"You just keep running your mouth, sunshine. We'll see who wins this pissing contest." Jim didn't look angry. In fact, he looked calm. Too calm. When Jim was really and truly furious, he turned ice-cold. Like the frozen tundra Blair could see in his eyes now.

Blair didn't know what he wished for more: for Jim to believe that he never let Emory lay an hand on him except for that goddamned kiss that took him by surprise, or for Jim to take his side, defend him to the death, and end up in prison for murder. Shit. Talk about a no-win situation.

Correction. What Blair wanted more than anything else was to be with Jim. Any way he could have him. But for that to work, he had to stay alive, and he had to keep his hands off Nolan Emory. How could he convince Jim that discretion was the better part of valor?

Blair attempted to get Jim's attention by gently clasping his wrist. But before Jim could say a word, Emory said, in a voice fairly dripping with disdain, "Oh, how nice, you want to hold hands."

His green eyes gleamed like a predator catching wind of his elusive prey at last. ""I'm surprised you'd settle for a hand, Blair. I let you hold something else."

It wasn't even a gasp. It was such a tiny puff of air only a Sentinel could hear it. Jim registered Blair's distress even as he fought to hold onto him. Blair struggled, knowing it was futile to try to get away. Jim was stronger, true, but he was also far more determined.

"Dammit, Jim! I've got no way to prove I wasn't off fucking him instead of gritting my teeth through dinner! You either trust me…or you don't." Tears of frustration appeared in Blair's eyes, dulling the vibrant blue, and Jim was suddenly reminded of the way an overcast sky clouded over just before a thunderstorm hit. He didn't want Blair to hurt. He didn't want Blair ever to hurt.

"Chief…*Blair*…I don't know this guy from a hole in the ground. But I know you."

"Jim…" Blair swallowed, feeling like he was about to choke on the lump in his throat. "Are you saying you trust me?"

Emory rolled his eyes. This was rapidly becoming a private moment, and if there was one thing he really couldn't abide, it was rampant sentimentality. "Oh, please."

Jim didn't even look at Emory. There was no one who could come between him and Blair now. "Of course I trust you, Chief. I love you."

Emory knew that once Jim declared his feelings for Blair, there might be no way for him to break that bond. He could see it in their eyes.

"You do?" The look on Blair's face transcended all the anger, all the lies, all the distrust.

"I've been trying to tell you, but," he glared at Emory, "*something* kept getting in the way."

Emory growled. Ellison was really starting to get on his last nerve. Oh, well, he hated to sow dissension and run, but…he was just so damn good at it. "Oh, tell it to Hallmark. Blair, you don't honestly, for one moment, imagine that a cop, a divorced straight cop, no less, is going to pledge undying love to you, do you?"

Emory's derision was like acid burning away at the newly forged bond between Blair and Jim. Blair's beatific smile disappeared, Emory's words gnawing at his self-esteem.

The older man pressed his advantage, choosing his next words with deliberate care, aiming them where they would do the most damage. "He just wants to fuck you, Blair. Men like him don't keep someone like you. He'll use you and throw you away. He'll leave you, Blair."

The CEO paused for dramatic effect. "Just like everyone else in your sad, pathetic life."

Jim didn't wait for Blair to respond to Emory. He took one look at the tears that still shimmered unshed in Blair's cloudy blue eyes and reacted. "I've had just about enough of you and your insinuations, asshole." He grabbed Emory, who was hardly a small man, by the collar, lifting him up until his own shirt threatened to strangle him.

"I didn't invite you here, and I want you gone. Now." The undercurrent of menace threading through Jim's terse declaration was readily apparent.

Emory smiled brightly, this time a genuine smile of triumph. He knew he hadn't won yet, but the scent was in his nostrils. He'd driven a sword of doubt and suspicion between the two men, and now he could afford to sit back and wait to reap the rewards of his self-righteous action.

Emory clicked his tongue. "Oh, my, I seem to have overstayed my welcome. Very well. I'll go. But…I'll be back."

Not if I see you first, you manipulative prick. Jim's icy blue eyes narrowed on the target of his growing wrath. Now there was a word. A word of Biblical proportions. Wrath. Not dislike. Not anger. Fucking wrath. Feel my wrath, you stupid fuck.

"Blair?"

Blair made a little noise that might have been a word. Or not. He seemed to be hanging by a thread now. Through all of this, Blair had been so in touch with his anger, he hadn't let himself feel the pain of losing Jim. But his mind seemed hellbent on jumping ahead of him, concluding that Jim was already gone but for the shouting.

"What?"

Jim resolutely met Blair's stricken look. With something that was close to a flourish, Jim bowed at the waist, sweeping his arm gracefully to the floor, despite the incongruous picture he made in his boxers. "I realize that you are perfectly capable of defending your own honor, but in the interests of justice, fair play, and the good old American way, can I please hit him? Just once. I swear."

A half-smile crept slowly across Blair's lips. "Well…" he drawled. "Just once."

Before Emory could get out of the way, Jim tapped him on the shoulder, saying lightheartedly, "Tag, you're it."

When Emory blinked, Jim hit him. True to his word, he hit him just once. Blair stood next to Jim and watched as the older man reeled backwards, his head banging with a dull thud against the wall. Moments later, Emory stumbled down the hallway, eschewing the elevator for the stairs. Big mistake. He lurched off the top step…and fell the rest of the way down.

Blair looked aghast. Jim gave him his best "I am so innocent* look. "I kept my word, Chief. Only punched him once."

"He could fucking sue us, man."

"Then he'd have to explain why he came here in the first place, Chief."

"He could make it sound so…ugly."

Jim shook his head. "Love is never ugly, Chief."

Blair ventured out into the hall and peered down the stairway. "I don't think he's moving, Jim. Shouldn't we do something?"

"Like what, Chief? Kicking him while he's out like the proverbial light would be so…anticlimactic."

Blair scowled at Jim. "I mean, shouldn't we call the police? Or an ambulance?"

"Nah…he'll get up…eventually."

"I can't believe you're just going to let him lie there, Jim."

"And I can't believe that you're actually advocating for him, Chief."

"Tell me we are not arguing over that piece of-"

Jim smiled sweetly. "Shit? Is that the word you're looking for, Chief?"

"Even shit has its…um…uh…"

"Lost for words, huh? Why don't we go back upstairs and argue some more? I have a few new words I can let you have."

"Jim, you can't be suggesting that we have…um…sex…while that man is lying at the bottom of a flight of stairs."

"Is all this moral outrage for real, Sandburg? I mean, maybe I got it wrong, after all. Maybe-"

"Maybe I did fuck him? Is that what you meant to say, Jim?"

Jim's eyes frosted over. "I told you that I trust you."

"Yeah, well, maybe I don't trust you, Jim."

Whoa. That one struck him dead center. Right in the heart.

"I don't believe you."

"What?"

"You heard me, Chief. I don't believe you."

"Why not?" Blair seemed dangerously close to tears.

"Because of this." Jim claimed Blair's mouth in a possessive kiss that literally stole his breath away. Blair whimpered slightly under the sensual onslaught. He could no more hide his reaction to Jim than fly. All those years of holding back and lowering his expectations to what he thought was a more realistic level could not prepare him for this.

Jim broke off the kiss, and Blair protested weakly, a soft murmur of "Jimmm" reaching Sentinel ears. Re-positioning his mouth to slant across Blair's lips from the opposite direction, Jim nudged those lips apart to allow his tongue to explore further.

A neighbor further down the hall popped a curious head out, but quickly ducked back inside at Jim's baleful look. "Maybe we should move this back inside, Chief. We're attracting an audience."

"What about—?" Blair asked, more interested in the outcome of his interrupted tryst with Jim than in how Nolan Emory fared.

Jim peered down the dimly-lit stairwell and shrugged. "Well, doesn't that beat everything? He's gone, Chief. Apparently under his own power. Guess he'll live to fight another day."

"Don't say that," Blair said with a shudder.

"He's just some arrogant asshole, Chief. He can't break us up. You know that, right?" Jim was not a kind man. He was nothing like a kind man. Yet it was moments like this, when he was at his most reassuring, that made Blair's hopeful heart sing.

"You never believed him," Blair declared with a fair amount of awe.

"Neither did you."

Blair shook his head. "I never thought you were just out for a quick fuck and run, Jim. If I thought that…well…" Blair colored slightly, but met Jim's ardent blue-eyed gaze evenly. "I never would have told you I love you, man."

Jim's mouth brushed lightly back and forth across Blair's. "I love you, Blair. I know it took me too long to realize it and even longer to say it, but I'm not taking it back. Ever."

"God, I was so afraid of fucking this up. You're my best friend, Jim, not just my partner, and I was so scared that when you found out I was in love with you, things would change."

"Things have to change, Chief."

"I know, I know, but Jim…I don't want to lose what we already have."

"We won't, Chief. We'll just keep building on what we have."

"Promise?" Blair whispered, his blue eyes impossibly big and filled with such adoration that Jim's heart skipped a beat.

"Promise," Jim vowed.

It was like a fucking dream come true. Blair in Jim's bed. Touching Jim. Jim touching him. Jim feverishly cataloguing the ways he wanted to make love to Blair. "The door is locked, the phone is off the hook, and we have to get up for work in about four hours."

"Maybe we should just sleep, man. What do you think?"

"I want you to be comfortable, Chief. If that's all you want to do, that's fine." Jim tried his best not to look disappointed, but Blair read him like a well-loved book.

Blair grinned with an insouciance that he didn't really feel. He should be scared to death at what he was contemplating. He'd never had sex with a man before. But this wasn't like that. This was Jim. The kisses, warm and wet and improbably wild, were wonderful. The fingers threading gently through his long hair were as loving as they were soothing. But none of those things was completely unknown territory for him. The kisses and the caresses were somehow an extension of the way Jim had always touched Blair.

"I would love to know what you're thinking right now, Chief," Jim said, emotion charging his voice with a huskiness it usually did not favor.

Blair hid a smile that got away from him by burying his face against Jim's firm chest. What he was thinking would take them irrevocably beyond the realm of friendship. Not that there would be any going back for either of them. "I was thinking how good…you felt…*before*…"

"Oh, yeahhh…" Jim's self-satisfied look reminded Blair of a big cat, proffering its belly to be rubbed. Jim was offering himself to Blair?

"Can I touch you?"

"I think if you don't, this is going to be a very one-sided romance, Chief."

"Is that what this is, Jim? Romance?"

"It is now." Jim's eyes were hungry for another glimpse of his spirit-is-willing-but-the-flesh-is-still-struggling-to-get-up-to-speed partner. "For me."

Jim grabbed Blair's thumb and deliberately and provocatively rubbed the digit against his mouth. Drawing it into his mouth without any warning, Jim smiled at the not-so-subtle signs that Blair was aroused. His pupils dilated to the point of utter darkness. His sharp gasp at the sensation of Jim, Jim, for fuck's sake, touching him that way.

"You brought me off before, Chief. Now it's your turn. Tell me what you want," he whispered to the younger man.

Blair grew hard almost instantly, and Jim's hands wandered south to Blair's hips, stroking, stroking, almost ceaselessly stroking. "I want you to…."

"Mmm, yeah?"

Suddenly he was so embarrassed, he couldn't speak coherently. "I…I…" Blair abruptly raised tortured blue eyes to Jim's. How could he possibly say this to Jim?

Guessing that Blair was both overcome by new and intense feelings as well as worried about scaring Jim away, Jim let his hands move slowly down Blair's back and over his buttocks. Blair was barely breathing now, each hitch of his breath sounding like it might be his last. Jim pulled the younger man against him, aligning their bodies so that Blair's cock nestled in the wiry hair at Jim's groin. His cock twitched as if to proclaim its happiness with this state of affairs, and Jim almost laughed out loud.

Imagine Jim being the one to take the lead here. Blair, for all his "free love" style upbringing, not to mention his seemingly nomadic disposition, was looking to Jim to anchor him firmly to terra firma. Jim's tongue flicked out to lave the side of Blair's neck, and Blair's eyes nearly rolled up in his head, his eyelashes fluttering down like the fake snow inside one of those glass globes that children shook. "Jim…"

Jim kissed him as his hands found Blair's cock. Jim's tongue entered his mouth and swallowed the gasp that was Blair's response. "I love you. All of you," he whispered as he stroked the hardened length of Blair's erection.

"Iwantyouttocomealloverme."

Jim's hand tightened imperceptibly on Blair's cock. Thank God for the control that Blair had given back to him. Dial down, Jim. He could hear his voice in his head, even though they were nearly nose to nose.

"Are you sure that's what you want, Chief?"

No, that's not all I want, Jim. Blair hushed the voices of doubt inside him, banishing them to wherever they came from. I want you to fuck me. The pain will probably fucking kill me the first time, but I don't care. I need you inside of me. This need is so great, it's like an ache that won't go away, but keeps getting bigger and bigger. Maybe that's why I need it so bad, Jim. It's a way for both of us to change at the same fucking time, neither one of us getting left behind. It marks me as yours forever. It binds your spirit to me. Christ, Jim, you've read my mind before! Just—

Jim's expression was too enigmatic even for Blair to read. The older man's lambent blue eyes traversed the entire length of Blair's body before resting on his beloved face. Pumping harder and faster, Jim forced Blair's climax upon him, the hot white stream pulsing against Jim's groin for several seconds. His fingers swirled through the come pooled there before painting a superficial circle around each of Blair's nipples.

Impossible as it was, Blair began to harden all over again. Jim brushed his fingertips against his mouth, tasting the essence of Blair on his tongue, and Blair could have come again, it was such an erotic sight.

Oh, God, it was finally going to happen. The merging of their spirits had taken place long ago. It was something Blair was more comfortable with than Jim. But eventually…Jim clearly came to terms with the idea, if he was able to give himself to Blair like this. In a way, with their spirits so inextricably intertwined, the physical expression of that union was almost anti-climactic.

Except that the anticipation of the actual event was enough to make him come apart in Jim's arms. Without Jim even touching him.

Jim pressed his mouth to the side of Blair's neck and suckled until he raised a significant bruise. He felt very territorial. This was the claiming, long denied, even longer postponed.

Breathless, Jim heaved himself on top of the smaller man, murmuring, "Are you sure?"

Blair's response, without the slightest hesitation, was "Are you crazy?"

Jim groaned, "I think I am. Just a little. Crazy in love with you. Stupid, huh?" he added in a self-deprecating tone.

"You don't expect me to agree with that, I hope," Blair said, nearly humming with contentment. He might never sleep again. Dreams couldn't be this good.

A long pink Sentinel tongue slurped affectionately at Blair's face, and Blair found himself giggling despite his inner tension. "You're making me wet."

"Amongst other things, yeah."

"Are we really going to do this?"

Jim nodded. "God, I hope so. If we don't, I'm going to have a devil of a time explaining it to my body."

"You let your dick lead you around, huh?" Blair seemed inordinately pleased by this news.

"No, Chief, I let your dick lead me around." But Jim didn't seem the least bit discomfited by the idea. Especially judging by the size of the grin he wore.

"All these snappy retorts make me feel hotter than hell, Jim," Blair said, abruptly realizing that Jim had totally relaxed, his body draping itself around Blair as though he wanted to wear him. Squirming underneath Jim's considerably heavier frame, Blair wondered how he was able to feel out of control and safe at the same time.

"There are condoms in that drawer," Jim said, indicating the top drawer of his nighttable.

"Mmm, you were a damn good Boy Scout, weren't you, Jim?"

"Kinda gives new meaning to the phrase, "Be prepared", doesn't it, Chief?"

Blair thrust involuntarily against Jim, moaning when he couldn't seem to get close enough. "I want you in me, Jim," he whined softly.

Jim rolled the condom over his cock with nerveless hands. If he allowed himself to actually think about what Blair just said, it would all be over. "I can't believe you're going to let me do this," he muttered under his breath.

Years of listening to Sentinel-speak had honed Blair's senses as well, and he registered what Jim meant. "I'm not letting you do anything, Jim. We're doing this together."

He knew he was supposed to do some kind of stretching. Otherwise, no matter what Blair said, Jim could hurt him. Badly. But the intimacy of putting his fingers inside Blair momentarily stopped him. It was Blair who finally slipped the leash of his control.

"Fuck, Jim. If I was any more relaxed, I'd be boned and filleted and ready to be cooked, never mind eaten."

Jim stifled the urge to laugh. He was definitely in the Sandburg Zone for sure now. "You always bring everything back to food, Chief. You should have that investigated."

"Fuck, yeah. You're a cop, Jim. Investigate me."

Jim slid his own rigid erection through what seemed like nature's lubrication, coating it liberally. He wasn't sure that he knew much more than the basic mechanics, but if desire counted for anything, it was going to happen.

He poised himself at the entrance to Blair's body, hoping neither of them would regret this later. Suddenly, he wasn't even sure how it happened so quickly, Jim was indeed inside Blair. Whatever resistance there should have been was lost as Blair responded. "Ohhhh…yeahhhh." That was what Blair meant to say. But it was three-quarters breath.

Momentarily disconcerted, Jim almost didn't move within that snug channel. He could feel every throb of Blair's body, he thought, almost zoning on the feel of Blair around and under him.

"Don't you dare zone on me now, man," Blair whispered.

To his chagrin, Jim stroked twice and came hard. Like a young boy excited by the feel of his first handjob. Jim caught his breath on something like a sob, and Blair came again. "I love you," Blair cried, because it was the right thing to say, and because he was incapable of thought beyond this.

Always his Blessed Protector, Jim pulled out and carefully disposed of the used condom. After they were cleaned up, courtesy of Jim's earlier decision to place lots of towels at the bedside, Jim reached out with both arms to pull Blair back into a tight embrace.

The younger man's curly head seemed to fit just fine under Jim's chin. Pressing a quick kiss to Blair's forehead, Jim sighed happily. We're going to be okay, you and me, cause I know I never loved anyone like this.

He must have spoken aloud because Blair's muffled voice vibrated his chest. "What?"

"I said…if you'd known all along how it would turn out, would you have done anything different?"

Jim thought hard before answering. "No. Cause we had to get through there to get here."

"Me, too."

It was good to be the love of Jim Ellison's life. At the moment of greatest impact, they changed each other and were stronger for it. They lay in each other's arms and slept. Reality would intrude soon enough.