Disclaimer: These characters are not mine and I am not making any money off this.

Author's Notes: Written for stop_drop_porn, prompt: breeze. Speed-beta and encouragement provided by snoopypez.

Stella tilted her frying pan, watching the nalesniki batter coat the bottom in a beautiful even layer. The smell of hot butter and apple filling and the ocean filled the small kitchen.

"In Chicago you couldn't even crack a window this time of year without getting frostbite." Ray sounded smug as he pulled the jar of Nutella out of the refrigerator. "And here we've got a breeze from the ocean and I don't even need my bathrobe."

The mention of frostbite sent her thoughts skittering to Ray, up in Canada. Of course he'd never minded the cold like she had. She couldn't even count the number of times she'd borrowed his sweaters and jackets and hats and gloves and scarves when they were out together, and he hadn't just been being chivalrous. She glanced at Ray, who was now straddling a kitchen chair and eating Nutella with a spoon. "Ray," she said. "You don't think breakfast dates are stupid, do you?"

He took the half-eaten spoonful of chocolate out of his mouth. "Yeah, I think it's idiotic, that's why I slaved away all last Sunday morning making you frittatas. Where did that come from?"

"Nowhere," she said. "Maybe I'm just not awake yet."

"If you wanted coffee you should have just asked," he said, getting up and turning on the little espresso machine Frannie'd given them for a wedding present.

"Thanks, Ray." She dumped the pancake onto the stack by the stove and poured another spoonful of batter into the pan. "Can you put ricotta cheese on the shopping list? I used the last of it in the peach and cheese filling."

He rummaged in a drawer for a pen, then froze. "Did Kowalski think they were stupid? Is that it?"

She didn't want to go into it, but she also wasn't about to lie. "Yes," she said, more sharply than she meant to. "He did."

"I know this may come as a shock, Stella, but I'm not Kowalski." Ray actually sounded pissed off. She turned to look at him, startled by the complete lack of good humor on his face. "Just because he used my name for a year, that doesn't mean I believe every dumbass thing that ever came out of his mouth." He gestured wildly with his spoon. "Shit," he muttered. "Now I got chocolate on my pajamas. I swear, sometimes you're as bad as Fraser!"

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's just a little stain. I'll be able to get it out."

"Yeah?"

"If not, it's on one of the red stripes," she said. "You can hardly see it. Don't throw them away. I like those pajamas." She wasn't sure what exactly appealed to her about them. They were incongruous, somehow, elegant and tacky at the same time. Kind of like him. "Look, I know you aren't Ray. It's not like I could confuse the two of you. It's just that he's--come on, Ray, he's the only guy I ever had! How do I know what's a guy thing and what's just him?" The smell of burning batter recalled her attention to her pan. "Well, fuck." She dumped the pancake in the garbage and started again.

Behind her, Ray sighed dramatically. "Since this is Kowalski we're talking about, I'd say all of it was just him." His voice was closer than she'd expected--he put his hands on the waist of her robe, pressing the terrycloth into her skin. He leaned in, but this time she refused to be distracted and kept on spreading the batter. He reached out and took a hot pancake off the stack, so his mouth was still kind of full when he spoke low in her ear. "Tell me something you always wanted to do in bed and he wouldn't."

She drew in a sharp breath. "Are you offering?"

"Hey, I make no promises," he said easily, and sucked her earlobe into his mouth. It felt hot and shocking, and the pan rattled against the burner.

"Fine," she said. "I always wanted to try a threesome."

His hands tightened on her hips and he straightened up. "Really?" he asked, sounding incredulous. "Girl-girl-guy or guy-guy-girl?"

"Girl-girl-guy," she mumbled.

He let go of her completely, stepping back. "Really?" His voice actually squeaked, he sounded so pleasantly scandalized. "And he said no?"

"He was pretty upset," she admitted. "He said he didn't want anyone else. He kept asking if he wasn't enough for me."

"Wow," Ray said. "Sounds like Fraser found someone as batshit crazy as he is."

"I also," Stella said, dumping the pancake out of the frying pan with more force than necessary, "got the impression he was afraid if he went for it, I would realize I was a lesbian and leave him." She was surprised at how resentful she still felt, all these years later. Not because she'd wanted the threesome all that badly. But because of how he'd made her feel so guilty.

Ray snickered. "Classic case of projection. So this threesome, did you have someone picked out?"

She turned her head and raised her eyebrows at him, smiling in spite of herself. "Actually, I did. He had this friend, they trained together in the ATF. Suzanne. She--well, she grew her hair out later, but when we met her she had this cute little pixie cut and she used to spike it, kind of like Ray, and she'd play basketball with him in her sports bra and--" She stopped, because Ray was staring at her. She shrugged and turned back to the pan. "It doesn't mean I don't like men too," she muttered.

"No, no, not--uh, Suzanne? Did she have a last name?" He sounded odd.

"Chapin," she answered, glancing back at him. "Why, you know her?"

His eyes nearly popped out of his skull. "Know her? I had a thing with her once!"

"Really?" In spite of herself she pictured the two of them together, Ray's slender frame and Suzanne's sturdy one. Suzanne's husky voice mingling with Ray's.

"Well." He sounded embarrassed. "It was complicated. She hit me with her car, and then--"

The image flew right out of Stella's head as she started laughing. "Oh my God, Ray, you're that guy? The one she hit over the head with her gun?"

He deflated. "Yeah."

"She was crazy about you," Stella told him. "We weren't really friends anymore then, but we ran into her at some conference and it was all she could talk about. Said you were a fantastic kisser. Of course, now I know she was lying, but--"

"Ha ha, very funny," he said, but he perked up. "She was really crazy about me?"

"You bet your ass." Stella slid the last pancake onto the stack and turned off the burner. "Breakfast is ready."

"Hey," Ray said, helping her carry bowls to the table, "you still got a number for her?"

Stella's eyes flew to his face. She didn't, but--"I could probably get one."

"Can we give her a call next time we're in Chicago?" he asked, so hopefully his voice squeaked again.

Stella grinned at him. "Sure, why not?"

He beamed. "I wish I knew what I did to get so lucky so I could do it again," he said, setting the bowls of filling on the table and stepping back to admire the effect.

"Don't get too excited," she warned him, settling the plate of pancakes in the middle of the table. "She might not even remember me."

His eyebrows flew up and his mouth twisted incredulously. "I think she'll remember you," he said. "You tend to stick out in a crowd."

Suddenly she felt so happy she couldn't breathe. "Kiss me," she demanded. He looked surprised, but he did it, his long body melting into hers and his tongue slipping into her mouth, tasting like chocolate and hazelnut. She stood on her tiptoes and slipped her arms around him. Her nipples rubbed against terrycloth. She could feel the sun on her skin, the breeze from the ocean lifting her hair and making her a little reckless. "Fuck me," she murmured.

He pulled back. "What, now? There's breakfast!" But his eyes were on the opening of her bathrobe.

"I'm not wearing anything underneath." She sounded matter-of-fact, thankfully, but her pulse was racing. Her sudden happiness trembled nervously in her stomach, and she desperately didn't want him to say no.

His eyes widened. He put a hand down and under the short hem of the robe, his fingers sliding over her skin, up her thigh and up over her hipbone. "You're not wearing anything underneath," he said. "Uh, did I know that?"

She shrugged, feeling a little foolish but also extremely conscious of his fingertips, which were still under her robe and which were now walking across her thigh and tangling in the edges of her pubic hair. "I might not have mentioned it," she said. "I just think it gives the breakfast date experience a certain--er--"

"Je ne sais quoi?" he offered.

"Well, yeah."

"Oh, it does," he agreed. "You want me to close the window?"

"Leave it open."

His eyes widened even further. "You want me to fuck you in the kitchen with the window open? In broad daylight?"

"We're not in your house in Chicago, Ray," she said. "The neighbors aren't going to report you to your mother. And--can't you feel the breeze?" She unbuttoned the first few buttons of his pajamas and blew lightly into the hollow of his throat. He sighed, and she leaned forward to nuzzle into the thick patch of dark hair on his chest. She pressed light kisses on his skin, his chest rising and falling under her lips as his breath came faster.

"I can feel something," he said, his fingers sliding down and rubbing over her slit. She was wetter than she'd realized, because one of them slipped right in. She froze, clutching at his pajamas. For a second they just stared at each other. Ray's eyes were wide and dark. He looked almost scared.

She wanted to wait, wanted to see what he would say, but she couldn't help it, he smelled too good, like aftershave and apple filling. He felt too good under her hands, his finger felt too damn good inside her. Her hips moved of their own accord, trying to push down, trying to push forward into him, trying for more.

He breathed raggedly and pushed another finger in, leaning down to suck hard at her neck. "I love your IUD," he said in a low, hoarse voice, which sounded unromantic, except then he did something, picked her up, dropped her, caught her, something, but she was lying on the kitchen floor and he was shoving at the waistband of his pajamas.

She spread her legs wider and braced herself against the floor. The tile was cool and smooth against her arms and her bare feet. His cross dangled between her breasts. She arched up just to see it lie flat against her skin, and while she was distracted, he shoved inside her.

"Oh, god," she said, wrapping her legs around his, trying to get him deeper, unable to believe how easy and bright and casual and hot this was, how turned on she was, how he was inside her on the kitchen floor in March and the window was open. She could smell salt and Ray and she wanted more. "Fuck yeah."

"You're amazing," he said breathlessly, not moving. "How are you so amazing?"

"Compliment me later," she said, shoving her hips up helplessly under him. "I need--I need--"

"Yeah," he said. "Right." He braced himself on the floor, a forearm on either side of her chest, bent his head till his face was pressed into the curve of her shoulder--and then he thrust into her, hard.

She moaned loud enough she was sure the neighbors could hear.

He did it again, and again, fucking her hard and steady and just how she needed. Her robe rode up until her bare ass was slamming into the tile, over and over. She was moaning, still, but she could hardly hear it, she could hardly see the bright sun streaming through the window. Every last bit of awareness she had was trapped between her legs. She couldn't do anything but let her head fall back and take it as he kept up an unrelenting rhythm that sent her spiralling higher and higher, faster and faster, like a goddamn roller coaster and she was at the top now, here it came, nothing she could do but open her mouth and yell as her orgasm crashed through her.

She convulsed around him, panting and clutching at his pajamas. She closed her eyes, and the afterimage of the sunlight against the insides of her eyelids seemed like an afterimage of her pleasure, somehow. She couldn't catch her breath, he wasn't stopping, and every time he slammed into her another aftershock rippled through her. God, she loved this about him, how she asked and he rose to the challenge every damn time, how half the time he didn't even seem to be listening to her but he was, because he always knew what she needed and gave it to her.

"Ray," she mumbled. "Oh fuck, Ray."

His breath was hot and fast against her neck, almost sobbing, and then he thrust into her one last time and came, cursing. They lay there for a while, silently, and then he raised his head. She held her breath, suddenly embarrassed.

"Breakfast dates are fantastic," he said, his voice shaking a little.

She laughed and relaxed, running her hand over the curve of his ass. The tiles were kind of digging into her back, but she liked his weight on top of her too much to say anything for another minute or two. She could feel him softening inside her. "The nalesniki are probably cold." She flexed apologetically around his cock.

"So?" he said. "We got a microwave, don't we?"

"Mmm," she murmured. "I guess we do."