I'm brand-new to the MFMM fandom, and I've fallen hard - oh, so hard - for Jack and Phryne. When I fall hard, I write fic. So here's my first attempt at working with these two. It's a dialogue-centric fic with no actual beginning or end. Sorry about that, and I hope I've done them justice. If I haven't, please send DI Jack Robinson to deal with me.

How often had they found themselves here in her parlor, another case behind them, another man between them – if only for one night – another exchange of bitter words on his part?

She reached up to straighten his already-straight lapels. "You must stop playing the jealous lover, Jack. Only one man would be welcome at my home every evening, admitted with a smile, and offered a drink, and that man is you. I am more intimate with you than with any man who visits my bed."

"Then why do you want them at all?"

"Because you won't visit me there," she smiled. "I have sat 'like Patience on a monument'—"

"Damn it, Phryne." His voice was low, pained. He grasped her hands and lowered them from his collar, backing away several steps. "I won't? No. No." He raked his hand through his hair. She had never seen him more disheveled in appearance or demeanor. "I can't. Don't you understand? I can't."

"Let's not waltz tonight, Jack, thrilling as the dance always is. Tell me why you can't."

His gaze followed her as she sat on the chaise and tucked her feet under. "This," he replied, motioning between them. "I could never bear to lose this. You." His voice failed him, and the last word came out like something scraped over gravel.

"Haven't you ever risked everything for a moment's happiness?"

"Every time I knock on your door, Miss Fisher." A wry smile tipped the corner of his generous mouth.

"Have you ever known me to be disloyal?"

"No."

"Ungenerous?"

"Never."

"And what makes you think I would treat you – you, of all people, Jack – so badly?"

"What I think is that it would be disloyal and ungenerous of me to ask you for something you cannot give."

"What is this thing I cannot give?"

"Your heart."

She laughed softly. "All this time I've spent thinking you a great detective." She stood, picked up her glass of scotch, and approached him. "If I can't give my heart, then how did it come to be in your possession, Detective Inspector? Did you steal it? You, an officer of the law?" Stopping in front of him, she cupped his jaw, her eyes tender even as they continued to sparkle in amusement. "Jack," she murmured.

"But it's not mine to keep, is it? It can never be mine to keep. You would tire of me. You would resent the cage, and I would resent myself for trying to put you in it. I would not change you for the world, Phryne."

"Have you considered that I entertain my endless parade because none of them can satisfy me?"

"I am no Casanova," he said dryly.

"I don't mean sexually, Jack." She fluttered her lashes at him as her red lips curved up. "I am always satisfied in bed, even if I have to do it myself."

"Gods…" he muttered, his eyes falling to her mouth.

"I mean that they're good for a pleasurable encounter or two, and then I have no more use for them. No fuss, no strings. No complications. But you and I, Jack, we're all complication. Tied to each other by so many strings. What I seek to avoid with all the others is exactly what I already have with you."

He recalled her words from earlier. "Intimacy."

"Intimacy," she repeated, smiling. She set her empty glass aside, and her hands found their way once again to his lapels. "Have I tried even once to run from it – to run from you?"

He covered her hands with his own, but it was not to draw them away this time. "No. You're standing in front of me, asking for more."

"Demanding that you give me more."

Jack leaned closer, over their joined hands between them, and captured her top lip in a light, brief kiss. "More?" he whispered, his lips barely brushing hers.

"More." She tugged her hands from his and pulled his face closer, her fingers threading into his hair. "More," she mumbled between kisses. "More," she said as his arms locked her body against his. "More," she begged as she kissed her way along his jaw. "Always more of you, Jack," she gasped when he caught her earlobe in his teeth.

"Phryne," he said, pausing as they struggled for breath. "Phryne."

"Jack?" Her thumb traced his mouth, red from their kisses and her lipstick.

He cobbled together his thoughts. "If I were to risk everything for a moment's happiness… give you more… give you everything… and assuming I satisfy you—"

"I can't promise forever."

"I know you can't, and I won't ask it."

"But as long as you are my lover, there will be no others," she said.

"Very well," he replied, mindful that she had already volunteered a great deal, "but with one amendment. I'm not your lover, Miss Fisher. I'm your partner."

She slid her hands down his arms and smiled up at him. "So you are, Jack. So you are."