Jane doesn't remember how it started. Maura said something. It'd been an awful case. Kids. She hated the ones with kids.

And Maura brought her home with and they drank wine and sat curled up together on the couch and Maura was so soft and so sweet and Jane was a little drunk and Maura was leaning in with one of those simmering looks she gave Jane, like she wanted to kiss her.

So fuck it. Why not kiss her? She'd earned it, the way she put up with Jane, the way she never minded her family taking over her life. She'd more than earned it, the way she gave Jane everything she needed from her. And maybe Jane needed this a little too.

So fuck it.

That's the last thing Jane remembers thinking as she grasps the collar of Maura's stylish dark blue shirt, hooking her fingers in the fabric and bringing Maura's face close, the hazel eyes soft and curious and landing on Jane's mouth as her own adjusts for the collision course Jane has set.

The next thing she knows is Maura's hands under her shirt, burning hot. Her fingers pressing through Jane's bra, sliding down the back of Jane's pants. Jane still has one hand cupping Maura's cheek because she hadn't quite expected this, but a moment later Maura has thrown her down on the bed (Jane wonders later how they got to the bedroom. There were stairs involved. She doesn't remember any stairs, just the little moans from Maura's mouth, the way she palmed Jane through her slacks, her teeth on Jane's bottom lip. The warmth of her thighs under her skirt, the softness of the breasts she'd touched before under much different circumstances. The darkness of Maura's eyes when she pulled back to breathe, descending again on Jane's mouth as though breathing was irrelevant. The frustrated little huff into Jane's mouth when she hesitated at the edge of lace, then the sigh as Jane's hand covered her. The way the nipples under the lace hardened with want. Stairs don't come into it at all.)

Jane assumed she'd be the dominant one. The one in charge. But Maura throws her on the bed as though her weight is inconsequential and climbs on top of her, straddles her like she's desperate for the contact, her skirt riding up. The wine is coursing through Jane's veins but she's in complete control, and she lets Maura gyrate atop her. Helps Maura with Jane's buttons, and then Maura's, fingers trembling quickly against the cloth, against the flesh beneath.

And Maura lets Jane touch her. The lace of her bra exposed, her tight abdominals clench under Jane's fingers before Maura pins Jane again, kisses her hard, moving against her like the tide, an unmistakable rhythm, one Jane matches, fingers questing between them, finding the source of Maura's neediness and quelling it.

She assumes, once Maura flops against her, boneless and shaking, that that's the end of that. But Maura gives Jane a wicked grin and kisses her way up Jane's bare chest, up her exposed sternum, making pitstops on her way to to kiss Jane so tenderly that the healed wounds in her hands throb from the sweetness of her. Maura had been hard and fast, and now she's soft and slow, liquid and languid. As though she can take her time, now she's taken the edge off. As though she'd like to take her time with Jane. And she does, her head lowering, lips pressing against where a scalpel once pressed, where a flare rested on her chest. Of equal attention are her nipples, painfully hard against Maura's soft tongue. It's almost a relief, when Maura's teeth close around one, Jane arching up against Maura in exquisite ecstasy. She hadn't known it could be like this, that she could be suspended at a touch like this. And Maura's touch, when it finally comes, is the kind of exact, precise movement Jane would expect from her. No flailing, no exploring, no hesitancy - just exactly what Jane needs, exactly where she needs it until she clings - almost sobbing her breaths - to Maura, who kisses her hair and makes soothing little noises, the exact same way she does after Jane has a nightmare. When Jane drops, exhausted, back to the satin sheets, Maura kisses her again, and Jane feels the pull of her from somewhere so deep within that it almost physically hurts not to press against her. So she does, and Maura does, and they move together like they were made for this.

Maura has all sorts of things she likes in bed, and she shows Jane at least seven more, and Jane quite likes them too. She knows all sorts of things now - the way Maura falls apart when Jane nibbles on her neck, how to spank Maura without hurting her, how to curl her fingers just so, beckoning Maura to come on command. She falls asleep with the taste of Maura on her lips, and Maura's head on her chest.

When she wakes, Maura is partially beneath her. Their bones are entwined like an ancient burial.

"You're still here?" Maura mumbles, and Jane's heart catches, then releases. She scampers out of the bed like she's been burned. Maura didn't want this. She doesn't want Jane. She expected Jane to leave, for this to be a one night stand. She hadn't expected to have the awkward morning conversation she's probably already putting together in her head. One that includes the words 'friendship' and 'mistake' and 'men'.

And of course that's what Jane wants too, isn't it? Just a quick little jaunt in the sheets. Get at least one woman under her belt for all the times she got called a dyke. Then go back to being best friends. Best friends who like men and not each other.

Maura is sitting up, wide eyed, face and chest bared to the morning light that catches her hair, makes her glow a little. Her bare breast is creamy white and perfectly resisting gravity. Jane wants to cup the curve of it, to hold it to her mouth again. She wants to trace the hipbone that's escaped the sheets with her fingertips and follow it with her lips. Jane looks away from the curves of Maura's exposed body to meet her eyes, then looks away, ashamed for ever imagining Maura might want her. She slinks off into the bathroom to dress, and Maura doesn't call her back.

She makes it out of the house without interception, and she avoids the morgue like a - well, like a morgue. Maura is polite, as always, when they work together, but she's subdued somehow. As though she's worried Jane wants more from her than Jane has already taken. And Jane had taken so much, gorged herself on what she could get when she could, knowing Maura would never invite Jane - useless, scrawny Jane who doesn't know what to do with a woman like Maura - back into her bed.

Jane never once considers that Maura stating she was still there was because she couldn't believe that Jane wanted more than a single night. That Jane had been brave enough to stay. It never once occurs to her that Maura had been relieved to find Jane still in her bed.

After all, Jane was just somebody she fucked once.

Notes:

This is the most explicit chapter. Rated M for swears and the situations.