This is a long one. Get you a cup of tea or a cold icy drink depending on your disposition lol. Angsty, NSFW things ahead.

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The guilt of his words that he had said in the heat of the moment gnawed at him long and true. The truth of why she had been rushing away that day came to light in therapy earlier that evening. Gabe has scheduled a joint session for them to talk through the incident.

Natalia had forgiven him of course. She always did, much too easily. She was the easiest and most guileless person he knew. She barely ever held a grudge. But still the hurt look on her face was an image he couldn't forget. He was a mean bastard — even to the ones he loved the most and the realisation made his stomach twist.

The student had been fine in the end, he turned up at school drunk and had been picked up by his grandmother. If anything it had made him popular instead of the ostracisation Natalia has feared triggered by the memories of her twin.

She barely ever talked about the circumstances of her long estrangement with her family, for someone who didn't know how to hold a grudge it must have been something unforgivable and it had been. His heart ached for the young Natalia, a baby, barely out of school having to shoulder her twin's death, her mother's blame and her elder brother's aloofness all alone.

Natalia was as impulsive as he was rash. Most of their arguments had roots in those two qualities. When it came to Natalia's safety and happiness, Gabe lost all sense of proportionality and sense. He took anything that might endanger her as a personal slight even if she posed that danger to herself. It wasn't logical and it wasn't healthy but that's where his brain went.

In the Marines he never had to deal with regulating his emotions, not with all the adrenaline pumping, and the pills that were shoved at them before and after missions. One pill to bring you up and another to switch you off after so you could sleep. Emotions had nothing to do with that robotic game, they were a luxury best kept at home.

He thought that after more than four years of civilian life he'd learnt how to deal with all the feelings that made his heart race and his mouth dry, but he clearly hadn't.

Now, with Natalia having a baby, those feelings had only intensified. The way the pendulum in his life swung, he was on his tiptoes constantly waiting for something to strike. The stakes were so high now. There was the possibility of a new start, a clean slate and all the optimistic things that came with bringing a new life into the world but he knew in his heart that he did not deserve it. Not for all his crimes. Not for the man he was.

He squeezed the woman in his arms, they were lying on the couch, Natalia settled between his thighs because she claimed it was the best spot for her back. She tilted her head up to smile at him, her eyes held none of the resentment that they should. Her beautiful and open face made his heart ache.

When he didn't smile back, her brows furrowed, something in his eyes must have given him away. They must have been mirroring the anxious churn inside him.

Today at the OB/GYN appointment, the doctor had hemmed and hawed at some test results in a way that didn't sit right with him. The doctor had repeated the results and said that he'd call them back if anything was amiss. Natalia had taken it in her stride, as with most things and had left her worries at the doctor's door but Gabe couldn't.

"What's wrong?"

He couldn't look into her earnest brown eyes and tell her that it was nothing. That type of lying was beyond him, especially to her. She had a way of cutting through the bullshit, until nothing was left but just the structure of him and none of the pretences.

So he said nothing and buried his face in her neck, breathing in the scent of her coconut hair.
She gripped his forearms when he held her closer. The weight of her in his embrace, the heat of her body, the visible breaths that she took and her scent enveloping him, maybe that's all he needed to chase the doom away.

"What do you think about this flower arrangement. For the wedding."

He peered over her shoulder. "It's...flowery," he managed.

Natalia laughed, sudden and joyously, it woke the dog who was snoozing at her feet and he scuppered away. "Now I know how you feel when you ask for my opinion on things."

"I don't care about the details as long as I get to call you my wife at the end of that day."

"And then you say things like that..." she sighed.

"Like what?"

"Romantic things that make me wonder if this is real or just a fever dream."

"If it's a dream, I hope I never wake up from it." It was supposed to be another romantic missive but it was laced with darkness that he couldn't keep out of his voice.

"You're in a mood today, was it the doctor's visit?" She shifted in his arms so she could look into his face when they talked.

It was his turn to sigh and inhale sharply. He avoided her piercing dark gaze. How did she do that? Take one look at him and get to the heart of the matter. Disarm his defences, make him want to spew out his guts to her and name each of his fears.

What if something happens to you, what if I don't deserve you, what if something or someone takes you away from me, what if...some of those what ifs didn't even have a name they were just vague things that he felt, a nagging at the back of his mind. A coil in the pit of his stomach. A bitter taste in his mouth. Feelings that made him say things he didn't mean, feelings that made him act first and think later.

Natalia sat up on her haunches, spreading her legs over his. She used the fact that he was sprawled out on the sofa, his legs bent at the knees and stretched out in front of him to her advantage to tower over him.

She tipped his head backwards so their eyes could lock. "Gabriel?"

She wanted an explanation, words organised into sentences and clauses and sentiments. He couldn't even name his feelings, how was he supposed to explain them. Nor did he particularly want to share them with her. She deserved better than the neurotic mass of worries and fears that consumed him.

"Leave it alone, Nat," he snapped, using anger to deflect her attentions. Her eyes were steely with determination but also brimming with compassion, they said do your worst, is that all you have? I can take it, I'll take all of it.

"No, Gabi. I don't think I will." Her gaze deepened and made room to hold his. "I know you're worried. It's completely normal. I worry too. Sometimes I get so worried it overwhelms me. It just comes out of nowhere and barrels into me..."

She paused and smoothed out the furrow between his brows with the tip of her finger. Then she traced the bridge of his nose and then she outlined the frown that limned his lips.

"Do you know what I do then?"

"What?" He played along.

"I come into your office, and I pretend to be looking for a snack — those healthy snacks you keep in your drawer are disgusting and an abomination to snack food everywhere, globally and internationally by the way."

She ran her hands over his shoulders and the broad of his back, up his neck— her touch was warm and comforting and bidding, nay commanding his muscles to release their tension. God, he how wanted to let go and let her soothe him.

"And I find myself here." She patted his chest in circles. "And when you put your big, strong, muscular, Herculean..."

He let out a choked laugh at the ridiculousness of her words. "I know what you're doing."

"Is it working?" Her eyes danced with humour.

"Kinda, you can continue where you left off, Herculean, I think it was..."

"Mm, I knew that would get your attention," she smiled. "Like I was saying when you put your big, strong, muscular and Herculean arms around me...everything's okay again." Her voice caught on the last part, her serious tone returning.

"And I think, I can get through anything when he's here. The world could be burning and falling apart and it wouldn't matter because this — right here is where I feel the safest."

"'Talia —"

"Let me finish, Gabi. I know I'm not as strong as you, but I can handle your worries as well as mine. I won't break and I won't break because you said some mean words to me while you were upset. Do you ever think you could feel safe with me too?"

"I don't deserve you — " She gave him a look that made whatever other words he was going to form disappear. "Yes," he answered her question. Giving up. This short, petite woman staring down at him was the sum of all his fears and dreams.

She beamed down at him, and he would be a barefaced liar if he'd said that her bright smile did not make his stomach flip-flop.

"I think that I deserve you," she informed him, making his heart stutter mid thump. All the fight and combativeness drained out of him.

She wanted him, all of him. The ugly, the good and the in-between. He might have never done a single thing in his life to deserve her, but he would never give her up, and he was slowly learning not to let her give up on him too.

"Now, touch me," she commanded, closing the door on the topic. Of course his traitorous and previously motionless hands at his side rose up to do as she instructed. He'd long accepted that she was his body's true mistress, hers to mould and shape like butter at room temperature.

His hands gripped her bottom, pushing her closer to him, until her stomach was against his chest, then they travelled over the small of her back, the tender spot she liked him to knead and massage. When it came to the front of her body, he paused reverently at her bump.

"Higher," she instructed.

"Yes, ma'am," he obeyed.

When her breasts met his hands, a little moan escaped them both. God, he loved her pregnancy boobs and how they filled his hands. They were deliciously dense, soft and unbelievably sensitive.

Her nipples formed into tight points, straining against the large T-shirt of his that she wore. Straining toward him.

He obliged them, his impatient mouth settling over one nipple. And even over the thin cotton barrier she jumped at the contact that his wet tongue made and arched into his touch, shivering and eager.

She let him draw the garment up over her head and then she was bared to him. Her dark, swollen nipples jutting out for his attention.

Desire pounded in his blood. Her taste exploded on his tongue as he fastened his lips around the taut bud of her and she gave a ragged little sigh, her hands roving into the thick mass of his hair in response, stroking the hair at the base of his neck.

Light scratches that made his entire body tingle and tighten in anticipation. For a few minutes he was intoxicated, drunk with the satiny smoothness of her skin under his fingers and lips.

"I'm right here and — " she gasped as he rolled a nipple between his thumb and forefinger and licked at the other with a pointed tongue until he could feel the muscles of her thighs tightening against his hips rhythmically.

She ground herself hard into the bulge in his shorts, trying to find purchase but just sending them both further into a sensory overload orbital. "I'm not going anywhere..."

"I need you." He gritted against her skin. He meant that literally and figuratively, in every tense and for all time.

He barely managed to stifle the agonised sounds that wanted to escape him. Nothing had ever felt this good and yet it wasn't enough. It could never be enough.

Gabe's fingers were on the soft cleft between her thighs, testing — she was wet, beyond wet and ready. His hands fell lower, shaped the curve of her bottom and lifted her off his lap so he could free the part of him that was the most eager to be joined with her.

The imbalance caught her off guard and she fell forward into him, she clutched at the fleshy parts of his shoulders, her fingers digging in, the sting of pain working to clear his hazy and lust-addled brain.

When she kissed him, the pout of her lips meeting his, the sensation was so pleasurable that he was back there again, in that delightful haze. It was a fuzzy high no pharmaceutical pill could ever duplicate.

Gabe couldn't move, just felt her mouth with his mouth and sank into the feeling. He stopped thinking altogether. One kiss started before another had finished, a chain of erotic strokes of their tongues, that he felt right down to his toes.

A long groan escaped him when he felt her warm hand surround the hot and hard crown of him. A few moments later Natalia was leading him where he wanted to be, into her hot, silken embrace. She used the tip to tease herself, swirling into the moisture and he was helpless in her control, gasping and simultaneously wishing for the torture to continue and to end.

"Nat — " he choked, and when she looked down to meet his gaze, her eyes danced with that familiar humour. Her pretty features searing themselves into his brain. She kissed him again, stilling everything but her lips on his.

And then she was over him, surrounding him, sinking herself over the hard length of him gradually and so maddeningly slowly, beads of sweat formed on Gabe's forehead. His whole body was burning and straining, needing to be deep, deeper inside her still.

The humour disappeared from the depth of her brown eyes and all he saw was pure and distilled love reflected in them. Had anyone ever looked at him like that? Like they could see into the blueprint of him and still want the foundation and the bones?

Natalia made them both wait, their bodies perspiring and tense as they both concentrated on the subtle, luscious clenching of her body over his.

Gabe tipped his head back, gripping her hips tightly. He was pretty sure he couldn't take any more. He was frazzled and burnt out in every way. "Natty," he whispered, "Move, baby please, just move, and I'll tell you anything you ever wanted to know. I'll do whatever you want me to do, I swear on all that's Holy, I might die if you don't."

She kissed the side of his neck with a sympathetic murmur, but did not deign to move and put them both out of their misery.

Her soft, amused voice tickled his ear. "Mmm, I had no idea this is all it would take to get my farmhouse."

"It's as good as yours."

"I don't care about all that. I want you. Just you."

"You have me." This is what surrender felt like.    "Fuck — Nat. You have all of me."

Her eyes closed and her breathing pattern changed as she moved in soft, deliberate motions that served her pleasure and only whet the appetite of his.

She was suffused with warmth as she pressed words and kisses against his skin, he sank more deeply inside her. Accepting all that she was giving him. Letting it permeate in his cells.

And then she was shuddering hard, her body squeezing powerfully around his, clamping around him and unrepentantly demanding his release, in long, spine tingling pulses.

He pushed deep and held, while she buried her face in his shoulder to muffle her sharp cries. Her entire body trembling in his arms.

No feeling had ever come close to this. Nothing could. The pulsing pleasure lasted even after his heartbeat had returned to normal and he had regained his ability to breathe.

Nobody spoke for a while after. They dozed, still joined, skin cooling after their heated passionate tryst but hearts aflame.

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I have a confession, I wrote this ages ago and forgot about it. The panny is really messing with my memory now lol. But it was supposed to come before 27 chapter but I think it maybe still works, right? I might change it round in the edit.

Can you guy tell I love writing angst? I was raised on angsty one-shots, if I ever make it to therapy I know they're going to have a field day with that. Let me go before I over share anymore. I hope everyone is having a good start to spring! :)