LAST REFUGE  BY PHOENIX E

  He’s home.  Jack’s home.  He’s finally home.  Omigawd, he's home, he's home, he's really home! 

Geez, I don’t believe myself.  I couldn't be more ridiculous if I was bouncing up and down on the bed.   I’ve known this man for seven years, been sharing his life and his bed for just over a year.  You’d think all of this would be old hat by now and yet simply the sound of his key in the lock of the front door is enough to turn me into a giddy teenager hyperventilating with ludicrously pathetic anticipation, my heart hammering with joy because – because he’s home.

How sad is that?

I don't have any excuses for my completely over-the-top reaction here.  It’s not as if we’ve never been apart before, or Jack’s been gone all that long, even.  He's only been away for a week.  Seven lousy days.  And it's not like I haven’t had lots to keep even me more than occupied during Jack's brief absence.  Heck, practically the entire time he's been gone, so have I - I've been off-world, frolicking in archaeological heaven, having the time of my life.  Sure, I have.  Yeahsureyoubetcha.  The ruins of P5S-608 were an archaeologist’s wet dream and yeah, I had loads 'o laughs playing in the dirt with SG-11 while Jack was undoubtedly bored out of his skull in Washington.  I had lots to do, plenty to occupy myself with, bags 'o fun, oh yes, oh my.

But it wasn't enough.  I still missed him.

Yeah, I missed him.  Missed him in spite of being hip-deep in off-world wonders, squired by a pack of Marines who couldn't seem to do enough for me panting right behind me every step I took.  I've never been accorded that much concentrated respect from someone who wasn't either one of my team mates or my current lover and a whole bunch of them – all at once – it was pretty heady stuff.  But even with all those distractions and that attention I still…

Missed him.

 I did. 

Every single waking moment.  Even though during the entire time he wasn't around I had everything I could have possibly wanted or needed.  Everything that used to make me – me.  What I was all about.  Yup I had it all this past week except one itsy bitsy little thing.  Although in truth, not so little, not that I would ever tell him that.

The one thing missing from that otherwise perfect past week? No dark-eyed, silver -aired, annoyingly charming, irascibly omnipresent colonel who has become my everything.   Without him there in my face, complicating my life, incessantly, wonderfully driving me out of my mind with his nagging and his sulking and his teasing and his snarking, the 'everything' I had last week that used to be all I ever needed to make my day, fill my boots, furl my flag, cream my coffee, ring my chimes - 

The music definitely wasn't playing.  At all.  Because with everything I had, I didn’t have him. 

I missed him. 

Damn…

I lie quietly in the darkness, barely daring to breathe, quivering beneath the covers and straining to hear him, the sounds of his soft, covert creeping through the house making me shiver with anticipation.  He can move so silently, secretly, and he’s in full stealth mode right now, no doubt thinking I’m asleep, not wanting to disturb me.  As careful as he’s being, ghostlike in his concern for me, I can hear him.  I’ve learned how to listen. He doesn’t know I’m so attuned to him that as good as he is, he’ll never be better than my need to know – just to know he's there.  Stealth mode or not.

He’s become the sum of everything good in my life and he doesn’t even know it.  He doesn’t know; there's so much he doesn’t know.

I’m no slouch at this covert ops things either.  I could teach the colonel a few things about how to keep certain types of secrets.

I close my eyes, listening, seeing him clearly in my mind as he glides through the house, filling it, making it home once more.  He goes immediately to the closet, hangs up his coat, puts his cap on the shelf and stashes his briefcase in its allotted spot.  Even though it’s late and he’s been travelling for hours and he has to be dead tired he still takes the time to do it right.  Anyone else might just have dropped everything by the door, telling themselves they’d sort it all out in the morning but that’s not the way Jack operates.   Such a creature of habit and discipline is my colonel.  A place for everything, and he makes sure he puts everything in its place when he’s done with it.  He needs to know everything is exactly where he needs it to be so he doesn’t have to waste time or effort looking for it the next time he needs it.  No detail is too small, trivial or unimportant to be considered a waste of his time or effort to ensure it's done right. He takes care to take care. 

He cares about me the same way too.  It took me the longest time to clue in, what Jack was actually doing, what it was all about, the way he was with me always insisting on this and that – his bossiness, annoying obsessiveness with what I was or wasn’t doing – whether I ate or not for God’s sake – and what did it matter when we were out there, whether I jumped the instant he said ‘Daniel, move – now!'

It mattered.  It wasn’t just his job or some bizarre colonel power trip thing; it was all about how much he cared.  About me.  I didn’t get it right away and more often than not what I did get was incredibly annoyed with him because I thought he was being – well – over the top with his obsessiveness, but then I’d never been the unrelenting focus of such utter determination.  I wasn’t exactly accustomed to someone giving such an emphatic damn about me.  Every single moment of the day – waking – or sleeping. 

I know it’s not much of an excuse but some days I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box, no matter what certain people might think about how smart I allegedly am.  Certainly when it came to clueing in about Jack, about the fact he cared, and how much…

I won’t claim any genius points for how long it took me to connect those particular dots.   But when I did…

No one has ever cared for me and about me as much as Jack does.  No one.  Finally figuring it out has taken me to a lot of different places.  From bewildered to humble to out-and-out terrified, boomeranging back to bewilderment from time to time but mostly, mostly I’m happy and so grateful.  For him, everything he is, what he does, how he makes me feel, giddy and scared, frustrated and glad, safe, no longer alone, seen, appreciated, understood – okay, maybe not always that one but he tries, God, how he tries – but most of all – loved.  Jack loves me.  Really - loves me. 

I’m grateful for that most of all.

He doesn’t know that either.

I thrust the thought aside, not wanting my anticipatory euphoria to be spoiled by an unwelcome bout of inconvenient introspection.  I'm happy now, and I want to stay that way as I lie in Jack’s bed, cozy and warm beneath blankets and sheets spiced with his scent, trembling with needing him as I wait and listen,  breathless, yearning.

He’s in the living room now, creeping softly towards the doors out to the deck, the first stop on his tour of the house before retiring, checking all the exits, ensuring everything is locked up tight and the house is secure.  He always does this, without fail, before he turns in.  Not that he doesn’t trust me to have already done so, he just has to know.  And to be honest, I sleep better too knowing he’s taken that little extra bit of time to take care of both of us.

Nothing gets by Jack.  Well, almost nothing…

He’s in the kitchen now.  He’ll be hungry, but he’s not turned on the light yet, so that means he’s debating with himself.  He wants a snack, but he also wants – he’s been gone for a week too.  And he knows I’m here.  Even though he thinks I’m asleep and it’s not like I’d know if he put off coming to me for a couple of minutes and grabbed a quick snack so what difference would it make, but still, he’s torn, he can't decide what he wants more.

What will it be, hunger or me?

He’s walking away, back through the dining room, toward the hall.  Looks like I win.

But then, I joined those dots a long time ago too.

He’ll undress in the bathroom so he won’t wake me.  In my mind's eye I see him quickly but carefully taking off his uniform jacket, hear the relieved sigh he always heaves when he rips off his tie and undoes his collar button.  Deft fingers making short work of divesting himself of the uniform defining him as much as it constricts and confines him, dictating how he must behave, what he can and cannot do.  A barrier stopping us being able to demonstrate what we are to each other anywhere else but here,  until he takes them off for the last time.

That day hasn’t come yet and we’ve both made our peace with the way things have to be until it does.  There is a price for everything, even the best things in life, and the one we pay for a privilege few will ever know – the cost of our passage through that big, round naquadah circle - is loving in secret, never taking what we do and feel here beyond these four walls.  It’s true that while it’s far from a perfect world out there the one we’ve made for ourselves here has more than enough compensations to carry us through.  Maybe we can't go strolling hand in hand down the street, but that's okay, what's far more important to me is knowing I have him, even if I can’t let anyone know but him.

Although, to be honest, I've never let him really know either…

Okay, so maybe not in words, but I show him in other ways, all the time, of course I do. 

Well, I do.

Don't I?

The uniform will be carefully hung on its hanger on the back of the bathroom door.  Where it will stay until he takes it to the cleaners, probably tomorrow, so it‘ll be ready for the next time he needs it.  No surprises, no being caught unprepared.  Not Jack.  Nothing important left to chance, unconsidered, forgotten.  He’s as constant as the march of time, and pretty near as relentless.

But believe me, that’s not a bad thing.  You have to understand.  I've had a kind of a problem with relationships.  Making them last.  Not that I don't try, but the people I've – loved - most of them, well, it's not their fault but they kind of…leave me.  Sort of permanently.  That's just the way it's worked out, so far, I'd learned to live with it, resigned myself to being alone.  It was safer that way -  I was even getting used to it.  Kind of.

And then, Jack…happened.

Jack's different.  He's not going to go.  I know that sounds like a crazy statement to make, given the kind of life we both lead.  We take our lives in our hands, literally, every single time we walk through that gate and statistically, although we've both managed to beat the odds so far, all logic and reason dictates the luck we've both been living on, sooner or later it has to run out.

That's just the way it goes, right?

Maybe so, maybe no, but as far as I'm concerned it doesn't change what I know.  I can't tell you how or why, but I know I'm never going to be alone again.

Jack will never leave me.

Okay, I know how that sounds, denial isn't just a river in Egypt, ha ha, I've been down this road so many times before I'm deluding myself believing I'll never need to go there again, living in a fool's paradise, however you want to call me on being irrational about certain aspects of reality, but I don't care.  I'll believe what I want to believe and live where I damned well please, it's my paradise and he's my fool.

I probably could have put that another way.

However, speaking of the fool in question, from the sounds of things he's finishing up his pre-retirement ritual.  Uniform and tie hanging on the door, shirt, socks and underwear in the hamper. Thank you very much.  And now he's standing in front of the sink.  Brushing his teeth.

 Stark naked.

I'm getting hard just thinking about it.  About him, imagining him standing there, frowning at himself in the mirror, probably red-eyed, definitely bleary.  He hates travelling.  He says the whole 'step through and you're there' way we zip around the universe has spoiled him.  After becoming accustomed to travelling billions of miles in the blink of an eye he bitches every time he has to get from point A to B the conventional way and it takes longer than twenty minutes.

So there he'll be, Colonel Grump, still resenting every minute of his life he's recently expended terrestrially travelling while he brushes his teeth in the altogether, makes faces at himself and checks himself out in the bathroom mirror.

I've caught him, now and again, giving himself the once over, but I've never let him see – and certainly never let him know I know he harbours certain – physical insecurities.  He's an interesting contradiction in terms, is my dear Jack. Most of the time he's utterly brazen; unlike me he has no issues with strutting his stuff about the place – too many years in the military I guess.  Let's just say he sure isn't shy about either getting naked or parading around that way, and yet, for all he has no qualms about hanging about the house in his birthday suit he has an interesting and unexpected closet insecurity concerning the condition of said suit, that is to say – he worries about – although he'd never in a million years own up to it – whether time and age and wear and tear are making certain parts of him go soft, and south.  And if, when that happens, will the fact maybe he's not so taut and tight as he used to be – will it change the way I feel about him.

I think it's the age difference.  Not that it's that great between us, because it isn't, but it's there, and it worries him sometimes, I know it does because he thinks of me – a certain way and while I've never come right out and told him surely he knows, he must know I see him the same, always will.  No matter what he actually looks like that won't change the way I see him, but still, he wonders.  I'm with him now, when he's still strong, and tight and toned - maybe not young but not exactly old either, but, when things start to go, and they will, sooner for him than for me, nothing either of us can do about that – he wonders if once he's gone to seed  - will I still be interested in rotating his crops.

So, worrying about that possibility as he occasionally does, especially at times like now, when he's been away for awhile, I haven't seen him, he hasn't seen me for a bit, and maybe, just maybe during the time we've been apart there've been…changes, that means he'll have to reassure himself he still looks as good as he thinks I need him to, so - he'll be checking for possible furrows.

Me not wanting to stick around after the decline and fall of Jack O'Neill?   As if!   Mind you, I could turn it around and say to him, so will you be trading me in for a newer model when I'm not quite so young and pretty – or whatever the hell it is he thinks I am  – after all, I won't be that far behind him. 

I don't quite know where this idea came from, but it's in there, lodged in his brain, popping up from time to time to sneer at his ego.  So if I know my Jack, there he is taking a few more seconds before he comes to bed for a last minute freak-out; working that mirror, making faces at himself, sucking in his gut, craning around to try and ogle his ass.

A very nice ass, it is too.  Take my word for it.

Silly, it's so silly for him to feel like this.  I'd love him if he lost his hair, his teeth, his mind - hell, I'd love him if he turned blue – I'll love him no matter what – come what may, rain or shine, upside down, inside out, through whatever cliché comes our way, and if I was there with him right now.  I could tell him all this, and so much more, not just that I love him but how much I love him, as I was pressing up close to that lovely ass, wrapping my arms around him, while I was kissing the side of his neck I could tell him, run my hands over every glorious inch of him and  I could say to him, I love you, I love you, over and over, leave no doubt in his mind how much I love him so he'd never waste another moment of either one of our lives on foolish fears.  He wouldn't have to.  Because he'd know.  He really would.  He'd know because I could set his mind at ease – three little words, out of my mouth to his ear, that's all it would take – clear everything right up for him right now, this very instant - if I was there with him.

I could tell him.   I could.  And yeah, if I was there instead of lying here, while I was holding him tight  I could  - that's probably what I would be doing.   I'm pretty sure.  

Almost positive.

But then – what that means, well, to do that I'd have to actually tell him, wouldn't I?  Say the words, to him, I mean.  I love you.  You know.  Those words.  That's a bit of a problem because, you see, so far, I never have.  Told him I love him.  I'm not exactly sure why – not….  I just, I just never have, okay?

Never.  I've never said those words to him, although with him, I mean them more, I think, than I have at any time in my life.  He's the only one I've never told – of all the people on my sad, short list of those I've loved – he's the only one who's never heard me say those words to him.  Funny thing, saying them has never been a problem before – though I haven't loved often, I've loved honestly and those who've granted me the privilege of sharing with them  - I've never held back from assuring them I've loved them in return.  That is, until Jack.   Jack has never had any tangible confirmation, vocal or otherwise, of either my affection or my commitment.  I haven't given him a frigging clue, even, about the true nature of my feelings for him.  I swear to God I don't know why.

Really.

Okay, maybe – maybe that's not true.  Maybe I have a bit of a clue, and maybe, just maybe I'm a fine one to be lying here smugly smirking at Jack's closet insecurities and south-bound ass issues.

Maybe – just maybe I've got an irrational fear of my own.

Damn.

I guess it all goes back to history.  I've spent most of my life digging in the past, being obsessed with the past and I'm well acquainted with the axiom those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.  Well guess what, I think I've learned plenty from the sorrows and losses littering my personal history and my own version of the practical application of the sum of those hard lessons…. Well, here it is.  

Every time I've said those words I've meant them – with everything I am and I was so happy, not only to love but to be able to give that gift to another, just as happy as I am right now to love him in every other way, give him everything I am but those three little words.  The why – why I won't now, when I did before with no hesitation, well, it's only now just coming clear to me why I won't, not for him, when I did before, for them –

I said those words to them and, well, you know what happened.  So I guess I thought, somewhere in my mind I got the idea if I didn't say them this time, then it would be okay.  Nothing would happen to him, he'd be safe because –

I'm not explaining this very well.

Many cultures believe words have power.   They certainly have been a magical, driving force in my life.  Anyway, a very commonly held and powerful belief in many magical and religious traditions maintains the essence of a person or a thing is contained in its name, and knowing this name and saying it can be tantamount to summoning it or controlling it and can give one tremendous power over a person or thing for evil or good.  Speaking a thing aloud can be even more – an actual act of creation.  One can make a thing so, simply by saying it is.

Or conversely, by not speaking it, thereby actualizing it, announcing it if you will, you protect it.  Keep it safe.  A secret.

I know this probably sounds pretty dumb but every other time I've made love 'real' by speaking those words aloud – it's been taken from me.  They – were taken from me.  This time I guess I wasn't taking any chances. My silence has been my refuge.  The secret, mine to keep and guard.  I've protected this treasure, withheld the gift, hoarded the words, the magic, the truth, thinking as long as I never spoke it into being no jealous outside influence could get its shorts in a knot about me daring, once again, to have a go at being happy and take him away from me too.  My silence would ward him and he'd be safe.  We'd  be safe.

Be honest, Daniel –  I'd be safe. 

I'd never have to risk losing him if I never declared I loved him.  Put it out there, dared whatever perverse – whatever - that seems to have it in for me when it comes to letting me keep anyone I care about - do it to me yet again.  They wouldn't take him if I never let them know I cared for him.  But in keeping this secret, in indulging in more than slightly paranoid and egocentric eccentricity – I've withheld from him the most precious thing I have to give, and denied him the assurance and affirmation he's more than earned.

For the sake of my safety Jack has suffered agonies of uncertainty.  He's never said, never asked, never pressed me to commit or even admit what we've got going between us isn't just great sex, good times and bickering.  Great today but tomorrow, who the hell knows.  He puts on this big act like he's totally okay with being Col 'We're here for a good time not a long time', but that's not what he wants.  That's not what he needs.  Not what he hopes for, and is waiting for – from me.

He's been so faithful and true – and let's not forget patient.   The dearest friend and companion, and what have I been for him?

A cruel and selfish coward.  Not to mention slightly nuts, if you look at the reasoning behind my reticence.  That is, if you can stop laughing long enough.

 I hear the quiet, sure sound of Jack's naked feet padding practically noiselessly along the carpeted floor of the hallway as he moves confidently, unerringly through the blackness, making a beeline for our bed.

I don't deserve him.

He pauses in the doorway, listening, looking.  I feel his eyes roam over me, the sensation as palpable and exciting as if his huge, warm, wonderfully rough hands were tenderly wandering all over me.  I struggle to keep my breathing deep and even though my heart leaps, starts hammering like it's trying to pound its way right through my ribs, out of my chest to fling itself at him and my arms tremble with aching to clutch him and crush him to me.  Close, he's so close now, and yet so much distance gapes between us, because of me, the barriers I've erected.  There he is, silent, staring and loving me so desperately I can feel his hunger from clear across the room and here I am, feigning sleep as I've answered his devotion with shrugs and inscrutable smiles, presenting ignorance to his subtle, hopeful glances, pretending I don't see the hurt in his eyes he quickly buries as he waits for the words he needs to hear.  Words that have never come.  As he's kept alive a hope he's never presumed to utter I've skulked in my self-serving refuge, keeping him out while I've stayed safe within, imagining I've been protecting both of us.

I've been a fool.

"Daniel," he whispers, his voice as poignant as a prayer, reverent and laden with rough adoration it caresses me, making my breath catch in my throat and my eyes burn.  I can feel the moist pressure building behind my half-closed lids as he quickly moves to the side of the bed.

I can't let this continue.  I must do something say – something - but I've hidden from him for so long, for so little reason; I'm shocked as reticence rears its ugly head anew.  The words I owe him freeze once again in my chest, constrained by fear, as before, but a fear of an entirely different sort.

How can I tell him now – when I've wronged him for so very long in not telling him?  How can I presume to claim what I so do not deserve?

"Hey honey, I'm home," Jack huskily whispers as he slides under the sheets and in behind me, spooning carefully but solidly against me.  He wraps his warm, strong arm around my chest, his splaying fingers ghosting greedily across my ribs, his touch so tentative, and yet deliciously possessive.  He heaves an achingly contented sigh as he nuzzles the side of my neck, looking for a comfortable place to rest his head prior to slipping into sleep.

I can feel something else – a raging hard-on is scorching my ass but even though he must be the randiest colonel in the room who hasn't had the chance to plant his flag in over a week – being as how we were off-world three days before he was called to Washington, thereby extending our current bout of enforced and unwelcome celibacy past the seven days we've actually been physically apart – he's trying to be good.  He thinks I'm asleep, as I haven't yet done anything to correct that mistaken impression, and he's not going to wake me.

I could let the moment pass, stay silent, let us both slip into sleep and in the morning…

Nothing would have changed.  And that would change everything.

I don't understand the reason for the losses of my past, if in fact there is one, but I do know if there is any sort of cosmic justice, whether or not the mechanism by which it dispenses its judgments is comprehensible to us mere mortals caught in the crossfire… Well, aside from the fact it's long overdue, let's just say I'm not going to mess with fate.  Or draw any sort of idiot karma for failing to act upon the understanding I've managed to attain.

How can I tell him?  How can I not? 

I take a deep, shuddering breath as Jack's roaming hand plants itself firmly over my wildly racing heart and he smooshes his face against my back, smiling wickedly, his breath tickling my skin.

"Danny?" he hopefully mutters into my ear.  "You awake in there?"

"What do you think?" I reply as I take the hand resting on my hip and place it squarely on the rapidly firming evidence of my alertness.

"I'd say that's a yes," Jack chuckles.  "Come to poppa and see what I brung ya," he growls in that low, leering, sexy lewd tone that makes me shiver.  Jack brings 'dirty old man' to absolutely sublime levels.  Thank goodness.

"Presents?" I say eagerly, rolling over to meet him in the middle.

"Youbetcha," he leers again, licking my cheek.  "I've got a big, long, hard one just for you. You don't even have to unwrap it."

And I've got something for you as well.  I hope you like it.

Jack is targeting my mouth, zooming in with heat seeking lips to lay what I'm sure will be an absolute scorcher on me but I can't have it, not yet, any more than I can have him before I finally put things right between us.  Consternation creases his brow as I stop him, taking his face in my hands.  The room is dark; I can barely make out his puzzled and slightly worried expression as I hold him away from me, just far enough for him to be able to look at me and see the truth of what I'm about to tell him. 

His eyes widen as the silence sparks between us.  Not much longer, my love.  One more deep breath, and then…

"I love you," I tell him softly, simply, and then say nothing.

His breath catches as he hears, understands, and his fingers curl, tightening around my arms as his eyes, shining over-bright in the darkness devour my face without betraying any clues as to what lurks behind them.

Right now Jack's as poker-faced as they come but it's okay.  I just caught him a little by surprise, he needs a moment to get himself back on the rails, when he adjusts he'll be okay.

"Thanks you," he finally manages to choke out before hugging me so hard and long I'm convinced I'm starting to turn blue from oxygen deprivation.  He lets me go at last and pulls back, his eyes fond as he strokes his thumb across my cheek.

"I know how hard that was for you," he says at last, his voice cracking.  "And for what it's worth –  although I'm really glad you did, you didn't have to – I would have been okay – "

Yes, I did.  Although I know you would have let me get away with being such a stupid, selfish shit –

"You've got a lot of guts, Daniel.  After all the crap you've – well, if it was me, I don't know if I could – take a chance again – but you have - you're here, with me – and – and I'm just so – "

I know, I know me too, and if I didn't understand it before I do now, he's worth every risk he never would have asked me to take for him, and in being willing to accept all possibilities for his sake, even the ones I most feared, I release us both.

He leans in at last for that kiss my declaration briefly arrested and there's that mouth, those wonderful, sensual lips, moving over mine passionately kissing, licking, happily slurping upon my flushed and quivering skin and those hands, oh my, those hands, I know he's only got two but moments like this, the way he works me it feels like he's got a couple of spares and every one of them as talented as the originals.

Oh Jack, I'm so glad you're home.

He's home, he's home, and I've missed him so, it feels like forever  I've been waiting for him to come home to me, and now he has, he's finally here, large as life and three times as horny  and seeing as how  the hard evidence currently poking me in the thigh would seem to indicate I'm not the only one who's had a week-long itch needing some serious scratching…

ASAP.

Words are great but there's a time for talking and a time for….

Jack utters a startled 'woof' as I tip him over on his back, his amused chuckles rapidly sliding into a rough, erotic growl as I straddle him and then lower myself upon him, sighing deeply with my own pleasure as I sheath his needy flesh to the root with one glorious glide.

Ohhhhh yeah, that's more like it, now – now we're talkin'….

"Missed me, did you?" Jack snorts and then groans once again, his eyes rolling back in his head which is almost swallowed up by the pillow he violently thumps down into as I tighten around him.

"You complaining?" I tease as I lean back against his strong, supporting legs and start to slowly rock.

"God – GOD, no!" he gasps, gripping my hips and thrusting his pelvis upward, causing me to do a bit of groaning myself.

"I'd have settled for a kiss goodnight but this – this is good too," he grunts, bites his lip and thrusts once more.

Oh – OH, uh huh, this is – oh boy, this isn't going to take very long.   Nuh uhhhhh…  I've been ready to blow for days and it won't take much, one good jerk and we will achieve ignition.

My fingers are becoming happily reacquainted with his chest hair as Jack runs his hands appreciatively over my bunching thighs, then he opens his eyes and lazily smiles.

"So, what you said – before," he mutters as his hands move up to cup my ass.  I love it when he holds me, touches me, his strong fingers kneading the muscles, massaging me, abruptly clutching as the shocks of the pleasure I'm giving him ripple through him.

"Before?" I murmur as I stroke his heaving stomach and feel him writhe beneath me.

"You, you know – " he pants, licking his lips and rolling his head back and forth.  "Since you – you know – does that mean – are you gonna – ah!" he brokenly gasps before arching off the bed and sucking his breath in violently as I lean forward and lick his right nipple.

"Yeah, I'll be sticking around for awhile.  If that's okay with you," I tell him before I kiss him hard and deep.  He hums happily into my mouth and runs his hands along my back, tickling the length of my spine with light, dancing fingers.

We kiss, deeply, lingering over each other's mouths, delighting in taste, touch, the sensuous feelings of our ecstatic communion.  He hasn't said a word but his lips, his hands, they do all his talking for him and they tell me everything.  It's okay.  Jack's okay.  I've made him happy.

Me too.

We break, I rest my brow against his, feeling contentment rumbling in his chest beneath my hand.  We rest that way for a minute, the slow, sweet rocking rhythm I'm maintaining spiralling us both, inexorably up and up and –

"Can I ask you something?" he says suddenly, unexpectedly. "Be honest."

Colonel Mine, right now you can ask me anything and everything your heart desires and provided you do it in the next – oh – thirty seconds or so you might even get an answer.

But – don't hold your breath.

"Do you think I'm fat?" he pouts, giving my dangerously volatile erection a playful pat.

Laughter and release shatter through me and I don't know what takes me higher, my orgasm or the wave of love for him I'm cresting on.  Only Jack – only Jack would say something so spectacularly – and endearingly stupid just before he blows.

And no, I don't have to put that another way, I said exactly what I meant.

I'm still giggling and snorting as I flop down on his heaving chest.  He shudders and roars, then winds his arms around me, squeezes and sighs.  Neither one of us can move – I can't speak for him but as far as I'm concerned as orgasms go – that was a doozie.

"I think I'm dead," Jack croaks at last, and gives a contentedly little wiggle.

"Um," I manage.

"So, am I?" he asks again as he kisses the tip of my nose.

"Sleep, Jack," I return, yawning.

"Oh, I see, that's the way it works, use me and then fall asleep on me."

"If you shut up and let me rest up a bit I'll use you again in about another hour or so, how does that sound?"

"Shutting up right now."

Promises, promises.  He might not always keep them, but he's never let me down. I close my eyes, my cheek resting on the chest of the man I love, the frantic beating of his large, faithful heart gradually slowing and gentling into the familiar, lulling rhythm of sleep.  His arms enfold me, holding me tight and safe with the one promise he's never failed to fulfill.

I need no other solace or shelter, he is my refuge, my last and best home.

And no, he isn't fat, but I think I'll let him stew a bit before I tell him.

FINIS