to dress her.

Slipped that soft, too old, stretchy, pale pink, cotton bra back over her arms, embraced her as if in a hug to fasten it around her, and she let her head fall into the crook of his neck and breathed in his scent and let her eyes drift shut.

AN: As always, my eternal thanks to UglyGreenJacket for beta'ing my speed writing without batting an eyelash!

It's basically tradition by now that next to last chapters are the hardest to write for me, and it's, of course, been the same again here, for me. Sooo… I do hope you like it, and the last chapter is coming very soon, as well!

Please let me know what you think!