Disclaimer: Oh, no, not mine. I just play with them, then put them back where they belong. Don't make any money out of it yadda, no infringement intended yadda, yadda, yadda!

Author's Notes: Love and thanks to Nicci, for the alpha and the inspiration, to Cimmie and Missappocalyptic for the betas and encouraging noises and also to Pepe for pointing out the line that had taken me in the wrong direction.

Story Notes: This story popped up from one line in another story I'm working on.and proceeded to totally monopolise my every waking moment. It would never have been finished without a smack round the head from Pepe when I got lost and a manip from Nicci entitled "Come for Me" which is just, well,*guh*! If you want to see it, contact me off list and I'll send you a link.

"Metaphorically speaking, Ray..."

"Cut it out."

"Pardon me?"

"Seriously! Cut it out, Frase."

"I'm afraid I have no idea to what you are referring."

It's 8:28 pm, we've been at these case files for three hours straight, we're getting nowhere and I'm getting cranky.

"The words, Benton, the words. Let's just give Ray's brain a fighting chance and stop using Scrabble words. Talk normal."

"As far as I'm aware, all the words I use are normal, Ray."

I give him a roll of my eyes at which he just shakes his head.

"Right, well, how about we re-evaluate the eyewitness testimony with the benefit of renewed enthusiasm?" he smiles... enthusiastically...or is that "Bite me?"

"Fraser, I mean it. Lay off the long words."

"Or what?" he asks quietly, innocently flicking through the pages of a manila folder and avoiding my eyes. He idly licks his forefinger and hovers it over the corner of the page he's reading...waiting...waiting then turns it with crisp, accurate movements. Freak.

"Don't push me, Frase. You'll be sorry," I say with a smile he'll be able to hear, so he knows I'm kidding - not about the long words - that's a pain in the ass - but about the threat.

"Understood."

He's quiet for a while, intently reading the pages of close type. His free hand absently scratches at Dief's neck where he lies beside him on the floor, surrounded by files.

He looks at home, here at my place. It took him a while though. The guy is the definition of displaced. If you look in a dictionary under misfit, it says Benton Fraser.

It's not that he's cold or uninterested. I think he just doesn't have a lot of practice at being friends with people. Friendly, yes...friends, no. Like he knows what he's supposed to do, but it's all theoretical. And that Vecchio disappeared really did a number on him. It just made him even more cautious.

So I've let him do this at his own pace; tried not to scare him off. And now he's finally comfortable with me, sitting with his back against the couch on the floor, with his boots kicked under the table out of the way. He's got on his ratty old plaid shirt and a pair of jeans that look too tight for him to be comfy cross-legged.

And he's come to mean a lot to me, which was a surprise. I'm not normally a close buddy kind of guy either. But his na*ve goodness and his hesitant friendly gestures caught me with my guard down. By the time I realised what was happening, it was too late; we were a duet - Fraser and Ray - Ray and Fraser. Admittedly the second pair to wear the title, but linked together all the same.

"This could be interesting," he says after a pause and I look up at him from my file. "It would appear that this witness was distracted at the critical moment by a commotion behind her...possibly a ...premeditated diversionary episode."

His eyes meet mine and they're laughing, teasing, daring me to make good on my threat.

Benton being playful; now that doesn't happen often.

I put down my file, lean over to him and take a handful of his shirt buttons, not too rough, but hard enough that I can hold him if he tries to stop me. He wants to play? I'm all over that.

"You just don't listen," I say with a 'now you're for it' grin. I'm torn between slapping his face, flicking his nose or licking a stripe up his cheek like Dief does. I'm not sure how outrageous I can be without freaking him.

So I pull him closer, undecided right up until the last second. Then I plant a kiss on his shocked, frozen lips, hard and quick and warm. I lean out again, let go of his shirt and nod in an 'I told you so, you asked for it' kind of way. I pick up my file and stick my nose back in it, like this is the most natural thing in the world for me to do.

I'm dead.

I'm so fucking dead, I'm beyond dead. I'm worm food.

He sits there in stunned silence and I'm refusing to look at him - if he sees my eyes, he'll know how fucking freaked I am by what I just did. After a moment's contemplation, he drops his head back to the file and starts to read again.

My mind is fizzing and popping like a bad connection. Where the FUCK did that come from? I mean that wasn't just stupid - oh no - you have to be a special kind of stupid to do something like that. Kissing your very straight partner and best friend - that ranks up there with the most brain-dead things I've ever done... and there have been a few.

If I just keep my head down until I get it back together, we'll be fine. It was a joke; we can laugh it off. But if it was a joke, why do I have to move my file down into my lap to hide the subtle swell of interest that our lip lock produced? Why is my heart doing the internal organ equivalent of punching the air and shouting 'Woo Hoo'? Why is my mind telling me that it was SOOOOO worth it, even though he's gonna be looking at me funny for a few weeks.

My whole fucking body is conspiring against me; it's in love with Benton Fraser - when the hell was it gonna tell me?

"Ray?"

"Hmmmmmm?" Okay, that was cool. Slightly bored and uninterested, it's good.

"Nothing."

Shit. If I'm freaking, imagine what Ben is doing. I'm praying to anyone who'll listen that he lets it go and doesn't comment.

His eyes flick up to me as he pretends to read; once...twice...three times. The fourth time, I'm waiting for it with a carefully neutral expression on my face. Our gazes collide for an endless five heartbeats and then he's gone again, back into his file.

He's thinking so loud I can almost hear it. Just don't say it, Ben. For once in your life, just keep it to yourself. Because if you say it...

"Ray?"

"Yeah?" I croak stupidly.

"I think the verisimilitude of this statement in particular is conspicuous, don't you?"

He doesn't make any attempt to show me the statement, just keeps his eyes locked on the rug in between us.

Is he...? Could he be...? Surely he's not trying to goad me into...?

"Frase..."

"And the corroboration from independent sources has all the salient features in remarkable detail," he says over the top of me.

A flush creeps up his neck and into his cheeks in front of my eyes. The unflappable Mountie is flustered? Well fuck! He falls silent and waits for me to act.

If I have this wrong, it will be bad...very, very bad. But if he's thinking what I think he's thinking, this could be...greatness.

I think I'm gonna throw up.

I put out a hand even I can see shaking and slowly take a grasp on his shirt again, still creased from where I held it before. He doesn't stop me but he doesn't help me either as I gently pull him to meet me half way. His head is still bowed and I have to angle mine so I can capture his mouth again; slower this time, softer. It seems like an eternity, but finally I feel him yield, and he's kissing me back with the same tenderness.

I break away from his mouth and sit back to watch his reaction. This is not what I expected and I'm as dazed as he looks. Is he messing with me? Is he just that bored of case notes? Is he curious? What?

His tongue slips from his kiss-reddened mouth and licks the taste of me from his lips, swallowing a part of me.

Me? I'm just trying to breathe normally around a heartbeat that feels like it's shaking my entire body. What now? I'm so tense you could bounce things off me. I'm wired. I'm thrumming. Can't breathe, can't swallow, can't move. What now, Frase? What now? What NOW?

"Pragmatically speaking..." he whispers.

I launch myself across the files that scatter into a hopelessly disorganised carpet of paper and into Ben's waiting arms; he's dumped his file with the rest and he's ready to field a hundred and sixty pounds of Chicago PD personnel. The wolf takes one look at us and slopes off to my bedroom in disgust.

Ben falls back with me to the floor in a tangle of arms and badly aimed kisses. And it's...God...amazing...greatness. We kiss and roll and bump into stuff and kiss some more. Nothing's enough, we push and shove and strain for more contact, more of my tongue in his mouth, more of his hands beneath my sweater, more of my hands in his hair. The needy moan that he makes surprises and thrills me, urging me on so he makes them again and again. Can't get enough of that noise.

I kiss every inch of his face and neck, then unbutton his shirt in search of other places to map with my mouth. He pushes his thigh between my legs and brings it to rest, snug against my groin, inviting me to rub against him, and the temptation to just go to town against his hard muscles is a kicker. Instead, I roll him flat onto his back and manoeuvre my body between his thighs, then slowly slide down his until the unmistakable feel of Ben's hard-on lines up with my own and he groans in appreciation.

Still not believing it's true, I balance my weight on my hands and rock my cock against his. He hisses and arches his head back, eyes closed and mouth pleading to be kissed. I, of course, oblige and rock again, building a slow, lazy rhythm as the whisper of denim on denim counterpoints our harsh breathing.

His repertoire of grunts, sighs and breathy moans is very encouraging. He's totally into this, giving our making out the same intense concentration he gives everything. He's right there with me every step of the way, waiting to be directed, but so close behind me that it makes no odds.

With his eyes closed and biting his lip to try and stop the noises which are escaping him anyway, he looks thoroughly wicked... beautiful, and I have to close my eyes too, so I don't come just from the sight of his face.

I roll to one side and desperately scrabble at the fly of his jeans. I have to touch him, see him, taste him. His buttons yield to my shaking fingers and I dive my hand into the hot, tightness of his jeans. His shorts are damp from sweat and his leaking cock. Harshly I pull his jeans and his shorts down in one handful and his cock jumps up onto his belly leaving a splash of glistening fluid on his skin.

Gentle is out of the window and 'now' is the word of the day. I take him in my hand and he growls low in his chest - a sound so deeply needy and desperate for release that I almost take pity on him and finish him there. Almost.

I sit up and look at him for a second. He lies across the wreckage of our case notes, his skin flushed and his cock jutting out of yanked down jeans. His shirt is still on his arms, but only just; crushed beneath him. One hand is on his chest, rising and falling with each panting breath and the other is thrown back above his head, revealing the dark, damp hair of his armpit.

Slowly his eyes open halfway and he gazes at me from under heavy lids, a hint of a smile on his face. I smile back and kiss his shoulder, his collarbone, his nipples, his bottom rib, his belly button and from there lick a stripe through the dark hairs that get coarser and denser the lower I go. My nose meets the head of his cock, and I open my lips and swallow him.

His sigh seems to go on forever as I explore the taste and smell and feel of the man. His scent drives me distracted; it's pure and filthy, soap and sweat all overlaid with the unmistakable aroma of arousal. With single-minded attention, I try to ignore the screaming need of my body and make it good for Ben.

I feel his hands reach down, trying to lift my face, pull me back for a kiss, but I know it's not because he doesn't like what I'm doing. Oh no. Ben Fraser is worried about taking without giving - I just know it.

He slips from my lips as I quickly move over to straddle his thighs. Pushing his jeans lower to give me more to work with, I catch his hands as he reaches for me. I twine our fingers then slowly lean forward to bring his hands to the ground beside his hips and in the same movement take his cock back into my mouth.

He cries out as his hands instinctively jerk, trying to touch me, but I hold him tight and slide my tongue along the ridge under the crown of his dick. He twists beneath me, moaning and panting - can't stop himself and I'm pretty proud of that. And we've learned something new about Ben; he likes to be held down. Well, shit - I'm all over that, too.

My efforts are loudly appreciated and soon it's plain that he's close; his face is screwed up and sweaty, his breath is coming faster and harder. I can't watch him as well as I'd like, occupied as I am with what I'm doing, but the glimpses I get are pure wet dream. Ben with his head thrown back and his neck bared. Ben moaning my name. Ben trembling beneath my mouth.

"Ray! Don't...you have to...I'm going to..." He tries to pull away from me, tries to free his hands, but I'm not having any of it. I grasp his fingers tighter, roll with his desperate thrashing and am rewarded with his thick seed filling my mouth in floods of heat and salt and a strange bitterness. I swallow as much as I can as another twitch of his dick fills me again. I hold on, sucking and licking and rolling him in my mouth until the shudders finish, he relaxes and goes still.

My knees and thighs are complaining like a bastard, almost as much as my dick, so I slump down beside him on the floor, feeling the cool, dry slide of paper as I settle on the case notes. Now Ben's hands find my face and tilt my chin so he can see me. He looks at me in a kind of wonder, as if checking to see if it's still me.

With a heavy, uncoordinated thumb he touches the corner of my mouth. As he pulls it away, I realise with a stab of embarrassment that I have his come on my face where my desperate gulps didn't catch it all. I stare stupidly from his thumb to his eyes and back again.

I see the exact second that he realises what we've done. His blue eyes widen and his chin comes up and I don't wait for the rest of it. I'm scrambling to my feet, grabbing for my sweater and muttering something about tea. And it isn't the files that make me feel like the world is suddenly unstable under my feet.

Okay, lets think about this. Water. Kettle. I've just jumped my partner. Mugs. Spoon. No spoons. Find a spoon. Wash the spoon. And he seemed to be good with it. Stop hands shaking enough to open tea packet. More than good with it, he ASKED for it. He wanted me to do it. Tea in mug. Scoop of coffee in the other mug. I can hear Frase picking up paper but I don't look. Bang on the surface with the spoon while I wait for the water. So if that's what he wanted, why did he wait for me to play a stupid game of dare?

Water's boiling. He seemed to be scared to ask. Water's boiling. So how long has he been waiting? Water's boiling. Did he know that I'd been thinking about this... even unconsciously... subconsciously... whatever? Water's boiling.

"Ray, the water's boiling," Frase says from behind me, his voice low, soft and controlled, but I still jump. You'd never know those lips could make such wanton noises when encouraged.

In that instant I know everything's changed. I shouldn't know that about him. I shouldn't know he makes the most incredible noises when he's getting sucked. I shouldn't know he likes kisses to be sloppy and messy and wet. I definitely shouldn't know what he looks like when he's just come; hair tousled and crazy, eyes sleepy and dark, and his lips red, swollen and spit slick from kissing. Not if we want to be able to work together tomorrow.

I grab for the kettle, misjudge it and burn my fucking hand. Instantly, Ben is there, switching off the gas, righting the kettle and prising my scalded hand from under my armpit to run it under cold water. He turns my hand in his, twisting it this way and that, looking for damage. There isn't any, I know that - it's just a scald.

"Frase, it's fine. Let go," I tell him quietly.

"Are you okay? Does it hurt?" he asks, holding on tighter to my wrist when I try to pull away.

"Yes, I'm sure." He still doesn't let go. "I'm sure." I yank my hand out of his grasp making it sting like fuck. He sighs and looks at me. And in my mind, I'm back on the wharf, explaining to him that he never listens and that we've gone stale and that we shouldn't be partners anymore. That same look of disappointment and abandonment is in his eyes, just like when I hit him.

I nearly lost him that time.

I wonder if I've finally done it this time.

That time he walked away and my heart slams when he takes a few steps back, but he simply leans his back against the refrigerator, crosses his arms and watches me. Ben has left his shirt undone, only fixed his jeans - hasn't even done all the buttons up, just enough to keep them on his hips. My eyes are drawn down his belly by the line of dark hair to where it dips under the denim. And even getting burned hasn't taken the edge off my hard-on so much I can ignore it.

He's making my skin creep and my dick throb with his calm gaze and his stillness. To have a distraction I go back to making the tea, ignoring the painful stretch of my reddened hand.

"Don't," he says so quietly I almost miss it.

"Don't what?" I ask harshly. Fuck. Why am I pushing him away? A glance confirms that my tone was another slap in the face for him.

"Well, to use your favourite euphemism, don't freak on me."

"Who's freaking?" I challenge, concentrating really hard on stirring my M & M's into my coffee.

"You are." He pauses, and then amends, "We are."

I hold out his mug of tea to him. He looks at it, then back at my face but makes no move to take it. My hand is shaking still and the steaming liquid slops in the mug, making my emotional state plain. I bang it down on the side and wipe my face with a hand that smells like him.

"We've ruined it, don't you see that?" I ask him quietly.

"In what way?"

"In every way that counts, Fraser. How can we go back to work tomorrow and pretend nothing's happened? It's just..."

"I have no intention of pretending nothing's happened," he says in that infuriating "let's look at this logically" voice of his.

"Great. That's brilliant, Fraser, and how long do you think we can keep that bullshit up for? It's gonna get...hinkey... and weird and that's how mistakes get made. And that's how people get killed."

I can't believe I've been this fucking stupid. It's basic. You don't do this on your own doorstep. If you've got to do it, you go elsewhere. I know that. I've seen friendships blown apart before...Jeezus, I've had friendships blow apart over a one night lapse in good sense.

"I don't see why we should get weird, Ray. I would never endanger your life...in anything other than my normal wildly bizarre ways."

He's joking? Fraser made a joke? I can't even get caffeine into me for fear that I'll drown myself in the choppy waters of my coffee mug, and he's JOKING?

There's no indecision in his face anymore. That moment of shock earlier has gone without a trace. He looks confident, relaxed... thoroughly fucked and beautiful actually with his hair all tufty and his skin glowing in the bit of light that carries from the living room.

"I can't forget, Fraser," I say bluntly.

"Why would you want to?"

"So we can work together. So we can be friends again. You might be able to fuck around with someone and then put it away, I can't."

"Put it away?"

"Yeah, one night stand, no repercussions, no strings attached."

"Is that what this is?" And all that relaxed confidence is gone in a second. He looks at the floor, poised for my reply.

"Well..." The words die in my mouth. I stand like a moron, mouth open, hand in mid gesture and stare at him. Isn't that what this is? What else could it be? Just a bit of fun, a couple of guys who aren't getting it anywhere else, finding some relief.

Well, of course that's what it is. Look at him. As if he could want anything more from me...I mean look at me! I'm not exactly a catch. As Stella found out once the exciting edge of shacking up with the boy from the wrong side of the tracks wore off. He should know, he knows me better than anyone.

I really need to get a grip on myself and stop boxing above my weight. Like I could ever have been what Stella wanted me to be. Like I could ever be what Benton Fraser is looking for.

When I don't finish my sentence, he looks up at me warily and must see some of what is happening in my head, because he narrows his eyes slightly and tilts his head at me, just like he does when he's seen something he's about to lick.

"I wasn't looking for a one night assignation, Ray," he says bravely.

"You weren't looking for anything, Frase. I jumped you, remember?"

"If I had known that might be an option, I would have acted long before now."

I take a long pull on my too hot, too sweet coffee, but it doesn't help. I'm definitely hearing things.

"But you looked so... freaked... when I..."

"I apologise. That was not my intention. I was surprised when I looked at you and saw you looked..." he pauses and licks his bottom lip.

"What? Looked what?"

"Happy," he sighs. "You looked so happy, Ray. I was momentarily stunned that I could make you look like that."

"Fuck..." I blurt. "Sorry." I'm waiting for the punch line, because from where I'm standing this all seems to be going a little too much my way. I'm not used to it. Any second now the karmic 'kick Kowalski in the head' thing is gonna land on me.

"But what about work?"

"We'll be discreet," he responds immediately.

"You'll have to lie," I warn.

"I'll find ways not to. People are unlikely to ask directly."

"Francesca would ask. Dewey is the most indiscreet guy in Chicago. If it gets out ..."

"Nonsense! We practically live each other's lives anyway. No one will notice any difference."

"We work in an office of detectives Fraser. What kind of...?"

"Ray. Ray. Ray. Ray. Ray..."

"What?" I gesticulate so wildly with my mug that the wet smack of sugar with a hint of coffee hitting the floor silences us both for a heartbeat.

"You're over-thinking this," he says quietly.

"Ha! That is SO rich, Fraser."

"Just calm down..."

"OR WHAT?"

Our eyes lock. The lazy buzz of a trapped fly drones over the sounds of the city. It's almost totally dark now outside and the flat, sodium glow of the streetlamps deadens the colours in the apartment. The smell of cooking wafts in through the open windows in a jumble of scents and sensations.

Same neighbourhood - different planet.

"You'll be sorry," Ben murmurs.

My heart jumps in my chest. My God, we're going to do this. Ben is daring me, just like I did him. He's playing for real now. We've both realised what this is and what it isn't. And he still wants to do it.

"This isn't a game anymore, Frase." Gotta be sure.

"I know."

"This is huge... vast... really, really..." words fail me, as usual "...big."

"Ray..." he warns with a growl.

"Seriously, Frase. This isn't like... insignificant."

He takes a step toward me and pauses. Last chance, Kowalski. Right, like I wasn't gone the second he invited me to eat with him that first night we met. A grin starts to tug at my lips and I put down my coffee in preparation.

"Enormous, Ben. Like the biggest of the big, the most gigantic... ooooof!"

His tackle catches me around the waist and his momentum carries us back towards my bedroom. I laugh and dredge my lust soaked brain for something else to tease him with.

"Would you excuse us please, Diefenbaker?" Ben growls politely but his eyes never leave me. I'm just about to point out that the wolf is allegedly deaf and shouldn't be able to hear that, when a big white shape pads past me, his claws clicking on the floorboards. Smart wolf.

I take a breath to ask how deaf is deaf, but the second his mouth meets mine, I'm toast.

He's possessed. For a guy that just got off ten minutes ago, he's certainly got some spring in his step. He crowds me, bullies me and forces me through the door and onto the bed, holding me, so I don't go down too hard; so we don't have to stop kissing.

His hands are hot and everywhere. He roughly yanks my sweater up, breaks his lips away from mine and pulls it over my head. My mouth searches for his again but he's found something else to kiss. As his tongue touches my nipple, my eyes roll back in my head and I make an embarrassing gurgling noise in my throat. I love that - how did he know I love that?

While he worries my aching nipples with his teeth, he efficiently unbuttons my jeans. With my last shred of sense, I lift up as he pulls them off my legs along with my shorts and my socks. The air feels cool against my super heated skin although I know it's August and not exactly cold outside.

He stands up and I'm suddenly overcome with loss. His heat, his touch, I need them. I feel ridiculously exposed here alone on my unmade bed. It's too early for anything romantic like moonlight through my bedroom window. What we get is the orange glow from the street below. I can see him clearly enough though. And he can see me.

"Look at you," Ben growls, his eyes running slowly up my scrawny body. He slides his shirt slowly from his shoulders and lets it drop with a whisper to the floor. He never takes his eyes off me as he pops the remaining buttons of his jeans and slides them and his shorts down. When he straightens up, I shiver. He's glorious; broad and golden and already half hard again.

"You're perfect, amazing...God, you're beautiful, Ray," he whispers.

"Freak," I murmur affectionately. "C'mere."

He does as I say, settling into my arms as if he'd done it a thousand times before. Muscle memory - that's what he calls it. How an action becomes instinctive and flowing. Well our muscles seem to remember each other just fine.

My skin is pale against his, my bones more prominent, but every plane of his body seems to find it's corresponding plane on mine and we fit. Thigh against thigh, chest to chest and mouth on mouth. He sucks my bottom lip repeatedly into his mouth, nipping at it, then letting it go, interspersing it with soft kisses and confident caresses.

"Ray," he says in a low, dirty voice I've only ever heard him use in dreams that end up requiring laundry.

"Yuh?" What the fuck is there to talk about NOW? Now is not chat time, for chrissakes. There're other things we should be concentrating on like skin...and...skin!

He leans in to my neck, places a small kiss, and then lifts his lips to my ear. "Fuck me," he whispers.

I make a desperate grab for my dick. "Fucking hell, Ben! Holy Christ!" I squeeze hard and quickly try to think of something other than my mild mannered Mountie's sweet mouth talking dirty. "Warn a guy, willya?" I whimper.

He chuckles low in his throat and asks "Ready?"

"Hmmm." It's all I can manage.

"I want you to fuck me, Ray. As hard and as deep as you can. Now," he enunciates as if he were talking to the wolf. When I just stare at him stupidly, he smiles, pulls away from me and starts rummaging in my nightstand. A second later he's back with a tube of lube that I ought to check the sell by date on and a condom wrapper that hasn't seen the outside world in months. He presses them into my hands, kisses me and spreads himself on the bed.

How did he know those were there? I know he's snooped around my apartment once before, but that was a long time ago - and embarrassingly these are probably the same ones that were in there then.

"Are you sure?" I ask him as I slick up my fingers. "I mean...have you...do you know what you're doing?" 'Cos I fucking well don't! I mean, I do, but, not with Ben, not with someone that means this much to me. Not with someone I... love.

"It's fine, Ray," he insists. I move up his body, pressing kisses to his spine as I go. He tenses as I ghost my hand over his ass and I wonder if he's telling the truth. "It's fine" is not the same as "Yes".

"Fess up, Frase. You've never done this before, have you?"

"Not with...someone else," he mumbles into the pillow.

Oh!

OH!

Well, my Mountie has so many hidden sides to him. And as much as an innocent, totally oblivious Frase turns me on, a Frase who knows just how to amuse himself on those long, dark Northwest Territories nights presses buttons I didn't even know I had!

I push my nose into the short, prickly hair at the nape of his neck and bite down as I slide a cool finger against his hole. I can hear him, fighting with his breath, trying to relax, so I murmur nonsense to him as I kiss his shoulders and spine.

Gently, gently, I breach him, two fingers sliding home after the initial resistance. He's hot and tight, smooth and uneven. I can feel every move he makes, I feel his blood, his breath and his muscles work as he stretches and twists to accommodate me. I have no idea whose shaking I can feel, his or mine, but it feels as if the whole world is trembling like the last leaf on the tree in a Fall storm.

I kiss each knob of his spine downwards until I reach the swell of his perfect ass. I swipe my tongue across his cheeks, swirling the little dark hairs I find there into crazy patterns. He's making little hums of pleasure that burn a path to my balls, making me tingle. With my free hand I encourage him to lift up, get his knees underneath him and he's spread before me, my fingers buried deep inside him, joining us, connecting us. I can't believe I get to have this...have him...and that it's not a one night, desperation thing.

I must have zoned out because he's up on his hands, arching back onto my fingers, demanding more. Quickly, I withdraw my hand and lick a hot, wet stripe across his hole, then gently blow where I passed. He groans a deep gut wrenching, cock leaping moan and stretches like a cat.

"Ray, now," he whispers.

"But you're hardly..." I whimper even as I scramble to comply with his wishes. Wrapper, condom, lube, my fingers are suddenly capable of incredibly complex actions and the shaking has stopped. No more leaves, no more trees. We are the storm. We're flying.

"Now," he insists.

I'm sure it needs no help, but I take my cock in my hand and guide it to where Ben waits, open and needing me. With a roll of my hips I'm inside him, just the head, hanging within him, the sweetest feeling I've ever know.

"Move," he moans, swaying softly, impatient and wanting. God, I want to savour this, I want to remember every single second, imprint it on my brain so it's there each time I close my eyes. But Ben needs, he wants hard and deep. And he wants now. And I want him so badly, I would do anything he asked of me...anything.

I grasp his hips, close my eyes and ease forward. He comes back to meet me, and when I open up again, he's hard against my groin, my dick deep in his ass. Sensation crashes down on me, and I'm drowning. I feel the pulsing of his blood through the heat inside him, I feel the slight prickle of his hairs on his lower back and ass against my belly, I feel swell of his ribs as he gulps in air where I've laid my head on his back.

I pull out, only an inch, then press back in. Lifting myself from where I was plastered to his spine, I do it again and... God, that's good. Short, quick snaps of my hips, making him twitch, making me burn. I lose myself in the rhythm of it - I could do this forever, keeping it just below the point of no return.

I wipe a hand down Ben's flank and gather the sweat that is starting to sheen his skin. His head hangs between his arms and he moans those sweet little gasps that make me feel like I'm king of the world.

"Harder," he murmurs incoherently, and I smile into the darkness. Fraser breaking apart - can't get enough of that. I palm his cheeks and spread them further, then pull right out, really, really slow, only to slam back into him hard enough to make his head jerk back as he cries out "Yeah!"

"Yeah?" I tease. "More?"

"More," he agrees. "Much more."

When he said he wanted hard, he wasn't kidding. I've never let myself get quite so rough with anyone before. But he's taking everything I throw at him and adding some of his own. He meets me, time after time, straining back as I punch into him.

He' s loud - I LOVE that. I love that I do that to him, make him yell and moan and curse. It's so not RCMP, so not "thank you kindly", so not Fraser. This is Ben. And Ben is mine.

I feel the tightening, tingling in my groin that means I'm close and with urgent hands I clutch at his shoulder, dragging him back upright against me. Wrapping an arm across his chest, I ignore the burn in my thighs that protests his weight on me. I reach down and force his thighs further apart then gather his balls in my hand, feeling them cool and tight. Ben drops his head back against my shoulder as my hand slides up and wraps around his shaft. I press a kiss behind his ear, knowing I don't have long.

"Come for me," I breathe. His hand smacks up onto mine when I pinch his hard nipple, he gasps and I feel him convulse around me, irregular, ragged tugs on my cock as he shoots into my fist. And as beautiful as that is, it's Ben's slutty-mouthed "Ah...ffffuuck...Raaaaaaaaaaayyyy," that pushes me over and I come hard enough to make me shout.

We must have keeled over, because when I come to, I still have him clutched against my chest, but we're lying side by side on my bed. I can't see the clock, we're at the wrong end of the bed, but from the noise outside I guess it's getting late. Actually, I can't see anything of much except the back of Ben's neck and where his hair has dried into curls from the sweat we generated. I press my nose into that soft hair and breathe in the scent of him and me.

I should get up and clean us up some. I've slipped out of him and where I've softened, the condom has leaked, leaving me sticky and wet. But it's so good here. I notice my sweater, hanging off the end of the bed, quickly reach for it and swipe at my groin, folding the condom in a limp, soggy mess into the folds of the fabric. With a twist of my wrist I send the whole lot sailing in the direction of the overflowing laundry hamper.

"That's disgusting," Ben mutters, but I can hear the grin in his voice.

"It's a gift," I tell him, yank the quilt over the both of us and settle back into my warm hollow at his back. I don't want him to get up and go, and this is the only way my post-orgasmic brain can come up with.

"You sleeping?" he asks after a few blissful minutes of me relishing his skin so close to mine.

"What else?" I reply. There is a small pause and a stunned smile begins to slide across my tired face. He's already come twice; the guy is insatiable! Who knew?

"Scrabble?" Ben suggests.

"Frase, you know how many points you got for 'verisimilitude'. Another word like that could kill ya!"

He chuckles and I feel it all through my body where I'm pressed against him. Feels nice. He goes quiet and I find the spot in his hairline that I've discovered my nose likes to be in when I sleep.

Somehow, I know it's coming.

"Ray...?"

"Yeah?"

"Floccinaucinihilipilification."

Fin