Disclaimer: All recognizable Rizzoli & Isles characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners including, but not limited to Tess Gerritsen. The original characters and plot are the property of the author of this fan fiction story. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any previously copyrighted material. No financial gain is associated with the publishing of this story. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's Note: I began this post before any of season 5 aired. I worked on it throughout the episodes and hope it reflects the arc of the show. A few things to point out: I had always assumed that Jane would lose the baby, so I wrote it as if this happened closer to when she lost Frost; Jack doesn't exist in my little world; I wrote this as if Jane had never told Casey about the baby; and, it's set closer to the start of season 5, though a few weeks after losing the baby (if that makes any chronological sense). This piece deals with loss, but more than anything is emotional smut. I wanted Jane and Maura to really address the feelings they must have both had after losing the baby. The show didn't truly give us that. Heart-wrenching stuff.

You'll notice that the themes of Sam Smith's "Stay With Me" permeate in this piece. It's a beautiful song and I've connected it here to our favorite ladies. The difference between the song and the piece—it is love between Jane and Maura.

"Stay With Me" appears on the album In The Lonely Hour. Writing credits are listed as: Linares, Alejandro M./Strohmeyer, Randy/Pappas, Alexander/Barcalow, Nathan/Doherty, Derek. All credit to them for the lines I used to form this piece.

Stay With Me

They had survived hell. Somehow they had weathered the storm. Casey proposed. That itself was still a foreign notion to both of them. The pregnancy. That, too, was foreign. Frost's death. It, understandably, had shattered Jane. And even though Maura had apologized to Frost, the guilt of intruding on his happiness weighed on her still. But it was losing the baby that brought them to their knees. Maura struggled to support Jane in the ways her friend needed as they both dealt with the emotional weight of it all. Their friendship, for all its strengths, was not prepared for this. They both lost the baby and it was alternately painful and numb.

Long before Casey, long before any of their more serious suitors, actually, there came an unclear point in their friendship when they each admitted to themselves that an attraction between them had developed. It had lain dormant for years before they both conceded its existence. Long past denying that her best friend was astoundingly beautiful, Jane had come to terms with the unspoken attraction and set parameters for herself. Maura meant the world to Jane and in her nearly forty years of existence, Jane had learned that she was terrible at meaningful intimate relationships. She knew that she could ruin a friendship by forcing the issue of an intimate relationship. She was scared to death of that fate. She was well versed in short-term relationships, though terrible at one-night stands and even worse at long-term commitment. Neither a short-term fling nor a one-night stand could ever work with Maura. She eliminated the possibility outright and was able to develop a strong, supportive friendship regardless of the underlying attraction. For her part, Maura respected Jane wanting to do whatever it took to protect what they had. She, too, accepted her physical attraction to Jane and compartmentalized her feelings for the detective. She would do whatever it took to always have Jane in her life. Protecting their friendship was paramount. She, too, had a terrible track record with relationships.

It wasn't a secret that an immense attraction and undeniable chemistry existed between them. In fact, they were quite open about this fact. However, they knew the signs and the cues when they were, sometimes literally, flirting with trouble. The temptation of giving into lust rather than listening to logic required they excuse themselves at times when even the slightest bit of hedging could derail their seamless friendship. There were times when they knew being near one another was a recipe for disaster. There were shared looks that spoke of the need to put some space between them. There were topics they knew to avoid. They could sit close to one another, brush against one another and still occasionally sleep in the same bed. They simply knew their own limits and respected that. And this had worked for them for several years.

Until that night.

It hadn't been long since Jane lost the baby. Merely a dozen days since she'd asked Maura in that hospital room and found her heart shattering. Two weeks had passed with Jane recuperating at Maura's house when she found herself bombarded by the surprise visit of Casey. She hadn't told him about the baby. He was only in town for the afternoon and wanted to make sure she was okay after the death of her partner. Little did he know she was far from okay, but she would never admit that. Not to Casey.

It was Casey's visit that had Maura worried when she returned home from work that night long after dark.

"Hey," Jane mumbled, her face obstructed by her pillow, her body on its side in the bed.

"Hey back?" Maura, standing in the doorway to the guestroom, furrowed her brow causing Jane to smile.

"Drop the question and you'll finally have that response figured out," Jane loved teasing Maura about her awkwardness.

Patting the space next to where she was on the bed, Jane was pleased Maura joined her even if the doctor was sitting while Jane was lying down.

"Did you tell him?" Maura had to know.

"No," Jane sighed. "Why make him as miserable as I am? Why make him feel sorry for me?"

"He really did just want to see how you are?" Maura asked, skeptical of Casey's intentions.

"He certainly didn't come back to propose again," there was an edge to Jane's sarcasm and it stung.

"What did you tell him?"

"That I miss Frost," Jane closed her eyes for a moment. "That everything is getting back to normal."

When Jane's voice cracked talking about Frost, Maura felt tears building in her own eyes. She could see there was something else that was bothering Jane from her visit with Casey. She let a moment pass, waiting for Jane to speak.

"He said you and I were always closer than he and I," Jane's voice was sad. "Were or ever would be."

"I'm sorry, Jane," Maura sighed.

"Nothing to be sorry about. My closeness to him had nothing to do with my closeness to you. I mean..."

Jane looked away. What was it she wasn't saying? Was it to keep from hurting Maura?

"What is it?" Maura pressed gently, her hand covering Jane's.

"He said he thought maybe there was more...between you and I."

"Oh," Maura should have been surprised, but she wasn't.

"Yeah, oh," Jane said.

A heavy silence enveloped them, both lost in thought. Maura's hand stilled, though she didn't remove it.

"We spend all of our time together. But it's not just that. The way I look at you, the tone of my voice when you call," Jane rubbed her eyes and shrugged.

"Jane, I..."

What could Maura say to this? That neither meant anything? That she didn't notice when Jane's eyes wandered down the doctor's curves? That Jane's voice wasn't less gruff, more light when they spoke? That it could, if not checked, take on a sultry tone in certain circumstances.

"He's right," the detective's admission was startling, albeit not surprising.

Maura couldn't formulate a response. Her eyes had been locked on Jane's until she noticed a slight twitch of Jane's top lip. When she realized she had been contemplating the brunette's lips, she knew she was in trouble.

"I should go to bed," Maura's voice was shaky.

Her eyes once again focused on Jane's and she saw the same feeling behind them that she felt in the pit of her own stomach.

"I should go," she repeated. Maura's voice hadn't gained much strength, but her legs urged her to stand.

"Maura," Jane's rasped as her hand reached out for Maura's wrist. "Stay."

"Jane."

"Stay with me."

Maura took a moment to contemplate the consequences of spending the night in the same bed with her best friend. Her rational mind knew it couldn't be as casual and meaningless as any of their past sleepovers. Casual was something that was quickly disappearing from the arrangement the more the two women acknowledged the depth of their feelings.

"Give me a second," Maura said.

Across the hall Maura knew precisely the sleeping attire she wanted and went into her bathroom to change.

Staring at herself in the well-lit mirror, Maura took a deep breath and mentally chided herself for agreeing to this. Her self-control was usually impeccable. Why this now? There would always be a pull toward Jane and Maura could only deny it to a point. The temptation was greatest when lying next to her best friend.

By now Maura was all too familiar with the energy it took to suppress her desire for the brunette. She knew the torment of waking with Jane's limbs wrapped around her. She knew the excitement of a hand accidentally grazing her breasts in the night. She knew the power of the scent that stayed in her bed long after Jane was gone.

After a long inner debate over whether or not to remove her bra, Maura rid herself of it and threw a long t-shirt over her head before exiting the bathroom.

"I thought maybe you had changed your mind," Jane's voice seemed far away in the now dark bedroom.

"No," Maura couldn't say anything more.

Jane moved over and pulled a throw from the foot of the bed for Maura. Jane remained on her side facing Maura, but the smaller woman lay on her back, her hands on her stomach. She could have made eye contact in whatever sliver of light remained in the room, but it might have shattered her resolve. She stared with resolve at the ceiling.

"Maur?" a vulnerable voice hummed.

"Yes?"

"Will you..." Jane stopped herself.

"Will I?" Maura wanted Jane to finish, despite the hammering of her heart in anticipation of what the request might be.

A beat of silence separated Maura's question and the sigh from the brunette before she gained the courage to ask the question.

"Will you hold my hand?" she mumbled.

While the doctor could have made Jane say it again, louder even, she knew it took a lot for her friend to voice the question at all. Her hand slid across the small space on the bed between them and took Jane's. After a moment of her heart racing, Maura entwined their fingers and tightened her grip. How a simple squeeze of the hand could be electric, she didn't know. This was.

"Jane..." Maura's frustration was evident in the rush of her breath.

"Just let it be," Jane tried.

"Is that what we've been doing?" she truly wanted to know.

"Maur, I want to be here with you. Like this," Jane's hand gave a gentle squeeze as her head slid closer to Maura's shoulder.

"And then?" Maura asked.

"I don't know," she admitted.

"We agreed, right? I mean that's why we've managed the..." Maura paused to find the right word. "...temptation? We've ignored it, danced around it. We agreed?"

"We agreed," Jane's hesitation was noticeable.

The truth is, they hadn't talked about it in some time. And when they had, they had no idea that their lives would find emotional upheaval on so many fronts. They had no idea they would be in this very position, this very night with so much weighing on their hearts.

Turning toward Jane, she heard the telltale sounds of a growing sob.

"Are you crying?" Maura asked before she finally turned on her side to come face-to-face with the detective.

"God, I'm sorry," Jane cried, wiping furiously at the tears.

Maura took Jane's other hand, holding them both close to her body. This was not going according to whatever plan Jane had in her mind for when Maura would inevitably return home from work and check on her.

"I..." Jane swallowed the emotion as best she could. "I don't know what this is."

Unable to resist, the blonde's delicate hand touched Jane's cheek. Wiping away a stray tear, Maura looked into dark eyes.

"What do you think the probability is that two women in their late thirties, opposite in every way could be equally inept at intimate relationships?" Maura wondered.

"Is this an equation?" Jane half-heartedly teased.

Maura rolled her eyes, her usual response to such teasing.

Silence set in and Jane found it unnerving. Running her thumb sensually across the back of one of the doctor's hands, Jane found herself gravitating toward Maura's lips. Slowly their mouths joined.

"Maura..." Jane hummed, parting in worry.

Not able to restrain herself, Maura pressed her mouth hard against Jane's. Her tongue parted the brunette's lips, taking complete control of the kiss. A hand gripped the doctor's hip, pulling their bodies ever closer. One of Maura's hands slipped into raven curls. When Maura's hips tilted up into Jane's, the brunette once again broke the kiss and pulled back.

"It doesn't have to be anything," Maura was likely trying to convince herself.

"It can't… Once?" Jane's voice was thick with doubt.

Maura nodded, pushing the contrarian voice in her head back to a dark corner. Did Jane mean it can't be just once or did she mean it had to be only once?

"Not... love," Maura couldn't believe those words as they left her mouth, her mouth barely capable of uttering the 'l' word.

That single word caused Jane to shiver. How could it not be love? This was Maura. This was her best friend. This was the woman that she loved more than any other person in her life.

There was a silence between them now. Maura mentally kicked herself for mentioning love. Her self-control could never stand up to Jane Rizzoli.

"But I do love you," Jane had a strong, visceral reaction to any implication that she might not.

"Yeah, we shouldn't," Maura finally whispered.

"Yeah," Jane responded, her voice and mind a million miles away.

The stormy silence seemed to encapsulate the room. Maura couldn't bring herself to look into Jane's eyes, her head bowed. She had to speak.

"Should I stay?" Maura asked Jane as much as herself.

"Please," Jane hummed. "Just lay with me so it doesn't hurt."

They both knew the list of things that hurt was growing.

Again turning over, her back to Jane, Maura found herself irresolute in Jane's arms. She allowed the detective to hold her, leaning her back against Jane's chest. Friends could do this, right? They had cuddled before. They'd fallen asleep like this before. God knows they'd woken like this before. But this was different. Jane was vulnerable, they both were, and this felt like a true precipice—an agent of change ready to wipe out the shaky emotional pilings that held their friendship above water.

It began with a kiss to the top of her shoulder, over her thin t-shirt. It could have been innocent, a goodnight kiss. It was the second kiss that conveyed Jane's intentions. It was placed on Maura's bare neck and caused the doctor goosebumps.

"Jane..." Maura moaned as her mind was brought screaming back to the present with the brunette's mouth pressed to the place just below her ear, finding the most sensitive of places on the doctor's neck. The immediate heat that traveled from that place down her spine set off alarm bells in her head. This was dangerous. "Jane."

Pulling back, Jane wished her fiery gaze could meet Maura's. There was pain in her eyes and what felt like a missing place in her heart. Yet despite those things there was a genuine desire, a desire unmatched by anything she had ever experienced. Her arm tightened around Maura's waist as she thought about how she lacked in self-control. Maura, apparently, was having similar thoughts.

"I know I'm supposed to stop you here," Maura tried. "But I'm rapidly losing control."

The detective's eyes darkened, her tongue briefly darted out and swiped her top lip.

"You're all I need," Jane whispered.

Despite knowing that it was a terrible idea to give into something they'd both been fighting for years, especially in Jane's current state of vulnerability, Maura's body hummed with arousal. Biology was quickly overpowering logic.

"And after?" Maura whispered.

"I don't know," a resounding truth.

Without having to weigh the potential consequence against the immediacy of her want of Jane, Maura turned part way in Jane's arms, her hand reaching back to tangle in wild hair as her mouth attacked the detective's. With Maura's movement, Jane's hand went from a curvy hip to Maura's now exposed stomach.

The kiss was terrifying. It held a power that both immediately knew could destroy them. They could spend the rest of their lives looking to match this kiss and they would never find it. No man or woman would ever compare. They would never look at one another again without this moment tucked away somewhere in their memories. To know this and have no ability to stop it left them both afraid and incredibly aroused. This power is what they had held at bay, an easy push-and-pull they had created together all these years. The power in this single kiss could tear them apart.

Sliding her hand underneath the hem of Maura's shirt, the small goose bumps were noticeable under the pads of her fingers. As her hand moved higher up Maura's torso, the doctor could no longer focus on the detective's mouth. Her head tilted to the side and Jane's mouth took the opportunity to once again kiss the places on Maura's neck that had set this moment in turbulent motion.

The mild tracing of the underside of her breasts coupled with Jane's mouth on her pulse point caused Maura to moan. She could feel her now dampened panties pressing against her as her hips twitched. She suddenly came to a sitting position where she pulled the shirt over her own head. Turning toward the supine woman, revealing the bare chest that had taunted Jane for years, Maura's eyes were as dark as a moonless night.

"Fuck."

Fuck indeed. There would be no correcting Jane. Not when the detective's scarred hands were so skilled at bringing already sensitive nipples to immediate peaks when first touched.

"Oh, god," Maura's voice was unfamiliar even in her own ears.

Jane's eyes had not left the perfect mounds before her since the shirt was tossed aside. Her trance was broken by Maura's hands finding her face, the doctor leaning down to once again explore Jane's mouth. Hands continued to love every touch of full breasts, breasts that had often visited her in her dreams. As she pulled on Maura's bottom lip with her teeth she felt her friend's hips tilt forward, nearly toppling the doctor into her. For the first time there was levity. Both women chuckled at the awkwardness of their position. Maura took the moment to swing a leg over Jane's hips.

"Jane?" The detective seemed to be holding her breath. Was this all there would be? Would she ever know what Jane's skin felt like at her fingertips, on her tongue?

"This never works," Jane rasped.

"What?" Maura thought she knew where this was going and her heart was heavy with disappointment.

Mouths still within a breath of one another, Jane's hands sliding from where she had gripped full breasts down to voluptuous hips, a moment passed before Jane said anything. It felt like a much longer moment for Maura.

"What if one night isn't enough?" Jane didn't dare make eye contact with Maura, there was shame in her eyes as she thought about how Maura meant far more to her than anyone she had ever been with.

"Are we talking about just sex or something more?" Maura's voice began to take on the clinical tone that told Jane she was slowly regaining control of herself.

"I don't know," Jane's eyes finally met Maura's and the hurt behind them spoke volumes. "I know it can never be…with you."

Analytical Maura puzzled over what Jane was trying to understand. Would it be simply sex? Could it ever be with the two of them? What if one night wasn't enough? What if it simply amplified the want that they'd both been doing everything in their power to hold at bay? Was this vulnerability alone? Was it love? Nothing was clear.

"What can never be?" Maura asked.

"'Just' anything. Not with you and me?" Jane raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"What if it isn't one night? Would that be such a terrible thing?" she said as she brought her hands down from Jane's locks to grip the hands holding her very own hips. She understood intimately what Jane meant. There was never a "just" when it came to how they felt about one another.

"It's dangerous," Jane shook her head.

"No more dangerous than raising a child together."

There it was. They hadn't spoken about how painful the loss of the baby had been for both of them. They barely talked about how painful it was for Jane. Maura's feelings were all but forgotten. Before losing the baby they hadn't really spoken about how they might raise the child together other than Jane asking Maura for her help.

Maura collapsed her body onto Jane, her head resting on Jane's chest as the tears started to fall down her flushed cheeks.

"I'm so sorry, Maura. I should have been more careful," Jane responded.

This caused Maura to sob.

"Do not apologize to me, Jane," Maura finally croaked out.

"You deserve an apology. You wanted this baby."

Maura lifted her head enough to see eye to eye with Jane.

"So did you, Jane. You may not have processed it all yet. It might have felt like you lost something before you ever had a chance to grasp how much you truly wanted it, but I know you, Jane. You wanted it."

Now tears were falling indelicately from Jane's eyes into her ears where the roar of her heart was deafening.

"I did," she cried.

Sitting up, her chest flush against Maura's, Jane used her hands to wrap Maura's legs behind her before she encircled Maura in a tight embrace. Jane's guttural sobs were painful for Maura to experience. Her own tears began to match those of the woman she loved.

"I wanted the baby, but…" Jane hesitated to reveal her true desire. "…I wanted it for us."

"Oh, Jane," Maura now gripped Jane and placed a kiss to the crown of her head. Both women were drowning in their own emotions, emotions they didn't know they had shared until now.

"I'm not going anywhere, Jane," Maura assured her, somehow knowing the woman in her arms needed to hear this.

"We've lost so much," Jane continued to softly cry.

"I know, honey, I know."

"I don't want you to leave," Jane's voice was no longer wavering.

Their red, swollen eyes met once again. Maura's were pleading for an explanation. She knew they were long past a discussion of what Jane needed tonight. She may not be the most adept at these kinds of interactions, but she knew Jane. She knew they were talking about the future-their future.

"Guess it's true, I'm not good at this," Jane rolled her eyes.

Placing her hands on either side of Jane's face, Maura's eyes urged her on.

"I thought the baby..." Jane stalled.

"Could bring us together?" Maura followed.

"Could keep us there," Jane offered that pained, ashamed look that had become far too regular of late.

"Jane..." Maura shook her head.

"I know. Crazy."

When Jane's eyes dropped, Maura knew what she had to do. Whatever assurance she could impart had to be offered now. Her fingers slipped into Jane's mess of hair, tilting Jane's head slightly. The doctor swiped her tongue across her lips, wetting them. She then slowly leaned in until her lips formed a perfect seal against Jane's.

There was no movement. Maura wanted it that way—the two of them, still wrapped around each other, with their lips connecting them in this beautiful silence.

"Not crazy," Maura hummed as she released the detective's lips. "What is crazy is that you thought it would take asking me to help raise a child for me to want to be with you."

At this Jane's eyes filled with tears again.

"Maura, I'm no good at this."

Rolling her eyes once again at how emotional she was being, Jane leaned her right cheek into Maura's hand.

"Ask yourself something, Jane. Before me, what was the longest friendship you ever had?" Maura soothed the fallen tears with the pad of her thumb.

"I, well, Frankie?" Jane shrugged.

"Family doesn't count," Maura smiled.

"You know I never had a best friend before you. I never had a friend that didn't put up with me simply because they wanted or needed something from me. I never imagined you and I would be this close. I never imagined I would love you, that I would be able to say those three words out loud to anyone. I never anticipated falling in love with you," Maura closed her eyes, cringing at her own revelation. "Don't you think if all of these things happened after I met you that the rest could also fall easily into place?"

"We have fought it for so long. We've been hurt over and over again. We've tried to be what everyone thought we should be," Jane's voice reflected her thoughts coming together slowly.

"What about who we thought we should be?" Maura asked.

"I am who I think I should be, Maura, when I am with you."

The doctor's eyes welled with tears as she pressed her lips against Jane's, this time creating the perfect movement, the perfect tempo. The kiss deepened, but not like it had earlier when it was fueled by pain. This kiss was gentle and passionate. This kiss was the kiss both women had been waiting to share for what they were both beginning to realize had been years. This was not a kiss that would lead to a one-night stand. This was not a kiss that would lead to having to ask the other to stay.

Slowly Jane's hands wandered from the tops of Maura's hips up her bare back to tantalizing shoulder blades before slipping back down the length of her arched spine. When Jane's lips began tracing the line of Maura's jaw, the doctor's delicate yet skilled hands reached for the bottom of Jane's shirt.

"Please," Maura whispered.

Jane let go of the beautiful woman before her long enough for her own shirt to be lifted over her head. They both let out a gasp when their entirely naked torsos came into contact for the first time.

"When might this cease to feel surreal?" Maura moaned, Jane's lips now placing soft kisses along the blonde's neck and the top of her shoulder.

"I'm not sure I will ever get over you topless," Jane hummed causing Maura to chuckle. "My biggest weakness."

"My breasts?" Maura smirked.

"You."

It didn't take more than a second for Maura to respond with a fierce kiss, open-mouthed and steamy. As she grazed the underside of Jane's tongue, the woman whose waist her legs were wrapped around noticed for the first time how close and warm Maura's core was.

"Jane?" Maura asked, noting how Jane's movements had stopped.

"This is going to sound ridiculous," Jane spoke. "I want to take your panties off, but I can't stand the thought of you not wrapped around me."

"Darling…"

Maura slowly swung a leg over Jane until she was kneeling on the edge of the bed. She stood, a movement made all the more sexy by the desire in her eyes. While she shimmied out of her panties she frowned at Jane having crossed her arms across her bare chest. Kneeling on the edge of the bed once again, Maura took Jane's hands and used them to open the modest woman's arms.

"I want to see you," Maura's voice had turned to silk. "All of you."

Keeping her eyes on the brunette's perfectly proportioned chest, Maura's index finger hooked under the elastic of Jane's shorts and the soft seam of her panties. Once again swinging a leg over the seated woman, Maura pressed a hand to Jane's clavicle, forcing her to lie back. Deliberately and with great consideration, Maura slid Jane's bottoms down her long, olive legs. She reached behind herself to pull the items the rest of the way down Jane's legs, her eyes never leaving the beautiful sight before her.

"Maura," Jane growled.

Scooting closer to where Jane wanted her most, Maura was rewarded with strong, scarred hands gripping her backside. Her eyes found Jane's and she knew this was the point of no return.

"Oh!" she gasped as Jane moved forward, inclining her head to take one of the pert nipples before her into her salivating mouth.

Enjoying both Jane's mouth on her breast and her strong hands on her ass, Maura found her hips tilting forward and her hands wanting to touch Jane. She tangled a hand in Jane's hair while her other found one of Jane's and directed it to knead faster. It didn't take long for that movement to spur Maura's hips into a rhythm that was making her quite wet, a wetness that was now seeping onto Jane's narrow thighs.

"God, Maur," Jane rasped as she let go of a nipple with a pop. "I've barely touched you and you are dripping."

"Wait 'til you really touch me," Maura smirked.

"Why Dr. Isles, you're going to make me blush," Jane smiled before her face took on a very serious look.

Reading the look perfectly, Maura pressed her lips hard against Jane's as one knee gently spread Jane's legs and slipped in between. Pressing against the woman's equally wet core, Maura let out a burst of air.

"Jesus," Jane groaned.

The detective's hands moved around to the front of Maura's hips and then slowly up a toned stomach to ample breasts. As much as she wanted to continue to explore, she wanted most for Maura to be lying on top of her. Her hands snuck into the doctor's wavy hair and used this position of leverage to bring Maura prone against her.

"Oh, Jane," Maura moaned as she found herself with one of Jane's thighs pressed against her mound.

Kissing became frantic and sloppy. Both women began grinding against one another's increasingly wet and reddened thighs. As mouths and hands sought out never-touched skin, the rocking against one another became unsustainable.

"Fuck, Maur," Jane cried as she felt Maura's mound finally coming into contact with her own.

With their legs intertwined and Jane's height advantage, they weren't getting quite the pressure in quite the right places for either woman to achieve orgasm. Realizing this intuitively, Maura dropped her hips and inserted her hand, palm side down, between them. Each woman immediately felt pressure against an engorged clit. While Maura could have held her hand there and given them both something to grind against, she opted for what she wanted more than anything—to touch Jane. Cupping Jane's mound, the doctor hooked her middle finger forward and slid through the slippery folds of the woman she loved.

"Jesus Christ," Jane moaned. "Yes!"

Continuing the pepper Jane's face, neck and the parts of her chest she could reach with kisses, Maura's finger slipped from top to bottom in an increasingly teasing manner.

"Don't," Jane groaned. "Don't tease me."

Smiling at Jane's impatience, Maura thrust her finger inside her best friend. Her best friend, her lover, her soul mate.

"So wet," Maura purred.

Soon another finger entered and Jane's moans were deep. Their lips met again and it didn't take long for Maura's skilled tongue to guide the kiss just as her fingers were controlling Jane's growing arousal.

Jane's hands began pinching Maura's nipples, the sting having its own affect on the doctor's arousal. Suddenly pressing her own hips down against the hand that was inside Jane, Maura whimpered with need.

"I can't," Maura warned. "It's…"

She could no sooner get the words out than she felt Jane's walls contract around her fingers and her own wetness gushed with the onset of orgasm. The way her body reacted pushed Jane over the edge. They both were inundated with wave after wave, their hips continuing a rhythm against one another, their mouths never parting.

"Oh my god," Maura panted, pulling her hand free before collapsing all of her weight against Jane.

Jane's long arms wrapped around Maura's back as soon as she regained control of her muscles. She pressed her cheek against Maura's, her mouth just above Maura's ear. Maura loved the sound of Jane's heavy breathing.

"Once would never be enough," Jane murmured.

Maura found herself chuckling despite the sincerity with which Jane spoke. She wasn't laughing at Jane so much as the situation they were in. What was implausible, impossible even, hours before, was now real and felt as if it was as it always should be.

"What did I say?" Jane laughed.

"Everything I needed to hear."

Maura shifted one hip off of Jane, keeping a leg draped across Jane's lower abdomen.

"You weren't chuckling at my being in awe of your prowess in bed?" Jane smirked.

Looking up into Jane's dark eyes, Maura's voice became sober.

"Our chemistry requires no prowess or acumen."

Her own tone taking on that sober quality, her heart now desperate for reassurance that this was for Maura as significant and terribly yearned for as it was for her.

"What was it I said that you needed to hear?" she asked.

"You asked me to stay."

Maura pressed a kiss to Jane's cheek before nuzzling her forehead against Jane's jaw.

-finis-