WARNING: This story is rated NC-17.  NC-17 means no one under the age of 18 may read it, according to the LAW.  If you are under the age of 18 please leave this site now.  You can find my PG, PG-13 and R rated works here.
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Well if the birds,
can reach the sky,
to this land,
I'll be with you.
till the sun bursts from your side,
with my hands,
I reach to you.
when you think your chance is passing by,
when you blow your moon away,
I'll bleed like the reed,
fall with your knife…
it's here, I'll be with you. 

            ~ I’ll Fall With Your Knife, Peter Murphy

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She turns to him for comfort and his is there, broad shoulders, soft, goofy smile and hard calloused hands, trying to be funny and tough to lighten her mood. He is always the hero for her, sweet and loving even though he is eternally discomfited by his emotions. And somehow, he comes out looking even more heroic to her for just that reason. He is uncomfortable with his love for others, but he always lets it shine through anyway. And his love for her has always been special.

Those days on the playground, when Lenny the bully had smashed her lunchbox and called her a loser, he had stepped up and been her hero, always defending her name even when he was terrified, taking blows for her, smiling through blood-caked lips and swollen eyes. And when they had both played with Barbie’s and pretended at complex relationships they wouldn't understand, even when they were much older, he had always been so sweet, so manly and yet so vulnerable, a child's caricature of the man he would grow up to be. Throughout her life he has been her savior, her defender, her hero, her best friend. But never her lover. Not until now.

Shy hands slip beneath his shirt, tentative and asking, so afraid that they will be denied. She lifts her head from his shoulder and stares into deep brown eyes... and sees love, love pure and true like the childhood they grew together from looking back at her, brows forming a question, as uncertain as she is of where this will go. She smiles, and it feels beautiful and right in this moment, the perfect ending and beginning to everything they have been through and everything they will yet face.

Tara's memory is like breath upon her lips, so close and ghostly that she can feel its warmth, and for a moment, her hands stutter. And then she knows that Tara would never deny her this; that even Tara would know this was right, wherever she may be now. This is her friend, her best friend in all the world, and if she cannot love him, then who?

She presses her lips to his, and at first it is awkward. Her heart skips a beat, and then tongue meets tongue and heart meets heart, tangling and tripping on the tapestry of emotion between them, a lifetime spun upon the loom of love.

Her hands travel over his chest, exploring skin she knows as well as her own though she has never laid her hands upon it quite this way. He is smooth, and hard beneath, and for a moment she thinks she may have forgotten what it is to make love to a man. It feels new, and gorgeous and beautiful, like spinning endlessly beneath the summer sun, warm lips pressed together like strands of silk, weaving something true and unexpected and precious.

His hands caress her with care and tenderness, as if she were a treasure to be handled carefully, to be held and loved and worshipped. Hands soft and yet calloused, sliding over her breasts with delicious friction, their touch tentative and yet desiring, and she pulls him closer to her, lips pressing harder, tantalizing heat rising faster as she arches her back up into his touch.

He lowers her to the bed and she can see the fear in his eyes. It has never gone this far between them before, never been this immediate, this hot, this right. She smiles again, up into dark brown eyes that love her back the way she loves, and draws him down to her.

His hands and mouth dance over her body, pulling sensations from her that she had nearly forgotten during her mourning, and she feels like a goddess, so beautiful and powerful and worthy of desire. Moaning, she presses her hand to the back of his neck, and guides him lower. His tongue glides over her, making her gasp and moan as he explores her tender flesh, revealing secrets she thought long buried. Rising heat, slick wetness between her thighs, and then she explodes like the sun, brightness blinding her and possessing her, making her cry out to him, only wanting him, wanting him, oh please...

And then he is inside her, full and complete, and she shudders, remembering the feeling like an old friend. Too long since she has felt this fullness, this sweet building of tension inside her body that sends delicious shivers of pleasure trembling through her nerves. She clings to him and pulls him closer, wanting him, wanting more, wanting him beneath her skin, a pair of souls sharing the same flesh. He slides in and out, graceful strokes she would not have thought him capable of, so sweet and gentle and giving, so questioning as he gazes at her with love and longing, as if he only wants to give her pleasure, to make this right for her. It breaks her heart, and she smiles as she lifts her self against him, hips sliding, sweetly devouring, taking everything he has to give and giving the same in return.

It's like she imagines heaven must be, glowing and golden, sweet and gentle, yet ever rising, carrying her to a crescendo that seems beyond her meager understanding. Love rises and explodes like a supernova between them, crying and gasping, arms holding and hugging, sweet pleasure more than either can stand as they are lost inside the moment.

And then there is the afterglow; sweating bodies feeling awake and alive and sated, holding each other with new realization as they slowly catch their breath. He draws back from her a moment, her red hair catching in his adorable stubble, and in his eyes, she sees everything she has ever needed.

This is right. So right, and so perfect. She will never want more than this.

And as he begins to move inside her again she strokes his head and whispers into his ear, wanting this to never end, and knowing the love between them never will.

Hand in hand. Heart to heart. Cradle to grave.

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