It's raining again. It was raining the first time they had sex, so it only makes sense to her that it rains the first time they make love.

The evening starts off like any other. Duke stops at Audrey's place for a visit, with alcohol of course. He's soaked to the bone by the time he makes it to her door, but smiles because he at least sees her and has a bottle of whatever shipped from wherever in hand.

"I thought you could use something to warm you up," he tells her, but she laughs because she knows that's not why he's here. Not that she's complaining, of course. She has nothing to complain about.

He doesn't bother to dry up. He just opens the bottle, pours a glass each and they drink to Haven. They tell jokes and stories and match each other drink for drink until his hand is on her thigh and he gives her that look. It's different, somehow, but it's still that look. Soon, he's kissing her so deeply that it causes a cool thrill to unfurl from the pit of her stomach. He's never kissed her like this before. When they make their way to her bed and the clothes fall into piles on the floor, she tries to kneel before him and suck him, but he stops her. There's something different in the way he looks at her when he shakes his head.

"Not like that," he says before kissing her again. "I want to make love to you."

The term is strange to Audrey because she can never say that she's made love with anyone before, let alone with Duke. They've fucked before, they've had sex and they've slept together several times, but they've never made love.

Still, she nods and kisses him.

Once on the bed, she welcomes his embrace. He hugs her tightly, but not enough to crush her. He has spanked, bitten and bruised her and yet he holds her as delicately as he would a porcelain doll. His hands are rough but gentle to the touch and he tends to each bruise and bite mark that he left on her body with an unusual tenderness. He's never been so gentle with her before.

Her name sounds like a prayer on his lips when he enters her.

They move slowly, savouring each and every last thrust. She traces the details of his tattoos as delicately as he traces every curve and crevice on her body because she wants to memorize him. She wants to know him from the inside out.

Both her breath and pulse begin to quicken. Her pace becomes more erratic as the heat rises from between her legs. His embrace tightens, just as she tightens around him, and his breath is hot on her neck as he whispers roughly into her ear:

"I love you, Audrey."

Their climax comes and goes, but she wants it to last forever because she knows that when it ends, so will this…whatever "this" is.

Love, she tells herself. This is love. You are in love.

"I love you too, Duke."

She can feel him smiling against her neck, but can't find the strength to return it. Coming down from her orgasm suddenly feels like waking up from a dream. One minute she was happy, purely and blissfully happy, and home. She's home. The next minute she knows that at some point she will have to let go.

Let go of Haven.

Let go of Duke.

Let it all go.

The very thought causes her throat to swell and her eyes to burn. She can only hold back her sobbing for so long before the tears fall on his skin.

"Audrey," he says, trying and failing to wipe away all of her tears. "What's wrong?"

It takes all her strength to find her voice.

"I don't want to go."