A/N: I saw a post by killians-dimples a while back, and it got me thinking about some things. Eventually my thinking turned into this whatever-it-is. It's not smut exactly, but it is very much about sex. Psychological smut? Is that a thing? This is very different from the stuff I usually write…just trying something new, I guess.

It's time - long since past time, if she's being honest with herself. Back from the Underworld, doom and destruction averted for the time being, the scars of the last few months certainly not fully healed, but at least the deepest tears have knitted together, finally stopped bleeding. Waking up next to Killian, cocooned in their blankets, in their bed, in their bedroom, in their home had changed from frighteningly and beautifully surreal to a welcome and comfortable normal. It's a fact strange enough in and of itself - that Emma Swan has allowed herself to become accustomed to such domestic normalcy at all - but, coupled with the fact that after weeks of cohabitation, she and Killian still haven't…

Emma can just imagine what her 27 year and 364 day-old self would've thought of that - of moving in with a guy she'd never slept with. The girl she used to be before Henry showed up on her doorstep and changed her world forever. That girl would've scoffed at the very idea of shacking up with anyone at all. Hell, that girl probably would've had a nice little romp with Captain Hook while the giant was passed out and left him handcuffed on top of that beanstalk without a second thought. One night only. No feelings, only a release. That was her modus operandi. It worked. It was clean, simple, uncomplicated.

Because that girl had separated sex from love (or any level of emotional attachment for that matter) a long time ago. Because the first time that girl gave herself to a man - a man she thought she loved, who she thought loved her - he'd betrayed her, abandoned her, left her to wallow in a jail cell with his child inside of her. So much for the idea of 'making love'.

That girl was smart, strong, resilient. She learned from her mistake. She'd read somewhere once that when a bone breaks, it's stronger in the places that it healed, and she figured she could do the same with her broken heart. Make it stronger, harder, fill in the cracks with stone and steel, and lock any delusions of emotion, of attachment well inside.

There was no reason she couldn't keep having sex (with a strict adherence to birth control - another lesson learned). She was a healthy adult female with the usual appetites. Her body still reacted to a man's touch - her lips, her breasts, her clit didn't much care whose touch it was, so why should her heart? All she had to do was close her eyes and focus on the sensation. Cut off her other senses, so that the entire world was nothing but touch. No sight, no sound. Use the other person as a glorified sex toy. Never come - can't come - with her eyes open. It worked. It was clean, simple, uncomplicated.

For that girl, it was perfect. But that girl never dreamed she'd one day find a piercing-eyed, smoldering pirate who loved her. Who she loved so deeply in return that she sometimes couldn't breathe under the weight of it. Who not only would but had gone to the ends of the earth and time for her, and she for him. Who she was building a home with, a real-life happily ever after.

There was just one threshold left to cross together. He'd been patient, God knows he's nothing if not a patient man, and there had always been so many distractions, so many excuses - villains to conquer, days that needed saving, wounds of the body and soul that needed to heal, not to mention the inconvenience of him dying a few times. But now…

Now the excuses have run out, the kisses grow more heated, the embraces more passionate. And she's trying to stay in the moment, to stay with him rather than letting her body fall into its familiar mindless, heartless pattern. But this? This is love, not lust and it's terrifying.

Emma Swan is no blushing prude. She knows how to fuck, how to get herself off using someone else's body, but she has no idea how to make love, doesn't even know if she's capable of it. Suddenly she's seventeen again, and the lyrics of that Madonna song about feeling like a virgin pop into her head, and it's all she can do to choke back a hysterical laugh. So, she dives back into his kiss with a renewed fervor, squeezing her eyes shut and struggling to block out everything but the warmth of his lips moving feverishly against hers.

Killian doesn't push - he'd never push her - but she knows that he knows something is wrong, that she's trying too hard. She can see it in his eyes when they pull back for breath, and it breaks her heart because she knows he's doubting himself. After she'd literally gone to hell and back for him, he's still doubting whether he's enough for her, whether he deserves her, whether she wants him. She wants to smack him for even thinking such a thing, but how can she blame him when she acts the way she does?

He's so perceptive. So much so that it's frightening, and he can always tell from the very barest hint in her demeanor when something is amiss. He's perceptive, but not psychic. So, he asks.

"Emma, are you sure this is what you want?" His brow furrows, his eyes searching hers for confirmation, for reassurance.

Her heart nearly bursts at the tenderness, at the love she sees in his face. "Yes," she replies, only the slightest quaver in her voice. "Yes, I'm sure."

Because she is sure. It isn't because he's proven himself or sacrificed himself. It's not that he passed some kind of cosmic test. It's not even that his broken pieces fit together with hers. No, it's because he lovingly and painstakingly taught her that she isn't broken. That she was never broken (I was never nothing), the world had simply convinced her that she was. She's absolutely sure that she wants to give herself to this man - her whole self. What she isn't sure of is how.

How does she reconnect the physical and emotional intimacy when the two have been so utterly divorced for her entire adult life? It was easier with the simple touches - his forehead pressed to hers, his fingers toying with her hair, his thumb in the dimple of her chin - but this is different. So much more.

How does she keep her heart plugged in, when her skin is singing under his touch? When their clothes have been discarded, and he's so, so beautiful - every line, every scar - and every cell in her body is screaming out with a greedy desire to simply take every ounce of pleasure he can give? To use him, possess him, and offer nothing of herself in return?

Then her eyes reach his face again, and he's looking at her like she's the most priceless treasure he's ever found, and her heart is pounding, racing, demanding that she acknowledge it. That she remember what this act is really about - not two people chasing a fleeting pleasure, losing themselves for a time, but two souls finding a home inside one another, twining together until they cannot decipher where one begins and the other ends. And it's too much. Far, far too much.

She closes her eyes and pulls him down on top of her, into the cradle of her thighs, dragging him with her into the familiar black abyss. No sight, no sound. The plaintive cries of her heart warning her that she needs more than this - that he deserves more than this - drowned out by the searing heat of his skin against hers as she allows herself to be tossed about by the waves of sensation his every touch and caress evoke.

Suddenly there is stillness, and his voice breaks through pulling her up from the depths of desire. "Emma. Emma, look at me."

The fragility in his tone is so at odds with the strength of his body, the ardor of his embrace, and maybe he is psychic after all because it sounds like he knows. He knows what she's doing. How she's hiding.

She finds she cannot refuse him. Her eyelids flutter open, and her breath catches as her eyes lock on his, captured, enthralled. How did she never see it before? For her, it's been well over a decade since she really even tried to make love to someone, no one since Neal. Even with Walsh, who she believed she loved, they had slept together, but it was just sex. Just bodies doing what they do. Even though she was a different woman with different memories, she hadn't ever tried to forge that kind of connection with him. It never occurred to her to try.

For her, it's been well over a decade, but for Killian it's been centuries. The suave and debonair Captain had likely bedded countless women over the extended years of his life, but it finally hits her - it seems so obvious now that she's thinking about it - that there had been no one with whom he had shared his soul since Milah. Killian Jones, the man who wears his heart on his sleeve and every emotion like a badge of honor, has not experienced real intimacy in hundreds of years. And he is just as terrified as Emma is.

And with that realization she shatters. The cracks in her heart, sealed by stone and steel, bursts open again, turning it from a citadel to a sieve. She smiles finally, or tries to. Tries to let the strength and love in her heart flow out through the newly opened floodgates and into him.

The world falls away around her, and she sees nothing but his face. The stormy blue depths of his eyes as they search hers, the slight upward curl of his lips as he seems to find what he was looking for, and finally, finally they come together. She hears nothing but their ragged breathing as he begins to move above her, within her. No tawdry moans, no whispered desires.

But she feels - God, she feels everything. Every slide, every drag, every trickling bead of sweat, his breath on her face, his fingers digging into her skin. More than this, though, she feels them. The way they need each other, forgive each other. All their vulnerability, their joy. This is what her heart has wanted. This is where she belongs.

And her eyes never leave his. Not when their breaths come rapid and shallow, not when his face tightens as he strains, waiting for her - always waiting for her. Not when she crests and breaks, his name a whispered prayer on her lips, her heart rattling in victory against its cage of ribs. Her eyes are wide open. She sees him. She's with him. She's his.

He collapses on top of her, her arms wrapped around his back and her legs around his hips. His forehead rests against hers, their noses brushing lightly and he's too close for her to see him anymore, so she cards her fingers through his damp hair and finally allows her eyes to fall shut. She takes a deep breath and murmurs her "I love you" against his ear.

"And I, you," he replies, pressing one last lingering kiss to her jaw.

He pulls away from her, but before she can feel the loss of his warmth and weight, he is rolling the two of them over to their sides and pulling her tightly into his embrace again. And it's everything she never thought she was capable of, and so much more than she could've hoped for.

It's complex. It's perfect. It's home.

A/N (Continued): Whew! I am actually really nervous about posting this, but I got a pretty good response on Tumblr, so here goes nothin'.

If you like it let me know. If not, I'll be back to fluff and bad puns soon enough! :-) Thanks for reading!