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Date Posted: 20:28:18 05/30/05 Mon
Author: TracyJean
Subject: Calendar Girl: May 3/3
In reply to: TracyJean 's message, "Calendar Girl: May" on 20:12:25 05/30/05 Mon

Finally, the *good* stuff....

~*~*~*~

I gratefully kick my pumps off my feet and into my closet while Harm sits on the edge of the bed, unbuttoning his jacket. Today's already been a long day and it’s only 1112. I just don't know what to do for the rest of the day. I'd had a few things that I'd wanted to do with Harm, but now I'm not so sure. Maybe we just need some quiet time right now.

As I remove my uniform jacket and carefully place it on the hanger, I ask gently, "What do you want to do for the rest of the day?"

"Didn't you say something about wanting a foot rub?" he asks in reply and I swear I can hear him grinning. I turn around, handing him a hanger for his uniform and I find that I was right about the grin. I think what he has in mind involves a lot more than a foot rub. He's more relaxed – or he seems to be. Maybe he's just trying too hard.

"I did," I reply. "I just …. wasn't sure …. "

"Sarah," he says seriously. The grin has fallen from his face and he is looking at me so intently. "I'm not going to push you away. I've learned my lesson. I just want to spend time with you and be thankful for having you in my life."

"I'm sorry," I say, finishing hanging up the rest of my uniform. Dressed in just a bra and panties, I walk over to the dress and retrieve a pair of shorts and a tank top. "I didn't mean to imply that you didn't want to be around me. I just don't want to force you to do anything you don't want to do." When I turn back towards the bed, pulling my top over my head, Harm's out of his uniform as well and pulling on a pair of shorts he'd gotten from the dresser before getting out of his uniform.

"Well, I'm telling you," he says, "I want to spend time with you and I do want to talk about it. I don't want you to think that Diane's memory is going to come between us."

"I don't think that," I assure him, picking up the hanger now holding his uniform and placing it back in the closet. I then sit down on the edge of the bed next to him. "Remember, I asked you once if it bothered you because I look like Diane? You said that you didn't and I believed you. I still do. I just didn't know that today was the anniversary of her death and she was an important part of your life for so long. I just …. "

"Shhh," he says, placing a finger over my lips. "I would like it if you would stop worrying about it. Now, I want you to just lay back and put your feet in my lap so I can give you that foot rub you were looking forward to."

I start to say something else, but a determined look from him has me closing my mouth. I shift on the bed, laying next to the edge, my head resting on my pillows, my bare feet in his lap. He takes my right foot in his hands, pressing his thumb against the underside. He's just started and it already feels so good. That man can do amazing things with his hands and not just when we're making love. Those hands have also wiped away my tears, taken care of me when I've been hurt and so many other things that the memories are all jumbled in my mind sometimes.

"Five years ago, when I got the call from Krennick to go down to Norfolk," he begins, "I'd never imagined that it had anything to do with Diane, even thought I had been told that the murdered officer had served aboard the Seahawk." I'm shocked. I'd expected him to drop the subject completely, yet here he is volunteering information. I consider telling him that he doesn't need to talk about this, that he doesn't have to tell me anything, but I don't follow through. If Harm has decided that he wants to talk to me about it, I'm not going to stop him. "I'd even left a note on my apartment door, telling her that I'd been called to Norfolk. She'd called the previous night and said she'd be standing midwatch. We were supposed to have had dinner the night the ship docked, but with her standing watch, we'd made plans for her to drive up to Washington in the morning."

"But then you got to the Seahawk and found out it was Diane," I say. That's where he's started the story the last time, when I'd practically forced him to tell me about her – with his and Lieutenant Austin's arrival at the dock where the Seahawk was berthed. He's never told me that other stuff before.

"It didn't seem real," he continues. "We were supposed to go away together. Even as I saw her lying in the body bag, her white uniform blouse soaked with blood, it took several moments for it to sink in."

"I know the feeling," I say softly. Dalton even died in my arms and it still didn't seem real, not right there and then. I kept thinking that I was going to wake up and find out it had all been just a very bad nightmare. I can't even remember when it finally sank in. Maybe when I drowned my sorrows in vodka and spouted those hateful things to Harm. I'm not sure anymore.

"I know," he tells me and I can tell that he’s remembering that time, too. He stops talking for a moment, concentrating on the massage, his fingers pressing against my toes. The ache from walking all morning in my pumps is starting to go away, replaced by a pleasant tingling which spreads upward from my foot to other parts of my body. Yes, he does know how to use his hands.

I'm beginning to think that's all he's going to say when he starts talking again. "With Lamb's suicide note-slash-confession," he says, his voice barely there, "the case ended, at least as far as the Navy was concerned. I didn't agree, but since Krennick had come down and taken over the investigation, I didn't have any say in the matter. When I'd tried to protest, she'd reminded me that I was on very thin ice regarding my assault of Lamb and that it was best if I just dropped the entire thing. She also encouraged the Admiral to send me on several back to back out of town investigations before she transferred out, just to keep me busy. So I took all the letters I'd written to Diane, which Agent Turkey had returned to me, and placed them in a box with all the correspondence I had saved from her."

"Can I …. " He gives me a sharp glance, apparently knowing that I'm about to ask him if I can ask something. "Okay. If you put all the letters away and threw yourself into work, even if it wasn't by your own choice, what made you start digging into the case again two years later? Surely you didn't just wake up one morning and decide 'It's time I reopened Diane's murder investigation'."

He shakes his head as he picks up my other foot. "You're right," he replies. "I didn't just decide. Honestly, after the first couple of months, except on days like her birthday or the anniversary of her death or …. the day I met you, I didn't think about her all that much. At least, she wasn’t a constant presence in my thoughts. After the first couple of months, her death didn't consume me. Maybe Krennick hadn't been all that wrong about forcing me to keep busy with work. Or maybe I really had wanted to forget the pain. Anyway, yes, there was something which …. sparked my renewed interest in the case, for lack of a better phrase. Or rather, something led me to go through her letters at that point, which is when I found the draft of the letter she'd given to Commander Holbarth."

He pauses a moment, then continues with a sigh, "Diane's parents were visiting Washington, some kind of anniversary trip or something. Since they were here, they thought they'd see if I was still in the area and look me up. They thanked me. They said that even if we hadn't been able to bring him to trial, at least we had found Diane's killer and …. "

"You felt guilty because you hadn't felt the case had really been solved," I finish when he trails off. He nods.

"That night, I pulled the box out of my closet and went through every single letter and card there," he explains. “I was about two-thirds of the way through the pile when I found the letter to Holbarth. As soon as I found it, I drove out to JAG and spent half the night making copies of the case file and the rest of the night rereading it. By itself, the letter wasn't necessarily incriminating, especially since I didn’t have proof that she'd actually given a copy to Holbarth. We had already known from Diane’s bunkmate that Diane had reported to Holbarth that she was being harassed. Also, Agent Turkey had to have seen the letter. It was mixed in with the ones he'd given to me and he'd admitted that he'd read every one of them, but he obviously didn't consider it worthy of investigation."

"But then you found out that Lieutenant Lamb was left-handed and couldn't have shot himself in the right temple," I realize. "So then that letter became your best clue to the identity of the person who'd murdered not only Diane, but also Lieutenant Lamb."

"Then I found out that the Seahawk was returning to port the following week and that Commander Holbarth was still the XO," he concludes. "The rest of the story you know."

Not really, I don't. Oh, I know all about the original JAG investigation into Diane's death and how Harm's subsequent investigating led him to head to Norfolk on a stormy night with the intention of killing Commander Holbarth. But that's not all there is to the story. I remember something Bud once said, when I'd asked him what she was like. He'd said that while we looked alike, our personalities were completely different. Harm had said pretty much the same thing when I'd first seen Diane's picture and had commented 'This could be me'. If we were that different, how did Harm fall in love with both of us?

I guess I got so lost in that thought that I lost track of everything else, because the next thing I realize, I hear Harm calling my name. Not Mac, but Sarah. And I'd closed my eyes. I open them to find that he's moved. Instead of sitting on the edge of the bed near my feet, he's stretched out beside me, propped up on an elbow, his eyes full of concern and maybe just a little hurt. "Sarah," he says softly, reaching across my body and picking up my left hand, "never doubt my love for you. Remember what this means?" He directs my gaze to the ring on my hand.

I nod. "Love, friendship and loyalty," I reply. I look up from the ring to meet his gaze. "It's not that I doubt your love. We've been through far too much, both together and apart, for that to happen. I don't know how to explain …. "

"You're wondering how I fell in love with both you and Diane," he says. It's not a question. We know each other too well after all this time. It makes us an unbeatable team in the courtroom. Like Harm and his partnerships with his RIOs. Only time will tell if the same will continue to hold true outside of it. I hope so, as I've never hoped for anything else in my entire life.

He doesn't wait for me to agree before continuing, "It's different. I'm not entirely sure I can explain it. Maybe it's the difference between young love and a more mature one. I don't know. But there is one thing that I can say for sure."

"What is that?" I ask, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"I don't know if Diane and I would have made it long term," he replies, his gaze falling to my ring. "I don't even know, at the end of the week we were going to spend together, if we would have decided that we wanted to pursue a relationship. Maybe we would have gotten together and decided that the sparks just weren't there anymore or maybe they'd never really been there at all. Maybe it had just been a youthful infatuation which we'd discover that we'd outgrown. I'll never know because there was something else in store for me. I've never really been a big believer in fate, but I do believe that something led me to you or rather, led us to each other. And there was something that wouldn't let us let go of each other, no matter how hard we tried.

"I can say for certain that I love you, Sarah Mackenzie. Someday, when we decide the time is right, I will put another ring on your finger and promise 'until death us do part'. And you know how I am about my promises."

I release a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Harm may sometimes stumble over the words, but I don't need flowery words and phrases. I'm realizing more and more that I never did. Just hearing Harm say that he loves me is all I could ever want or need. Maybe because I waited so long to hear him utter those three simple words. "You've yet to make a promise that you haven't kept," I whisper.

"And I don't intend to where you're concerned," he whispers back as he lowers his mouth to mine. I sigh deep in my throat as I lose myself to his kiss and the warm, tingling feeling spreading through my body, stronger than before. I roll onto my side so that I'm pressed against him, our bodies fitting together perfectly from top to bottom. As if we were made for each other.

I feel the cool air from the air conditioning against my back as Harm tugs my shirt from the waistband of my shorts, but then the sensation is replaced by one of intense heat as he presses his hands flat against my back. Then his hands are moving, his fingers lazily trailing up and down my spine, causing shivers as I find myself struggling to remember that I need to breathe in precious oxygen. It's so easy to forget ….

Suddenly, Harm rolls us over so that I'm lying stretched out on top of him. I shift just a little so that my center is pressed against the hard bulge straining against his shorts, and I slowly rub against him. I lift my head so that I can look at him. I love looking at him like this. Okay, I always love looking at him, but this is different. His beautiful eyes darken to almost a smoky gray color, glittering like diamonds. I could get lost in those eyes.

Harm pulls his hands away from my back, but before I can protest, he pushes himself into a sitting position, taking me with him. Then he’s yanking my tank top over my head and tossing it behind him. I giggle a little when one of the shoulder straps hooks around one of the posts of the headboard. Then again, I guess that’s not the most unusual place an article of clothing has ended up with us. At least it’s not likely to be seen there by a visitor.

He’s barely noticing where he’s throwing my clothes, intent on peeling them off of me. His hands move over me so fast – any faster and he’d be ripping my clothes off. Not that I would mind that. But he manages to restrain himself just enough and soon I’m naked from the waist up, my body pressing against his from hips to lips as his mouth finds mine again while his hands move down my stomach, unfastening the button at the waist of my shorts and tugging the zipper down.

I start to move off his lap so that he can finish removing my clothes, but he stops me by wrapping his arms around me. "Trust me?" he asks in a husky whisper that has my heart stopping in my throat. What exactly does he have in mind? It doesn't really matter. This is Harm. I learned early on that I could trust him with my life and now I know that I can also trust him with my heart. I nod, licking my lips as my mind begins wandering, imaging what he's planning to do to me, with me.

I don't have to wait long. I never have to anymore when it comes to him. "Turn around," he instructs me. I comply, settling back onto his lap with my back to him, pressing back against him until we're both stifling harsh groans. He laughs, low and sexy against my ear then his tongue is swiping against my ear. I murmur my approval as his hands begin moving across my shoulders, slowly back and forth from my arms to my neck. It's so slow and unhurried. I don't know really what I was expecting, but this isn't quite it. It's almost …. I turn my head and my eyes meet his and I can tell. I know that he knows what I'm thinking.

One of his hands cups the back of my head, his fingers tangling in my hair, tilting my head back at just the perfect angle. His mouth brushes over mine, a feather light touch that leaves me wanting more. I always want more with him. I always have and I suspect I always will. Then he pulls back slightly, his eyes meeting mine again. "I do love you," he says, his voice confident and sure.

"I know," I assure him, reaching up and hooking my arm around his neck, pressing my fingers against the back of his neck, guiding his head towards mine. "I don't doubt that, not anymore."

"Not even after today?" he asks and my heart starts to ache even more for him, for the pain that today is causing. The full meaning of his earlier question suddenly hits me. When he asked if I trusted him, he wasn't just referring to allowing him to take control of our lovemaking, if that was ever a part of what he was thinking about.

"Harm," I say and he casts his gaze downward for a brief moment. When he lifts his eyes, I can see the torment, but I can also see the love and the tenderness shining through – like a beacon in the darkness that's haunting the fringes of his thoughts. Maybe I can learn to believe in fairy tales, that love can conquer all. Maybe we both can learn. "I do trust you with my heart. I want you to never doubt that." A silence, not as uncomfortable as it could have been, falls between us and for a long moment, we just look at each other, the only audible sounds our slightly unsteady breathing and the soft hum of the air conditioner.

"Harm," I begin again, my tongue darting out to moisten my lips. The motion catches his attention and his gaze falls to my mouth, watching my tongue circle around. I'm sure he's imagining …. I lift my eyebrows as I ask lightly, "Aren’t you going to make love to me?"

He grins – not his usual, devil-may-care flyboy grin, but a soft sensual one that has me sighing with contentment as our lips come together again in a soft, gentle kiss full of hope, full of promise. His hands begin moving over me again over my shoulders and my breasts start to tingle and ache, anticipating his touch there.

Instead, his hands move down my arms in a sensual massage as he pulls my arm from around his neck. I let it fall to my side, content to let him take the lead. Soon, his fingers are dancing across my stomach and that aching tightness grows stronger, spreading throughout my body.

His mouth moves across my cheek as his hands trace random patterns over my skin to soft murmurs and sighs from me. Then I feel his breath, hot against my ear, and I can't help the shiver that passes through me. “You know what I dream about sometimes?” he whispers. I shake my head numbly, curious where he is going with this.

“Remember the day AJ was born?” he asks and I manage a brief nod. God, how could I forget? I’d kind of half considered a vow of celibacy for the following five years, until Sydney and a certain conversation blew that intention to hell. For the first few weeks after Harm had left JAG, dreams of the eventual fulfillment of that promise are what kept me sane. Even if he ended up regaining his lost dream and never returned to JAG, I knew that someday, he would at least be returning to me. He had promised.

“That night, I had this very vivid dream,” he continues as his hands continue their lazy movements over my belly, only letting them travel up far enough that they skirt just below my breasts before they fall back down again to just above my dark curls. “I imagined what it would be like, the first time we’d make love. I thought I’d take you away someplace – maybe take a few days off from work, spend a week somewhere. Someplace where we could focus on the life we’d be trying to create. I also imagined sweeping you into my arms the day you’d come to me and tell me that we were going to have our baby. I could see you in later months, growing round and full with our child. You’ll make a very beautiful pregnant woman someday. And I know what you’ll look like, gripping my hand, fighting to bring our child into this world.”

God. If he were to ask me right this moment to chuck our five-year plan and have a baby with him right now, I’d grab my birth control pills from the bathroom at the first opportunity and flush them down the toilet. Who knew something so sweet could be so arousing? This isn’t the way he usually talks when we make love, but I definitely wouldn’t mind more of this. I know what he’s doing – at least I think I do. He’s telling me this isn’t just about the sex. This isn’t just some infatuation. This is forever. This is eternal. I never imagine that such sweet, heartfelt remarks could mean so much, or maybe I’d just gotten so use to not hearing them from other men before this that I’d managed to close my heart off.

I never thought, when I’d first fallen in love with Harm, that it would be possible to fall even more in love with him every day. Yet here I am, in his arms, being carried off to not only physical heights, but emotional ones as well. This is a gift which I sense he has granted to no other woman, not even the one who held his heart for so long before me.

“Sarah,” I hear a voice calling me. That’s Harm. I feel his lips, brushing against my ear and his hands moving up my body. The tips of his fingers lightly dance against the undersides of my breasts and it’s like an electric shock, coursing through my body. I manage to focus on the sound of his voice against my ear. “What are you thinking?”

“How much you love me,” I mumble. "What you …. um, God …. " I can't remember what I was going to say anymore as his hands cup my breasts, his thumbs moving back and forth over my nipples, working them into hardened peaks. As a reflex, I press back against him.

He groans harshly against my ear. "This isn't going to last long if you keep that up," he teases.

"This isn't going to last long if you keep *that* up," I counter. He starts to pull his hands away, but I grab his hands before he can move them. I shiver as he laughs, low and sexy.

"What if I do this?" he teases, one hand slipping down my stomach and under the waistband of my panties while his other hands continues moving over my breast. I tense, anticipating his touch, pressing against his hand. He laughs against as his fingers part my folds, unerringly finding my clit. Tremors spread throughout my body at the gentle pressure of his fingers against me.

"Harm, I need …. " I begin, ending on a sharp hiss of breath as he thrusts a couple of fingers inside me, sliding them in and out of me, the heel of his hand pressing against me. I struggle to breathe through slightly parted lips, my head falling back against his shoulder, as the tension builds and coils. I was already so close …. "I want …. more …. oh, please …."

My soft cries turn incoherent as I turn my face against his neck as I find such sweet release, the waves washing over me as he wraps an arm around me, holding me as I fall. The next thing I'm aware of is his pulse, strong yet slightly unsteady, where I'm snuggled against his throat. And his arms around me, holding me so tenderly. I shift slightly and manage to focus my gaze as he looks down at me.

"You know how beautiful you are when you come?" he whispers, one of his hands resting against my cheek, stroking me gently.

"So are …. Harm, what about …." He presses a finger to my lips to silence me.

"Shhh, it's okay," he assures me. "There's plenty of time."

I shake my head as I slip from his arms, pulling off the rest of my clothes. "Harm, come to me," I tell him, placing my arm around his shoulders, pulling him down with me as I lay back on the bed, my thighs parted in invitation. "Let me love you."

He just stares down at me for a moment, his eyes so bright and full of love. "What did I do to deserve you?" he wonders.

"You didn't have to do anything," I reply. When did I figure that out? Under other circumstances, I might have wondered the same thing. "That's just the way love works. I do love you."

"And I love you," he returns as he strips off the rest of his clothes and settles above me, his erection pressing against my sex. I rub myself against him and find that it isn't taking much to arouse me all over again. "Are you okay?"

I'm so touched by his concern. He's the one who needs to find release and he's more concerned about me. I nod as I grasp his lean hips and he slowly sinks into me. He props himself up on an elbow, a hand pushing my hair off my forehead as he slowly pulls out until he's just barely there before thrusting home again. He's moving so slow, in and out, and it's all I can do not to beg him to move harder and faster. But I understand why it's like this. It's heartbreaking and life affirming, all at the same time.

His movements still after a few moments, but before I can wonder what that's about, his hand is moving between us, finding my swollen nub again and circling around and that delicious tension begins building again.

"Please, move," I whisper harshly, lifting my head to swipe my tongue at the pulse point on his throat. I can feel it pulsing erratically, can feel it throughout me like a hum as he finds release, filling me completely. He fights against giving in to the numbing climax. trying to continue moving against me, inside me, until I'm following him over the edge, my body trembling as I cry softly against his throat.

He collapses against me and it's not uncomfortable at all, his weight pressing me against the mattress. I embrace him, running my hands up and down his back in a soothing motion. His body's still trembling against mine and I can feel his shaky breath against my cheek as he turns his head towards mine.

I'm not sure how long we lay here like this, drawing comfort from each other, not the first time that he's thrown off my internal clock. I'm not really aware of much outside of being wrapped up in him until I shiver against him as our heated skin cools in the air conditioned room. He reaches for the throw at the foot of the bed, pulling it over us as he rolls us onto our sides. I tuck my arm under my head as I study him, a soft smile on my face.

"Sarah, I …." he begins, but I shake my head to silence him.

"It's not necessary," I say softly, my hand finding his. I press my palm flat against his, linking our fingers together. "I know. You don't have to say anything at all."

My eyes drift close as I snuggle against him, safe and secure in his embrace. As I drift off to sleep, I hear a whispered 'I love you'. I know, Harm. I do know.

~*~*~*~

More author's notes - Yes, I plan on finishing this series as well (I don't have to worry about posting anything new until October, which is the first unfinished story in the series, which is actually about 2/3 finished already). Until then, if everyone would like, I'll post the subsequent parts (June-September) on the appropriate holiday.

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