The Purest Things in Our Hands, 2 (complete)

Jennifer stretched and forced her eyelids off her eyes. She wasn't quite asleep and that was mostly because she was aware that she was not quite as warm as she had been before. The loss of warmth had one reason: Duke. He wasn't there. She sat up and looked around and then heard his step on the deck above. So he hadn't fled to God-knew-where out of confusion, fear, guilt or whatever unnecessary emotion he used to flagellate himself on a regular basis. Glancing around she decided that Duke's faded chambray shirt would be a lot easier to put on than trying to gather and don her own clothes. It also smelled good. That typical Duke smell of just everything wild and outdoors and in particular the sea and musk.

He narrowly missed seeing her pull the collar up and around her nose so she could breathe in the scent of him. Instead, she was smiling as soon as she saw him with her things. That box from the biological parents' house and her bag of immediate necessities and embarrassing intimates. She hoped two things: That he hadn't looked in there and used the information to inform his decision, thereby just grabbing the two easiest things to carry. And, that he had looked in the bag and knew she would be needing some of the contents and knew that they would both appreciate the rest. She had a mild lingerie fascination and she was reasonably certain Duke carried one as well given how he had smoothed his fingers in a delicate, repeated sweep over the lace scalloped edges of her panties and bra set until she was ready to rip them off of herself.

Every one of those ideas and possibilities only increased the flush she could feel returning to her cheeks and everywhere else and the smile that was growing on her face.

"Mind if I bring your stuff back?"

His voice was still that gentle rasp he'd used when he had held her close and told her she was beautiful while her urged her to...

"Thank you," she replied and couldn't repress a little bounce on the balls of her feet while she watched him extend a very long, very strong arm to set the box on the coffee table before sitting down and inviting her with both of those arms to sit on his lap. She had the vague sense of feeling like a bird settling onto a tree as she went to him. He was more that a foot taller than her and probably twice her size in general and she had the feeling of being weightless in his arms as his hands settled lightly - carefully -  at her back and on her leg. He was touching her like he needed permission to again despite the fact that he had set her to begging him to do so just a short while ago. She had noticed this particular something about him over the last few weeks, at least in terms of how he treated her. Duke was a pretty big guy. Only Dwight outsized him and she had seen Duke singlehandedly lift Dwight against a wall when all that awful Troubled blood had absorbed into him. She had watched people back down in front of Duke and Duke himself seemed perfectly aware of his size and strength. And he treated her not so much like something fragile (even though she had to admit if he wanted to hurt her, he could), but he treated her like something.... Treasured. And damned if that didn't make her feel like her smile reached not only ear to ear, but also head to toe.

"I'm an idiot," he murmured.

And, instead of arguing with him on the various yeses and noes involved in that statement, she decided to kiss him again. Which was obviously what he wanted to do anyway. There was more of an exchange of a kiss happening here, though. She could feel it in the way his hand stroked down her arm to pull her further in. It was in the way he almost let her take control of the kiss and in the way that it took him a moment to steady his breath when she ended it. She opened her eyes to watch him and didn't even try to not feel giddy at the sight of him. She would always think of this moment when she saw Duke at his purest and most honest version of himself. This moment where he trusted her enough with his heart that was bigger than he wanted to admit. Not to mention more pure and golden than what he would ever say with a straight face. He didn't see himself that way. The truest heroes with the purest hearts never did. And for now, all she could do was hope that he would believe in the way he made her smile. You couldn't tell Duke Crocker things like that. You had to just let him show himself to you, and quietly let him see how beautiful you found it to be.