He lay in their hotel bed later that night—vest shed and shirt half unbuttoned—and watched her pad towards him, fresh out of the shower and looking absurdly adorable in leggings and an FBI t-shirt that was much too large on her. He muted the TV and extended a hand to her. She took it and crawled in beside him, curled her little body to his side, tucking her bare feet under his thigh.

He grinned. These last few months he'd discovered that when relaxing together at home, Lisbon preferred his body to blankets, often tucking her feet beneath him and sliding her hands under his arms, into his hands, or—his personal favorite—tucking them beneath his shirt against his chest.

She felt his grin.

"What?" She pulled away just enough to see his face, angling her torso toward him, her feet still securely burried beneath his leg. Her face was its familiar blend of amusement and suspicion that his grins always provoked, but today there was something else there—a lightness behind her eyes—an openness.

The grin faded from his mouth as he studied her and he knew that adoration had replaced amusement in his eyes. He leaned forward, nudged her nose with his.

"Say it again, Teresa." His rough whisper lodged her breath in her throat, a tight knot of aching exhilaration, and her lips quirked.

"Say what again?" Her eyes sparkled at him, filled with humor and joy and love.

His eyes closed and his forehead fell against hers. The depth of feeling he had for this woman was staggering—it swamped him sometimes—in moments like these, unguarded and honest. And he let it. Welcomed the emotions that had terrified him for so long, let her see exactly how he felt, exactly what she did to him.

"I love you." His heart thumped raggedly as he spoke, as it did every time he said the words to her, as if affirming the truth of them.

She pulled back to catch his eyes, her own heart thumping erratically, giving him back truth for truth.

"I love you too, Patrick Jane."

He slid a hand into her still-wet hair and kissed her. Gently, slowly. Breathing her in. Reveling in the taste of her, in the feel of her under his hands, against his skin, against his lips.

His Lisbon. Teresa. This extraordinary woman who'd let him in—him of all people—into her job, into her head, into her family, into her heart. He gasped as her fingers curled into his hair and tugged gently.

He would have kept kissing her, harder and longer, deeper, on and on, losing himself…but she tugged his hair again—more insistently—and he broke the kiss to meet her eyes. They were ocean green with unshed tears as she spoke.

"It makes me happy to be able to say that to you."

The weight of the words was mighty. What they had meant to him—what they meant to her—it passed between them like lightning, like fire, burning and branding them both with rightness, with truth.

Their truth. The truth of what they were to each other, for each other.

Love. Happiness.

He kissed her again.