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“God Jay-” she breathes, a sharp exhale, barely managing to push the words out over her tongue. “Fuck. You’re so beautiful.”
JJ’s standing at the foot of the bed completely naked, her damp hair hanging over one shoulder— it’s grown out a bit so it just reaches her collarbone now—white towel pooled around her feet on the floor. There’s a steely determination in her eyes making the hues of blue sharper, darker. They’re like the ocean; beautiful, serene, and dangerous all at once as they draw Emily in, threatening to drown her in their depths. She’s a ship adrift and JJ is the sea.
It isn’t an unwelcome image, but this isn’t what Emily had expected to happen when she invited JJ to spend the night with her.
The offer had been innocent enough, she just hadn’t wanted JJ to be alone. Their last case had been tough. Hard for all of them, but for JJ it had taken a little too much out of her, chiselling away at her carefully constructed composure, and Henry was with his dad, a circumstance that just acted to compound every negative thing she was feeling. JJ didn’t let the rest of the team see it, but Emily could. She could see the cracks forming under the surface before they opened. She’s spent long enough watching JJ, studying her subtleties that she knows, without a word said when something isn’t right. Can see the moment she starts withdrawing into herself.
JJ can do the same for her. Knows exactly what Emily is thinking, feeling, sometimes before she realizes it herself. And is always there with steadying words, or a gentle touch that brings her back to the moment.
It’s delicate and undefinable, this thing, whatever it is between them. Like spun sugar that will disintegrate if it were to get wet. It’s like a small crackle of electricity between them when they’re close, not something truly electric more like a static shock, or the slow drawing together of opposing poles of a magnet.
She hadn’t realized how deeply she felt for JJ until she was pushing the words, “You should go for him,” over her lips and JJ was giving her this look that for the first time she couldn’t read, before sucking in a determined breath and saying, “You know what...”
As she watched JJ kiss Will in a Miami precinct she felt the last vestige of hope, a hope that she hadn’t even know existed, extinguish. A cold breeze snuffing out the flame of a candle she didn’t realize was burning, but had been relying on for light all the same.
And not long after came Henry, and Emily had been genuinely happy for JJ. Henry was and is still the cutest baby she has ever met, and seeing JJ hold him for the first time, Emily was certain JJ was meant to have him, to be not just a mom, but his mom. The idea of a predisposed fate going against everything she believes in, yet still she couldn’t help but feel it, looking at JJ holding her son like they were always meant to be.
But as much as JJ was meant to be Henry’s mom, things with Will fell apart, unraveled, as quickly and as privately as they began. Even Emily didn’t find out until months later that the relatively new, untested relationship had not withstood the strain of pregnancy and new parenthood. It wasn’t necessarily anything either of them did wrong, but the fact that the unplanned but very real and very life altering existence of Henry had pushed too hard, too soon on something fragile, something that had been built on distance and escapism.
He wanted more, and she wanted less, but they both loved Henry with everything they had. This led them each to make compromises that had first created cracks in the foundation of their relationship. Cracks that soon spread into deep, unavoidable chasms, at least as Emily understood it.
It wasn’t until last night, under the cloak of darkness, in the safety of Emily’s bed that they ever really discussed it. In a private little bubble that felt so far away from the real world.
It felt a little like being twenty again, back in college, spilling drunken secrets in the dark over the distance of a pillow. Except they weren’t drunk, and Emily was nearly as far away from twenty as she had been on her first birthday. Even JJ was about to bridge the gap to thirty. Still, she felt young, and wrapped up in a euphoric little bubble of giggles and stories and maybes…
“I meant to break up with him,” JJ said, voice a whisper between them, making it to Emily’s ears but no further. “I had, actually, during that case in Miami…I’d been so confused and he felt hurt and kept pushing for me to acknowledge it and I just…I didn’t want to.”
Emily could feel JJ’s shoulders shrug against the mattress.
“Then what happened?” Emily asked, swallowing around the lump in her throat, afraid she knew the answer already.
“It doesn’t matter, I was already pregnant then, I just didn’t know it yet,” she said, voice a little rough, scratchy and raw, worn with emotion.
“It clearly matters to you, JJ,” she found herself saying, trying hard to weave reassurance into her words.
JJ wouldn’t have brought it up if it didn’t matter, if it wasn’t a weight pressing heavily on her chest. She held everything in so close to herself, stitching all these pieces into the spaces between her ribs, where only she could feel their sharp edges. Emily knew it would take a lot to force something personal, something uncomfortable out of her.
“You told me to go for him,” as soon as she said it she tucked her face into the pillow, as if trying to hide herself, afraid of the consequences of her own words.
“Why did what I said matter? If it wasn’t what you wanted, Jayje?”
Again, she thought she knew the answer, but didn’t want to reignite a candle that she had no business burning. She didn’t want to have hope where there was none. But hope was beginning to take root all the same, wrapping its tendrils around the pit of guilt that had settled itself inside her at the same moment.
“I don’t know,” was JJ’s answer, spoken into the pillow, muffled by satin and down. Emily could still hear the confession in it, even if it hadn’t come out in her words, even though muted by the pillow.
Heart thundering in her chest, breath catching under the tightness of her rib cage, Emily decided to throw the instincts telling her to stop, to run, that this was a terrible idea that could melt whatever good thing they had, out the window.
Instead, she placed a hand gently on JJ’s cheek, coaxing her face out of where was buried in the pillow, willing JJ to look at her.
“I think you do know,” the words drifted out of her like the tide, low, exposing all that had been underneath.
They were so close then, that she could feel the stutter in JJ’s breath like it were in her own chest. A desperate gulp of air as if she’d just been underwater. When she blinked Emily could see the tears collecting in the corners of her eyes, the faint light of the moon catching the wetness and making her eyes glow like reflecting pools, and in them she saw her own desires, fears, and love mirrored back.
So, she closed the small gap between them and pressed her lips to JJ’s. Soft at first, a barely there touch, just the ghost of her lips against JJ’s. Emily was allowing her the space to pull away if she had read JJ wrong, had interpreted what ever this tenuous thing was that had been building between them, almost since they’d met, incorrectly.
JJ had tensed for a second, just long enough for Emily to pull away, but even as she did JJ was chasing her lips, a hand wrapping around her to press in between Emily’s shoulder blades bringing their bodies closer. JJ’s lips found Emily’s with desperation, like this moment might disappear into nothingness, melt like the delicate fibres of spun sugar in the rain if she weren’t fast enough.
They’d stayed like that for a while, in the comfort of darkness in this little world between them where only the two of them existed. Away from time and space where this kiss wouldn’t change everything. Until Emily snaked her hand under JJ’s loose t-shirt and ran the side of her thumb over a hardened nipple before palming her breast.
Emily inhaled JJ’s gasp, the falter in her breath as their lips pulled away from each other. But then the tension and insecurity in JJ’s body returned, pulling her taught like a bow string.
“I…I…” JJ started, trying to catch her breath, regain her senses. “I’m sorry. It’s been a while and… I never…”
Emily knew where she was going, could guess what she was trying to say in the spaces between faltering words, and withdrew her hand. “It’s okay.”
“It’s stupid,” JJ said. “It’s just—”
“Nothing you feel is stupid, Jayje,” Emily leaned forward to kiss her on the nose, missing in the dark and landing just below her eye. “How long?”
“Not since just after Henry…a few times right around that six week point where it was okay to… but, uh, it wasn’t good…everything still felt so out of place.”
JJ had rolled over so she was lying on her back, looking at the ceiling.
“I wasn’t ready,” she said, maybe to Emily, maybe to herself, maybe to the plaster speckled ceiling above her. “But things were already starting to fall apart and I thought maybe sex could fix it. It was stupid.”
“Hey,” Emily had propped herself up on an elbow so that she was back in JJ’s sight line. “It wasn’t stupid.”
Emily tried to set aside her own complex history with pregnancy, and sex and sexuality, to fold it up and tuck it in a drawer somewhere, because she didn’t want it colouring her words, dyeing her advice to JJ. Because right now, this was fresh. Her story was old, tattered, well worn.
Leaning herself over JJ, she studied her face for a moment, gauging her response before kissing her one more time. Not as deeply as before, but allowing her lips to linger for a moment.
“I really like this,” she said, punctuating her words with one more chaste peck. “But it never has to go any further.”
“No!” JJ’s exclamation was too loud in the quiet of the room, nearly breaking whatever spell they’d put around themselves. Quickly she lowered her voice, back to the barely there whisper of secret sharing. “I want it to… go further. I think I’ve wanted this for a while. It was hard to admit it, to make it real. But I want it. I just I don’t know how it will feel, I know it’s been months but…sometimes it still doesn’t quite feel like my body is back to being my body again.”
Now it’s the present, the morning of the next day, and something must have come over JJ in the shower. A confidence and boldness that she hadn’t quite felt last night—the water washing away her trepidations— that’s left her standing in front of Emily completely exposed, on display for her. She wants to question it, to ask JJ if she’s sure about the implications of her actions, but selfishly she doesn’t.
The mid-morning sun shining brightly through the window dances along JJ’s skin and she glows. Emily eyes map the light freckles dotting her collarbone, almost blending into golden skin, but there if you know where to look. Like stars in a dusky evening sky, guiding Emily’s gaze down her sternum, over the tops of her breasts; she still gets lost, looking at her, trying to take all of her in. She breathes in, slow and controlled, and she’s surprised she can breathe at all. Emily closes her eyes and opens them again, like a refresh, wanting to experience seeing JJ like this for the first time again and again.
In the quiet of Emily’s room, with nothing but Emily’s silk pyjamas between them, JJ seems to be losing whatever that small spark of confidence that had her walking into the room and dropping her towel. Maybe the reverence of Emily’s gaze is too much, as she got so lost in her thoughts, staring.
JJ wraps one arm protectively over her lower stomach, the other comes up to cover her breasts. Emily reaches out, from where she’s kneeling on the bed, to pull her arms away, but stops. She won’t move them for her. Though she desperately wants her to understand, to believe, how beautiful, how flawless Emily thinks she is. Emily understands why she’s nervous, and if she is starting to feel uncomfortable she’ll fully respect that.
Instead, she rests her hand gently on JJ’s wrist, where it sits just above her hips. She waits with it there, touch light, waiting to see if JJ will pull away. She doesn’t and Emily leans in close, so that her words spill over JJ’s skin, liquid and warm. “You know I love you, right?”
She’s not at all surprised by how much she means those words, but is surprised by how easily she says them. Maybe she still feels wrapped in the bubble they created last night that supersedes space and time, where nothing else exists. Maybe it’s JJ courage to bare herself completely that’s allowing Emily to expose her own vulnerabilities.
Emily watches the flat of JJ’s stomach expand as she takes a deep breath in, closing her eyes, she nods.
“Yeah?” she says on the exhale, her voice drifting quietly through the room just like the gentle summer breeze outside.
The arm covering her chest has moved, her hand creeping down to crawl over the ghost of stretch marks on her stomach, the barely there evidence she carried a child only nine months ago. Her finger traces one of the faint, fine lines, a white lightening bolt pulling across her skin, visible only when her body turns a certain way in the bright sunlight. Then she covers it with her hand.
“Yeah,” Emily says. “I love you.”
She leans forward and presses her lips firmly to one of the two other marks, just below JJ’s belly button. “And these are beautiful.”
JJ’s hand comes to thread through Emily’s hair and she holds her against her stomach, “Thank you. I...I love you, too.”
“Yeah?” Emily asks, his lips moving against JJ’s skin.
She can feel the small chuckle ripple through JJ’s abs. “Yeah. I think I really do. Have for a while.”
Emily presses another kiss to her stomach then inches higher, lips brushing the bottom of her ribs, JJ sucks in a sharp breath when Emily reaches the tip of her sternum.
“Is this okay?” she asks, her words fanning out warm and wet over honeyed flesh.
Emily can see and feel the way JJ’s chest rises and falls, short and shallow. Her other hand comes to join the first in Emily’s hair, nails scratching lightly against her scalp when she fists her hands. “I want this,” she says, tugging a little at Emily’s hair to lift her gaze to meet her own. “I want you.”
JJ’s words come out quickly, in the space of a single breath and she can hear the little waver in her voice, like the vibration of a plucked string.
She can also hear the desire laced through the words, can feel it in the way her body trembles beneath Emily’s lips when she presses an open mouth kiss right between her breasts. And god Emily wants this too, wants her so much it aches. But she wants to, no needs to take her time. She needs this to be entirely about JJ, soft and slow and filled with all the love she feels for her.
“You’re amazing,” Emily says pulling herself up to her knees on the edge of the bed and bringing a hand up to JJ’s cheek, her thumb running along her bottom lip.
“You’re smart. So, so smart, and capable.” She kisses her forehead. “And determined and strong.” Another kiss. “And funny. I don’t think everyone realizes how funny you are, but you’re hilarious. Even when you can’t quite land your joke.”
JJ laughs, the sound bubbling out around them, as warm as the sun shining in through the lace curtains. It’s loud and unrestrained, genuine happiness captured in a single sound. “Yeah, yeah, I need to work on my delivery.”
JJ smirks and tries to take a step closer, to close the little bit of distance between them and push their bodies together, but trips up on the towel at her feet, stumbling slightly into the bed. She laughs again as she catches herself on the mattress.
Emily chuckles, and shuffles back on the bed, sitting up in the middle, near the headboard. “See, hilarious,” she jokes. “Perfect comedic timing.”
“Hey!” JJ chides, she’s smiling but her arms are moving to wrap around herself protectively again.
This time Emily does lean forward and catches JJ’s wrists, tugging them gentle away from her body.
“Come here,” she says, pulling JJ onto her lap.
JJ follows Emily’s direction, easily letting herself be guided by Emily’s slight pull on her wrists until she’s straddling Emily’s legs. Her knees come to rest on either side of Emily’s hips, dipping into the soft mattress beneath them.
“Hey,” she says again, though this time it’s soft, almost dreamlike, as she leans forward to capture Emily’s lips in a kiss. JJ kisses her tenderly, parting Emily’s lips with her tongue, just enough to dip it between them, asking to deepen the kiss.
Emily’s tangles one hand into JJ’s still wet hair, the other finding her hip, pulling her in closer. She kisses JJ until she needs to pull away for air. JJ leans back slightly, her hands resting behind her on the bed, chest rising and falling rapidly. This gives Emily the space to lean forward and trail her lips up JJ’s sternum, over her collarbone, following the thrumming of her pulse up her neck, under her jaw and back down the other side.
Emily can feel the cool of JJ’s still shower damp skin against her, can feel the forced control in the rise and fall of JJ’s chest as she tries to level her breaths. She pulls away slightly and here she has a perfect view of how the breeze catching the leaves of the tree outside the window causes the sun to dance across JJ’s belly, her chest, the tops of her thighs. It’s light and shadow playing, chasing each other over the smooth surface of her skin. Emily reaches her hand out and touches where the light skitters across JJ’s arm, walking her finger up and over her shoulder, across and then down between the valley of her breasts.
She circles the swell of them with her fingertips, feeling the goosebumps that form as she goes, then follows the path she’s created with her lips. Circling her nipple just lightly with the tip of a single finger, Emily watches as JJ’s eyes drift closed and she hums before leaning over to suck the nipple into her mouth.
A small squeak escapes JJ as her back arches, pressing her chest more firmly against Emily’s mouth. Emily swirls her tongue around JJ’s nipple before kissing it and pulling back.
She grins at JJ as she notices the red flush to her chest and cheeks. Her eyes are open again, and Emily can’t help but notice how dark they’ve gotten, inky blue nearly eclipsed by blown pupils. They’re like the night sky, and full of promises of tomorrow, guiding her to port.
As Emily draws a fingers down her abdomen JJ squirms under the touch. She can feel the heat, the wetness, radiating off her centre, where she’s pressed up against Emily’s lower abdomen. Emily isn’t meaning to be teasing, she wants to explore JJ’s body, to learn it’s ins and outs and study all of JJ’s reactions to her touch. She wants to lavish every part of her with affection, to let her know how truly wonderful every inch of her is. Last nights hesitation still plays out in her head, JJ’s lack of feeling herself in her body since having Henry. Emily wants her to feel cherished, and to take time for them to both learn what works and what doesn’t.
“Emily,” JJ whines, drawing out the syllables of her name, as Emily’s fingers dance over her stomach, causing the muscles underneath them to jump.
“Yeah Jay?” She smirks against JJ’s skin as she moves her mouth to the other side of her chest, lavishing affection on her other breast, fingers still dragging lightly over her abs.
“Please,” is all JJ can manage as she throws her head back, inhaling sharply when Emily grazes her teeth across her nipple.
Emily bends her knees slightly, causing JJ to slide further into her, her wet cunt staining the silk of Emily’s pyjama top. She doesn’t care, but pulls it up over her head anyways, allowing them more skin to skin contact. JJ wraps her legs around Emily’s hips, locking her feet together behind her back.
Emily gives JJ a moment to take her in. Quietly enjoying how her eyes widen, and the rise and fall of her chest quickens, the red in her cheeks deepens, as she takes in Emily’s bare chest. JJ’s hands find their way up Emily’s sides, skittering across the sides of her breasts, hesitantly at first, before taking one in each hand. Exploring the feel of them.
After her moment of reverential exploration, Emily leans forward to kiss JJ, trapping her hands between them, where they rest on her chest, before allowing her own hand to move, for her fingers to migrate lower. They graze over the jut of JJ’s hip and down the outside of her thigh, before climbing back up the inside, working their way between their intertwined bodies.
Emily can hear the change in JJ’s breathing as it gets shallower, less controlled as Emily gets closer to her final destination. JJ’s hips jolt upwards when Emily finds the sensitive skin right at the crease of her inner thigh. She lets her fingers trace the groove there, a slow back and forth, moving closer to her opening with each pass.
She’s so wet, Emily’s finger glides easily around her opening when she gets close. JJ’s started making these high, throaty whines as she circles her finger around in her wetness, through her folds, hand pressed tightly between them.
“Jennifer, you still okay?” she asks, using her full name to draw JJ's attention to her words, to be absolutely certain before moving forward. “If you want to stop just let me know, okay?”
JJ shakes her head. “Don’t stop,” she says, huffing it out on a laboured breath. “Please Emily. Don’t stop.
“Whatever you want, Jayje,” she says, with a lazy sort of half smile, one that’s completely relaxed and betrays just how perfect this moment feels. Like she’s floating in a dream.
Emily captures JJ’s lips with hers the same moment she thrusts a finger inside her, trapping the noise she makes. JJ’s moan vibrates as it travels through her, reaching into her soul, plucking the strings there, like the sounds JJ is making are playing a symphony inside the core of Emily’s being.
She adjusts the angle of her hand so that her palm is facing up and she rolls her hips underneath JJ to help push her finger deeper and to set a slow steady rhythm. She tries to pay close attention to every reaction, to any slight change in the noises JJ is making that might betray discomfort as she curls her finger on an upward thrust. When the noises she pulls out of JJ only her higher, louder, and JJ is panting into her mouth, unable to keep up with their kiss, Emily adds a second finger.
JJ’s movements stutter slightly above her and she sucks in a sharp, ragged breath.
“Does that feel okay?” Emily asks, stilling her hand. “Or is it too much?”
JJ leans forward and rests her forehead against Emily’s, trying to regulate her breathing enough to answer.
“Not too much,” she manages, rolling her hips, grinding herself down on Emily’s hand. “So— good—” she gasps. “Fuck.”
Emily tilts her head up to catch JJ’s lips with hers again, tugging her bottom lip in her teeth, before withdrawing her fingers from within JJ and thrusting them back in, revelling in the breathless gasp she receives against her lips. JJ moves her hips again, experimentally, and Emily lets her find her own rhythm. She wraps her free hand around JJ’s back, fingertips pressing into the space between her shoulder blades, helping keep JJ steady as she rides Emily’s fingers.
JJ slides her hands around from where they were still rested on Emily’s breast, to come around her ribs, under her arms, finding their way up, until her fingernails are digging into the tops of Emily’s shoulders. With her arms wrapped under Emily’s, she uses Emily’s shoulders as leverage, helping her guide her movements on Emily’s fingers. It also brings their chest closer together. JJ leans her forehead against Emily’s again as her breathing becomes an erratic staccato.
JJ is clutching at her shoulders almost painfully, pulling her closer, as if she’s trying to climb inside Emily’s body. JJ’s head falls heavily to her left shoulder, as if physically she can no longer hold it up. Emily can feel her panting against her neck, her chest rising and falling against Emily’s, into hers. So close she can feel JJ’s heart beating inside her own chest, the rhythms of their heartbeats synchronizing.
She feels JJ’s muscles fluttering around her fingers, squeezing and drawing her in further. She feels JJ’s groan against the sensitive skin between her neck and shoulder more than she hears it. JJ’s breath is hot and wet against her hyper sensitive skin, her whole body thrumming with arousal. When she feels the blunt pressure of JJ’s teeth against her own flesh, not quite sinking but pressing against her in an attempt to stifle another moan, Emily knows she’s holding back.
Emily curls her fingers again, putting a firm pressure right there inside JJ where she knows will illicit the most pleasure and presses the heel of her hand hard against her clit.
Turning her head, she whispers into JJ’s hair, “Let go for me, beautiful.”
And she does. Emily feels JJ shatter around her fingers. Her whole body tensing in pleasure, falling over the edge with a sharp cry, followed by Emily’s name lingering on her lips, imprinting itself on Emily’s shoulder.
The entire rise and fall a slow build, fitting itself like a euphonious melody in the quiet sanctuary of Emily’s room that they’d build last night.
JJ murmurs a breathless and teary, “I love you.”
It’s barely the ghost of the words drifting over her skin, with Emily’s fingers still buried inside her and Emily realizes that at nearly thirty- nine, this has been the purest and most intimate moment of her life.
“I love you, so much, JJ,” she says, pressing her lips to the side of JJ’s head.
She’s the ship and and JJ’s the sea, and Emily will go wherever the currents take her. JJ is the moon and the stars in the sky, guiding her home. She’s her way in the dark, and Emily will do anything for her.