A/N: First time posting this kind of story. Probably won't be the last. Depends on whether my nerves can take the writing process. Anyway, smut-warning.

"It was a lot longer than four seconds before I knew you were okay," Jules whispered in the still darkness of the midnight hour. She was lying snuggled up against Sam, who may or may not have been awake to hear her quietly spoken words. She was fine with either possibility. She'd just needed to say the words aloud. There were so many things she couldn't say when they were on the clock, so many behaviors she tried to disguise….Oftentimes, she mentally filed the things she wanted to say and do for stolen moments here and there, but sometimes she forgot one or two. This was simply one of those times and she was content to speak the words in his presence.

"And I'm okay," came his equally quiet response. It elicited a faint smile from Jules because it was the exact same blasé response she'd given him three years earlier after she'd gone flying off the top of a media tower and he'd come to check on her in her locker room. She'd been so full of adrenaline that the unsightly bruise on her shoulder had felt more like a twinge of discomfort that in the early morning hours after the night shift; by the time she'd woken up that evening it had been throbbing painfully. However, for the few seconds Sam had lightly grazed the darkened flesh with his calloused fingertips, it hadn't felt like anything at all. Scratch that. It had felt like skin being touched by Sam. Electrically charged. Combustible. And that was even before their first kiss.

"You oughta be asleep. The doctor said you needed your rest," she gently admonished, even as she contentedly rubbed the side of her head against her favorite pillow. His chest. Specifically, the left side of his chest because she could hear his steady heartbeat beneath her ear and it tended to lull her to sleep as effectively as a lullaby would a sleepy child.

"I'll sleep when I'm dead," he dismissed, lightly running the fingers of his left hand over her spine. The caress made her shiver despite fact the thin fabric of her tank top separated his fingers from her skin. "Besides, laying here with you in my arms is all the rest I need."

Jules scoffed and, unseen in the dark, she rolled her eyes. "You know, I think we've gotten past the point where you have to woo me with flowery words. If you wanna have sex, all you have to do is say so."

Sam sighed loudly, and Jules imagined being treated to an eye-roll similar to her own as he shifted position. After a few seconds, there was a soft snick and the lamp on his side of the bed flared to life. Because of the sudden brightness, her eyes were hooded when she tilted her head upwards to look at him.

"Jules, I'm serious. When you're in my arms and I know you're safe and whole and really, physically here, I don't worry about anything else because I know I can take it. As long as nothing happens to you,whatever comes next is bearable."

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask just who had scared whom earlier that day but she deferred the wisecrack in favor of kissing the sweet man who loved her instead. Her intention was only to reward him with a soft, but brief, expression of her appreciation, but the instant her lips touched his, his opened in an invitation she couldn't resist. She sighed into his mouth as his hand moved from her back to burrow into her hair and hold her head in place while he plundered her mouth. He needn't have bothered because she had no interest whatsoever in moving anywhere except closer to him.

Her hand drifted down over his hard chest, lower over his flat stomach, and disappeared into the loose-fitting pair of sweatpants he wore to grasp him intimately. She smiled knowingly against his lips upon the discovery of his already semi-aroused state and proceeded to stroke his cock into a fully hardened state. His quiet groans were music to her ears, because they signified that she could have just as potent an effect on him as he did her.

He finally released her head and her lips, in that order. She pushed herself up onto her knees when he sat up, and helped him tug her tank top up over her head, leaving her breasts exposed to his gaze. Ridiculously, she could feel herself blush as her nipples hardened under his intense scrutiny, but she didn't try to hide herself away from his eyes because she was excited by what she knew was coming. His touch. His mouth. His tongue. She could feel herself getting wet just from the anticipation of what he would do to her breasts.

"Sam," she urged him impatiently when a minute had gone by and he was still staring at her as though he hadn't already memorized every inch of her body to the point where she sometimes thought he knew it better than she did. She knew for sure he knew what she wanted.

"Sam." This time she sighed out his name in a near-purr as he finally lowered his head to seize a pointed nipple with his teeth. Heat pooled low in her belly when he stabbed it with his stiffened tongue and she grasped his shoulders to keep herself upright. Burying her face in his short, golden blond hair, she breathed in the heady scent that was not only purely Sam, but just as intoxicating as what he was doing to her.

His hands roamed her back, leaving trails of electricity in their wake. Part of her wanted to lean forward, the other part of her wanted to lean backward. Either option was a win for her, but she couldn't choose. She simply let him do with her as he would, trusting him to take care of her, which he did, paying each of her breasts a generous amount of attention before laying her back on the bed and moving so he was straddling her body, dwarfing her with his size.

She reached up to caress his face. Her fingers lovingly traced every line highlighted by the glow of the lamp before she leaned up for another passionate kiss that he had to lean back out of her reach to break. She caught his grin right before he proceeded to trail a pattern of nips and kisses down the restless, throbbing mass that was her body. When she felt his fingers tugging at her panties, she lifted her hips to make the removal of the saturated undergarment easier to remove.

"So wet, Jules," he breathed reverently.

"For you," she choked out as he lifted her legs and hooked each one over one of his shoulders so that she was readily available for his mouth. She gripped the sheets with fisted hands as though doing so would help her maintain some modicum of control. It didn't help. He ran his tongue along her labia, circled her clitoris, and she shattered. His name was all she was capable of saying coherently at the moment, so she said it. Loudly. As her body convulsed, her legs clamped shut around his head, holding it in place.

It wasn't until the fireworks behind her eyelids lessened in intensity that she realized his mouth was still at work, licking, sucking, biting, and reigniting the fire. "Sam, please…come with me this time," she pleaded breathlessly.

"That was the plan, Sweetheart," he raised his head long enough to respond.

"No, now. I want you now." She reached for him with both hands, tugging on his arms until he rose up to kiss her again. This time she could taste herself on his tongue and she groaned. Her hands' next task was to shove down his sweatpants. Finding that not only was he harder than he had been on her last inspection, but the tip of his erection was wet with pre-cum, pleased her. She very nearly guided him inside her right then and there, but changed her mind. He'd been so selfless in giving her pleasure; the least she could do was return the favor somewhat. She could hold on a little longer.

She shoved against his shoulder until he rolled onto his back, and then used her lips to retrace the route he'd previously taken down her body. Taking the silk-covered steel that was his erection in her hand, she gave the shaft a firm stroke while circling the head with the tip of her tongue.

"God, Jules…"

When she deliberately scraped a nail along his perineum and he nearly levitated off the bed before grasping her arms and yanking her upward in a way she could only do to him with his cooperation. The next thing she knew, she was on her back and he was lying between her legs. "Don't overexert yourself. Remember your head."

He blinked at her in disbelief. The ghost of a smile threatened to tilt the corners of his lips. "My…? You weren't worried about my head when you—"

"I'm about to burst here," she cut in, raising her hips to tease the tip of his erection with her wetness.

All traces of amusement vanished from his face and he thrust into her with a force that took her breath away, then stopped. "Sorry, did I hurt you?"

She shook her head in an effort to gain a second or two to find her voice. "You're good. Keep going." She squeezed his hips with her thighs in encouragement.

She let him set the speed, because he was as far beyond the teasing stage as she was, and matched him thrust for thrust. When he came right after she did, she was one-hundred percent certain he'd waited for her. Ever the gentleman.

Normally, he was too considerate to lie on top of her for too long for fear of crushing her. Tonight, he literally fell asleep on her. She smiled when she heard the first snore. She didn't mind his dead weight. His body heat was adding to her own drowsiness, his heaviness to her sense of peace. If he was pressing her into the mattress with every breath, he was certainly there with her and not in the afterlife with Lew trying to locate his missing limbs in order to reconstruct his body after being blown up.

Content, Jules drifted off to sleep.