LIGHT OF DAY BY BIBLIO

JACK

“You’ve already apologised, Jack.  Your apology was accepted.  Please don’t – it’s over now.”

Soft voice.  Soothing words.  Hesitant eyes.  Nervous stance.

Over?  Over for Daniel, who doesn’t want to fight about it.  Only me, only Daniel, doesn’t matter, let it go, Jack, let it go.  Closed the iris in that Nazi fucker’s face and I still can’t let it go.

Not sure what to do with his slender, beautiful, capable hands so he holds on to the beer he hasn’t tasted.  Not sure what to do with me?  Why is he in my house when he just wanted to go home and forget about what I did to him today, lose himself in the safe, clean unhurtful world of his books.  Why am I standing so close?  Closer.  Why am I taking the beer from him?  Stroking a finger, my trigger finger, used it so well today, on Euronda; putting it to better use now, stroking along his cheekbone.  Christ, he’s ivory and silk.  Smoothing these coveting fingers over temple, cheek, jaw, skimming over his luscious lips, cradling the warmth of his throat in this hand.  Feeling his pulse spiking against this wrist.

Want more.  Need more.

Stunning eyes, clear and summer-sky warm.  A little fearful.  The warmth of skin for one greedy hand, cloud-soft golden brown hair for the other.

Intimacy is what I crave.  Daniel.  Sweet with trust and so very, very beautiful.  Feels like I’m falling away from the world and into him.  Cradling hand pulling him to me, eyes fixed on his widening ones; he’s still not sure why and what, still trusting.  My lips brush against his, a moment.  Irrevocable step, this.  No going back.

Necessary, like breathing.  That’s what he is to me now.  That’s why I’m falling into him, his tender lips parting beneath my gently insistent ones.  I feel him rock on his feet as my tongue glides over his, as I moan unmistakable desire.  We’re both shaking as my hands stroke down his back and press him close.  Clutch.  Some urgency there.  Too much?

Daniel, gasping as he feels the reality of my desire; white hot, diamond hard, straining into him compulsively.

Drowning in Daniel, here.  Lost in the moment, lost in him.  He takes a step away from me.  I lean into him, turn him into my shoulder, ease him back over my iron-taut, cradling arms.  His arm flung around my shoulders for balance.  Fingers fluttering nervously on my arm, my shoulder, throat.  I lose myself in the ravenous stroking of tongue on tongue and slick, cold enamel.  In his sweet, giving lips.

Daniel’s own fearful passion, clutching fingers, a whimper of need and recognition and he’s lost in my arms.  Filling me up.  My heart.  Labouring, breaking, love bursting through and spilling over, always finding its way.  Audacious.  Tenacious.

I’m in love with this beautiful, gentle, generous man clasped in my arms, kissing me so desperately, sobbing for breath.  Need and passion lingering as I ease back; calming, soothing.  Finally freeing him.

Free to stand close, breathing hard, eyes closed, temple to temple.

Daniel’s hand on my shoulder.  Shaking fingers touching me on his lips.  His eyes are naked.  Clouded.

Devastated.

Trembling pitiably.  Stepping away.  I reach out and he stumbles away, fast.

“No, Jack.  No.”

A final aching look, and he leaves me.

Two events that stand out in my life, that changed everything I thought I knew, everything I felt, everything I was.  The death of my son.  Kissing Daniel.  Strange that the love I lost with my child brought me to Daniel, and then my own wilful need for Daniel’s love drove him away.

I can’t help this.  I’ve tried, God, I’ve tried.  I’m not strong enough to let him leave me, to let him leave the team.  Anything he gives freely I take.  I take.  Lash out at him.  Vent.  Afraid to be near him.  Can’t be away from him.  I can’t have him in my bed, but I have this.  I can watch over him in his.

The same, always the same; every rare, precious time after that first time.  Still ashamed about what I did.  I picked the lock.  Sat here by his side and scared the living hell out of him.  For a moment there was no trust, only fear.  I know what I was feeling, so I can guess what he was seeing.  Daniel being Daniel, the fear was for me.  He won’t indulge me with pity.

I pitied and loathed myself for what was said and done in that closed room in the Infirmary, what I said and what Carter heard.  Two different things.  Hadn’t the heart or the strength to correct her.  She’d been through so much already and I – I thought of him and only him, and let it be.

I have his key now.  He understands this terrible compulsion to be with him, to be at his side in the darkness.  Always in darkness, so I can talk and he can listen, and if it’s really bad, he’ll hold me.  Let me sleep on the bed next to him.  Not in, not with.  Just near.  Comforting, as much as being a breath away and worlds apart from the man you love is comfort.  He offers.  I take.  I leave him in darkness.

The world thinks I’m hopelessly in love.  The world is right.  Every ebb and flow of that love is played out for the world to see.  If they only had eyes to see.  Only Carter sees, and she does pity.  I never used the word love, and eventually that sharp mind of hers focused, sifted, analysed.  Concluded.  She won’t allow herself to be pitied, and so she pities me.

If only she knew.

I do this every time.  Sit in silence beside him, drinking him in.  Remembering what brought us to this.  Remembering every taste and touch and texture of that kiss.   Remembering nothing as clearly as Daniel’s refusal.  Every time I come here, I hope this will be the night Daniel finally realises he was wrong and lets me love him.  I hope.  Then I wake him and talk.

The sound of my name and a light, caressing touch on my arm is the signal to finally move.  Admit to consciousness.  The spicy scent and nearness of him brought me awake the moment he slipped into the room.  He doesn’t make a noise, but my senses are so attuned to his presence, I know.  I just know.

So many people worried because we don’t seem to be friends anymore, keeping apart, distant, in any situation except where we have no choice but to be together.  We chose to keep that distance at first, but Jack has worked hard to find some balance and I can’t bring myself to refuse him.

I was expecting a visit tonight.  After what happened with Sam, what he had to do to protect the rest of us, I knew he would have to talk.

“Jack,” I say softly.

He smiles, a little tiredly.  “Hey.”

An impossible situation he put us in with one kiss.  He’s my best friend.  I love him.  Someone once told me I loved not wisely but too well.  That’s how I love Jack.  The first true friend I’ve had.  My safe haven, my comfort, my ease.  I almost hated him for stealing that away from me, for being so self-centred, so heedless of what his friendship meant to me.  Couldn’t do it, couldn’t do anything but go on loving him, making it as easy as possible for him, hoping he’d realise he made a mistake in a moment of madness, get past it.  Move on.

Instead he comes here.  He has this.  He’s locked in that moment, that kiss, and I find I can’t deny him this; the cold comfort of wanting, seeing, needing but not being able to touch, to taste, to love.  Not a wall between us; a sheet of glass.

I sit up beside him, cross-legged, comforter hugged up around my bare chest.  It’s cold outside, cold in here.  Jack is coldest of all.  Shivering.  Talking.

He killed Carter.  Without hesitation.  I counter with did his duty, protected us, did the only thing he could have done in those circumstances.  Yadda yadda, he says.  Not shivering, shaking.

“Jack?” I forget the rules, see only my dearly loved friend in need.  He hisses, flinches away from my comforting hand, naked desire and longing heating his eyes in the soft light of the moon.

Oh, it’s enough, more than enough.  He’s – WE’VE suffered enough.

“Jack!  Get in this bed.  NOW.”

Jack is still Jack.  A challenge on his face as he rises smoothly to his feet and slowly undresses, eyes never leaving mine.  A sultry, confident challenge.  And softness tugging at his lips.

A furious blush rips through me as he taunts me, hands slowly easing down those clinging – “Sweats!” I yelp.  A honey-rich chuckle as he strides confidently over to the closet and delves inside.  I close my eyes, unwilling to see him naked, bathed in flattering moonlight.  “You can’t believe your luck so you have to push it?” I ask crisply.  He stands, hands on hips, before me.  Another challenge.  Better be sure you want me, little boy.  Going to get me but good.  He’ll no sooner look, than he’ll touch.  I know that, but still, I lift the covers and invite him into my bed for the first time.

He never plays by the rules.  No predator here.  Cold hands and heart, but voice, lips and eyes are all soft.  No sooner he’ll touch, than he’ll love.  I suffer his arm around my shoulders, not at all sure how that leads within moments to lying down again, cradled in his arms.  Stiffly.  Unaccustomed.  Nervous.

“What would people say if they could see Colonel O’Neill c-cuddled up like this?” I snap.  No.  Not nervous.  Just kidding myself.  Try terrified.

“Lucky bastard.”

“Oh.  J-Jack,” I protest, faintly.  “Hands.”

“Just getting warm.”

“Leg!  Oh - o-oh.”

“You look like YOU need some cuddling up and I’ve never pretended for a second I didn’t want to make love to you. Quit your worryin’.  Spend more time on your bed than in mine, what with mission time and all.  Have I ever laid a finger on you?  Apart from – y’know.”

“It’s not your finger I’m worried about,” I complain darkly, surreptitiously trying to scoot back a few precious inches.  Jack is having none of it.  He’s – he’s snuggling.  Making appreciative, husky noises – okay, growls – deep in his throat.  I’m clasped to a lot of warm, bare, sleekly muscled Jack.  A LOT.  “You looked cold!” I accuse.  “Shaking.  Nerves.”

“I’m still shaking,” Jack says reasonably.  “Desire.  And I’m heating up nicely, thanks.”  He chuckles malevolently.  “You never watch Dracula?  You never heard the rule vampires can’t come into your home and eat you all up if you don’t invite them in?”  He chuckles again.  “Same deal for colonels invited into archaeologists’ beds.”

“One shot deal.” I try for stern but stall at uncertain.  One very large, very warm, very curious hand is reverently mapping every contour of my back.  The other is curved gently over my hip.  Quite still.  But – there.  “You were supposed to be baring your soul,” I protest faintly.

“Not my soul I’m interested in baring,” Jack says wickedly.

The snuggling seems to be more insistent with every moment.  Compulsive even.  Rhythmic.  “Jack!” I gasp, outraged.

“Coming out in sympathy?” Jack growls throatily into my ear.

“Stop having sex with me!  Or at least have the decency to tell me that’s what we’re doing – BEFORE you - you shouldn’t just expect me to work these things out for myself as we go along!” I say indignantly.

“Why not?  I am.”

“You are?  You – you’ve NEVER?” I stammer, quite astonished.  “I thought it was -  well – it - it happens in the military.”  Frequently, if the invitations rolling MY way are anything to go by.  What is it they say?  A little two-handed stress relief?  Although, I have to say, that wasn’t QUITE what was suggested to me by – um – never mind.  Don’t go THERE, Daniel.  Even if ‘never mind’ wanted to.  “You’ve never been stressed?”  What the hell am I talking about?  I’m losing it.  Jack thinks he has a very calming effect on stressed people.  Not on me.  Uh uh.  Quite the opposite effect on me.  Like now.  Quivering, here.

Jack goes very still beside me.  “What the hell are you talking about?  Stressed? Can we stick to the damn point?  I have never had sex with a man.  The only man I’ve ever wanted is you, and the only reason I want you is because I’m passionately in love with you, and that’s what people in love do.  Are we clear?”

“Yes, Jack.  I’m sorry.  Really.  I didn’t mean to jump to conclusions.  I extrapolated from the general to the specific and made an assumption.”  Me?  That kiss was about me?  JUST me? Oh.  O-oh.

“A lot of people make assumptions.  Some people assume I’m doing Carter.  A few assume Teal’c is doing me.  The majority assume I’ve been doing you since the day we met.”

“Why the majority?”  I have good reason to know a FEW people, well, more than a few actually, not all at once, obviously, just fairly close together, one after another, and those people think Jack and I are – or rather were – lovers.  And I have to stop thinking I misheard and asking large, looming military types to repeat that because I didn’t think I heard it right the first time, and then it turns out I – I did, and no, he wasn’t talking about Sam.  Or her eyes.  Or her skin.  Or her – um – cause she doesn’t have one so he couldn’t do what he wanted to, and God, Jack better NOT find out WHAT he w-wanted to.  EVER.

“Because I’ve never been known to have a deep, meaningful conversation with Carter, let alone – er -- ” Jack trails off for a minute and flashes a look at me I can’t read in the moonlight.  Guilty?  “Kinda hard to make THAT leap,” he rallies.  “Pained, bored, uncomprehending silence to horizontal in a single bound?  She can’t keep her yap shut about the science,” Jack says flatly.

“And me?” I ask weakly, flattened under an avalanche of Jack getting in touch with his feelings and then laying them on me.  In lieu of laying anything else on me, which is a good thing, because laying here beside him is enough to set my heart beat spiking and – okay, OKAY, the very thought of Jack laying ON me is making my toes curl.

“Hugging you in front of half the base and calling you Spacemonkey?  Which was perfectly innocent, by the way.  Haven’t been carrying a torch for you THAT long, not THAT pathetic.  Letting you wrap me around your little finger and giving you all your own way?”

“You do not!”

“Believe me, Danny, I do.  I do,” Jack sighs.  “Every chance I get.  And can you NOT do that?” Jack is pained.

“What?”  I’m just resting my head.

“Breathing into my neck.  It’s incredibly erotic and I can’t drag my libido away from speculating what it would feel like to have you blow in my ear!  JESUS!”

“Sorry,” I apologise meekly.

“You’re NOT.”

“No.”  I’m not.  Curiosity killed an archaeologist.  Nearly killed a colonel, too, one who’s twanging with sexual tension.  I realise that for all the confident talk, Jack is nervous.  Actually, Jack is terrified too.  And all of this is displacement activity.  I should have made him stay out there and talk.

“Jack?  Please tell me what’s hurting you?  Please?”

I hear and feel only the rapidity of his heartbeat for the longest time.  “Will you answer me a question in return?” His voice is slow, reluctant.

“Okay,” I offer, not really caring what THAT might entail, not if it also means Jack gets this off his chest.

“Not okay,” Jack says quietly.  “I was glad it wasn’t you.  I was glad I’ve kept my distance because there was nothing for that fucker to see between me and you.  I didn’t want that to happen to Carter, didn’t want to kill her.  I didn’t.  I just know it couldn’t be you.  Couldn’t be.”

“Why?” I ask gently, reaching into fire, reaching a soothing hand across his chest.  Fanning the flames, as his grip tightens imperatively.  “No,” I say softly.  Don’t push, Jack.  Not – now.  No is all I need to say.  He’ll never take from me what I don’t freely give.  “You could have done it, Jack.  You did do it.  When I was on the ship with Lotan.  You did what you thought was right, you did your best.”  Another night when Jack needed to be with me.

“There was time.  I made a crappy tactical decision in a crappy situation, but part of me hoped you’d come to your senses and come back to me in time.  Pull my nuts from the fire if you could.  Air Force, Daniel.  Believe me, it’s easier to kill by remote than face to face.  I don’t think I could have stood there and coolly, deliberately killed you the way I killed Carter.”

“Sam is alive.”

“Not from anything I did for her.”

“Oh, Jack,” I sigh.  “You would have done your duty.  It’s what you are.  You shoulder responsibility, make decisions, accept the consequences every day.  If I was in Sam’s place I would expect and want no less than what you did for her.  It isn’t a matter for blame and recrimination, it just IS.  It’s what things are.”

“THIS is what things are.  Here.  Us.  I don’t know if I could have killed you.  I do know that if I had, I couldn’t have lived with it.  Couldn’t have lived without you.  Can’t.”

A rough hand cups my head and draws me close, temple to temple with him.

“Why can’t you do this, Danny?  How can you love me so much and not let me love you?  You know I would never have kissed you, would never have taken that risk if I wasn’t sure you loved me.  I kissed you.  I had you.  I HAD you, and you left me.”

Soft voice.  Aching.  Yearning.  It’s hurting us both, denying this.  This is the first time he’s acknowledged what lies between us.  He’s been so wrenchingly honest with me, I can’t give him anything less in return.

“I’m afraid, Jack,” I whisper.  So afraid.  “Wouldn’t risk my friend for a lover.  We might not feel enough, be enough.  Lose the lover, lose the friend.  Can’t be without my friend.  Not now.  Easy to believe it could work, easy in moonlight.  In the cold light of day, all I can see are the differences, the flaws that could drive us apart.”

“Are you in love with me?” Jack’s voice is precise, contained.

“You know I am.  You knew when you kissed me.  When I kissed you back.”

“Are you afraid of the sex?”

“Yes.  Aren’t you?”

“Are you bound and determined to kick my self-image in the ass EVERY chance you get?  Yeah, the big macho colonel is scared to have sex with you.  Wish I’d had all that practice you assumed I’d had,” Jack gripes.  There is a long, thoughtful pause.   “So-o.”  A knee gently stirs me.

“So?”

“So here we are, sharing a bed, scared shitless, horny as hell, passionately in love.  What do we do about that?  Suggestions?”

“Nothing?” I venture, gaining a palpable tremor thinking of all the ‘something’s’ we could do.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Don’t pout just because I’m agreeing with you.  My okay is strictly temporary.  I say we sleep here, just sleep, together, and see how we feel in the cold light of day.  Okay?”

“Okay,” I agree cautiously.

“And I already put my ass on the line once, so it’s your turn.”

“No pressure,” I snarl.

“No sympathy.  And now you can answer my question.”

“I did!  I TOLD you I loved –“ Jack is laughing, radiating smug satisfaction.  “You bastard!  That WASN’T the question?”

“Sucker!  No, my actual question is explain to me just WHY you assumed hard-ass military types like myself automatically play ‘hunt the MP5’ with the guys we bunk with.”

I have nothing to say that won’t get people hurt.

“DAN-iel.  DANIEL!”

“All right.  All right.  If it will shut you up!  That ‘distance’ you’ve been priding yourself on may have led one or two – um –“

“One or two?” Jack growls, eyeing me searchingly.

“A few – “

“A FEW?”

“Okay, SEVERAL people to assume we’d – um – broken up,” I tumble through it at breakneck speed.  Like that will help.

“And you saw THEM coming like you saw ME coming?” Jack is silken, deadly menace.

Not from behind, no.

“Who put their hands on you?”

“Let’s go to sleep.”

“WHO?”

“You can sleep with me, you can sleep on the floor, on the couch or in your own bed.  I don’t care.  Just shut up and sleep.”

“So I just start killing people alphabetically until you ‘fess up,” Jack says smoothly.  “I’ll get one who’s guilty, sooner or later.”

“Time out,” I call.  Need to change this subject fast.  Could be fatal if I don’t.

“Wha- mmmph – mmm - MMM.”

Oh, he’s lovely to kiss.  So lovely.  I remember THIS.  Sweet and warm and pushing his luck every step of the way.  Passionate and strong, and nervous.  Hands speaking as loud as tongues.  Little too strong there, Danny?  Backing off now.  Don’t go.  Don’t stop.  Love you.  Please let me love you.  Some mine, mine, mine in there, too.  A suspicion of WHOO, but I think that’s me.

Drag myself away.  Tear myself away.  Leaving us both bereft.

“Time,” Jack groans.

“No more questions,” I insist.  One of the interested parties was interested in the ‘taking me out to dinner and showing me off around town’ way.  Not my town.  His town.  Nice interested party.  Jack likes the interested party too.  Likes him and will kill him regardless.

“Uh-uh,” Jack says tartly.

“I can’t believe you’re the jealous type.”

“I’m NOT jealous.  My first instinct is to protect.  You said so yourself,” Jack reminds me smugly.

“I didn’t mean me!  I mean, I did.  But NOT in this context.  I can take care of myself.  I can say no after –“

“AFTER?” Jack snaps bolt upright, outraged and ripe for murder.  “After WHAT? WHAT!”

“Shut up,” I snap sullenly.  “Don’t tell me nobody’s ever made a pass at YOU, not in the whole of your career, and of course YOU handled it PERFECTLY.”  Didn’t have to ask them to take it from the top because you – Jack?  Jack is lying down again.  Quietly.  A suggestion of skulking here.  Avoidance.

“Jack?” SO not meeting my eyes.  Squirming.  No!  Really?  I prod him in the ribs, making him yelp.  “Who?  When?  Where?  What?  Why?”

“WHY?”

I lean in and blow gently in his ear.  Jack shies away violently, shaking and shooting me hateful looks.  He’s astonishingly sexy when he’s scared shitless.  He has NO idea.  I lean in again.

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” Jack grouches, arching his neck to make sure I have easy access.  Every time I breathe gently in his ear he looks a little more dazed and a lot more co-operative.  I wonder if George would object if I tried this in briefings?  “You know we got a special budget for the meaning of life stuff, right?  Stuff that isn’t of strategic importance.”

I sniff.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t important,” Jack tells me softly, a gentle hand on my shoulder.  “Let’s just say my ass helped put another zero on the budget for those missions and then let’s leave it.”  He shoots me that wide, smug, irreverent grin of his.

“It’s the class A uniform,” I blurt out involuntarily.  Jack laughs, a rich, clean sound, as I stuff a pillow over my burning face.

“You are SO busted!” he gloats.   “So, you’ve been admiring my ass, huh?”

“Did I say admiring?” I say defensively.

Jack wriggles a little.  “Maybe worshipping is more accurate.”

“You happen to have my hand pinned to the bed!  It’s numb.”

“Feels pretty active to me.”

I tug furiously.

“Sucker,” Jack chuckles, resisting my efforts to retrieve my errant hand, which wants to stay right where it is, no matter what the rest of me wants.

“Not on the first date!” I snarl.

“JESUS!  Like I needed THAT image!  Gimme a break, here!  Wait ‘til morning?  Who am I trying to kid?  I was lying my ass off!”

Me too.  Oh, me too.  “SLEEP now!”

“I’ll shut up and sleep if you kiss me again.”

“No.”

“So start with the names, already.  Alphabetical.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!  Kiss me then, and shut up!”  The man is RELENTLESS.  And – and – and HOT.  “O-oh.  Oh, Jack.  Jack.  O-OH, God, Jack!”

“Easy to get the two of us confused,” Jack gloats when he releases me.  Well, peels me off.  “Ow!  Jeez!  What was that for!  Breaking my ribs, here!”

General principles.  Give me that hand back!  Oh.  O-oh.  L-licking.  Ni-ice.  No rush. Mmm.  Ver-ry nice.

“We gotta wait for daylight, for it to count, right?  Right,” Jack sighs.  “I can wait.  I can do that.”

He’s still got hold of my hand, I feel his heartbeat steady against it, and the weight of his hand above mine.  “D-day,” I whimper, sadly.  He’s right.  I can wait too.  I can.  I will.  Loving Jack is all too easy in the moonlight.

We lie stiffly, side by side, in my bed.  Not touching.  Not speaking.  Waiting for dawn.  Waiting wears you down, exhausts.  I fight to stay awake, to think rationally, to weigh, assess, analyse, decide.  Fight and fall and wake deep in his arms; so deep, he’s never letting go.  Hasn’t let go.  Has turned to me and only to me in the darkness, unseen, unknown to any but us.  He loves me.  He’s in love with me.  He isn’t letting go.  I can say no now and he’ll be back, fighting, tomorrow.  Or the next night.  Waiting is wearing him down, exhausting him, but still he’ll fight.  He doesn’t know any other way.

I trace the cost of this fight in his weary face.  Lines etched deep in brow and cheeks.  I know what I want.  I know what to do.

Soft insistent pressure parts my lips as weight settles tentatively over me.  There are far worse ways to greet the new day than too little sleep, too much raw emotion and an armful of Daniel Jackson attempting to seduce you.

“Nothing fits. OW,” he complains after some painful clashing of hips.  “Wake up, Jack.  Wake UP.”  An indignant prod greets my attempt to return Daniel’s embrace.

I laugh up into his outraged eyes, thoroughly enjoying the blush stealing across his face.  “You feel comfortable to me.  Lo-ovely,” I whisper huskily.  “Mmm.  Peachy.”

“Jack, can you p-please take your h-hands out of my j-jammies?”

“Too much?” He fits perfectly beneath my hungry hands, ivory and silk ALL over him.

“No.  That’s why I want you to stop.”

Reluctantly I remove my hands and Daniel gratefully squirms free.  The blush reaches his chest when he feels a palpable twitch of interest hard against his abdomen before he gets away from me.

So.  I can’t touch him because he likes it too much.  He didn’t say a word about not touching myself.  I’ve had this same damn erection for best part of a year.  Goes and never comes.  Never been satisfied.  I slip gracefully out of Daniel’s bed and peel off the sweats.  Stand before my blushing, stuttering, gorgeous lover completely naked and unafraid.  This could be wonderful or the most humiliating experience of my life.  Daniel is absolutely petrified, he can’t tear his eyes away from my erection and his mouth has dropped open, which unfortunately sends visions dancing through my mind.  Visions of Daniel and what he might one day do for me with that lovely mouth, and of course that makes me harder than ever, and really, if I don’t hurry up I might be coming right here without touching myself, let alone him touching me.

Pushing my luck?  Maybe.  Cold light of day, here.  He kissed me.  Got close.  He’s made his decision, now he just needs a little encouragement.  Maybe a lot.  I think he’s hyperventilating.

“Okay?”

“J-just excited.”

He’s never learned to lie. Never grasped you can’t be so achingly honest with people.  Love him for it.  I lay down beside him.  No finesse here.  No time.  Take his hand.  Rest it over mine.  Slide mine down, curl, stroke.  Know myself, know the necessary rhythm.  Look at Daniel.  See only him.  Wide-eyed, flushed, hand icy cold then warming against my skin as I stroke unhurriedly, refusing to give in to the urgency.  Only Daniel.  His fingers slipping down past mine, touching carefully.  Flinching back as I groan and the pleasure tears through me.  He stares at my face.  Leans down jerkily and kisses me hard, then he lifts my hand and curls it around him.  We lie facing one another, holding.  Waiting.  Move in slowly and kiss, focus on the kissing, not on the hands.  Stroking, learning, knowing.  Slow, measured, cautious.  The hands follow the pace of the kiss.  I’m lost in Daniel, feel and see and taste only him, lose sight of myself until what HE is doing to me is too powerful, too compulsive to ignore.  Mouths soft, still, as hips rock and thrust into grasping, greedy fingers.  Breath stuttering in chests now, labouring as we shake and strain into one another; fall into one another, into love and the light of day.

FINIS

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