He shrugged lightly. "Doesn't matter. I could wake up to this every morning and never get tired of it." The old familiar Dean Winchester signature smirk touched his face for a moment, as he was unable to withhold just a small bit of teasing. "Prefer a bed though," he said as he pushed away from the desk, stretching his arms over his head to crack his back. "I've spent one too many nights on Bobby's desk."

She laughed very softly, her fingertips tracing chords against the fretboard as she watched him stretch. "I guess we should have gone up when Ellen did, huh?" she asked with a grin, her mind going to an interestingly embarrassing place involving Bobby's desk and Dean. Her cheeks flushed lightly as she glanced down at the instrument on her knee, biting down on her smile before it could grow too big. "Any requests?"

Thankfully, his talents didn't include telepathy, or he might have taken her up on that. He would have teased her about it, at the very least. "It's okay. We'll make up for it later," he promised with a smile, moving to his feet, so he could stretch properly. "Requests?" he repeated, unsure what songs she had in her repertoire or might enjoy playing. He'd never been big on acoustic music, though he sometimes listened to soft rock when Sam wasn't around to catch him at it. "What do you know?"

He didn't need to be big on acoustic, not where she was concerned. She'd never learned to play electric, but it was amazing how some of the great rock songs came out with a little adjusting for chords and picking. "Oh, I know a few," she smiled back at him. "Or do you wanna come here and learn something yourself?"

"Learn something?" he asked, glancing at the guitar, chuckling doubtfully. "Me" I play a pretty mean air guitar, but..." He shook his head, looking almost afraid to try, defeating himself before he'd even started. "I don't think I can," he said with a small frown, reluctantly admitting a little self-doubt.

"Yes, you can." Nim shifted along on the couch, one hand moving to pat the seat beside her. "I'll play with you." Swinging the guitar from her knees for a moment, she reached up for his hand, encouraging him to try something new, something she thought he probably had an aptitude for. "I bet you we can play through something right here and now, with just a little bit of teaching."

He looked almost terrified to even try, but it wasn't so much the guitar lesson that bothered him as the fear of failure. Despite his fears, he let her take his hand and pull him toward the couch. "I'm gonna suck." Some skills had come easy to him - shooting, driving, fixing things. He was a born hunter; it was in his blood, but doing something as simple as learning to play a guitar scared him somehow.

"Later, maybe." She turned his former tease around on him easily, drawing him down onto the couch beside her. "Don't you trust me?" Nim had complete faith that he was going to take to this like a duck to water, certain that Dean had a hell of a lot more hidden away in him than just ninety-nine different ways to kill monsters. She waited until he was sat down, lifting the guitar to lay it over his knee. "You are going to pick out the tune. I'll change chords. Think you can handle that, princess?"

Too worried he was going to fail, he either ignored the teasing or didn't notice it. "Uh..." he muttered uncertainly as she laid the guitar on his knee, feeling as awkward as a boy who found himself in bed for the first time with a girl and had no clue what to do with her. "What's a chord?" he asked, having absolutely no knowledge of music, other than for what he heard played on the radio and in bars.

She smiled, tucking herself in close to his side, looping his left arm behind her back. "A chord's your basic structure, it holds the foundation for what you're playing," she explained. "Look ..." Her left hand found a place on the neck of the guitar, fingers automatically pressing down on specific strings in specific places. "That right there" That's a C. Strum your fingers down the strings, you'll hear it ring out."

"Strum," he repeated, not really understanding what she meant exactly, pretending the guitar was a woman. How would he touch Nim if she were a guitar" He let his fingers move over the strings, not really sure what he was doing, letting her lead the way.

The sound he produced was clear, if a little staggered. "Almost." Nim smiled again, reaching across his chest to take hold of his right hand with her own, guiding him into a more confident caress of the guitar's strings, down and up again, over and over in a steady rhythmic brush. "You change the chord, you change the sound," she told him. "Keep strumming." She let go of his hand, letting him take control of that end, and shifted her left hand on the fretboard. "C turns to G," she explained as her fingers slipped from one set place to another, altering the collection of notes from the guitar strings that came together to make that chord, "and the notes under your fingers change. See?"

He watched while she guided his hand, nodding his head. Despite his own self-doubts, he was a pretty quick study with most things and his love of music gave him an innate sense of rhythm. He stroked his fingers over the strings, gaze shifting to the fretboard to watch as she switched chords. "Yeah, kinda," he replied, easily understanding the mechanics of it, but that didn't teach him how to make a song out of it all.

"Okay, stop." She grinned at him. "I'm not going to make you learn everything all at once, okay' We're just gonna play a song. With Am, G, and F." As she named each chord, she showed him the fingering against the fret board. "And you are going to pick the melody. Like this." Again, her right hand reached across, guiding his fingertips to pluck at single strings one after the other in a regular rhythm with little alteration. "You know this one, I know you do." As he picked at the strings, she changed the chords under her fingers, and as Dean found the rhythm she'd shown him, the tune became recognisible. "Keep going," she encouraged him softly, proud of him for getting this far so fast. "You'll know when you hit the right speed."

Dean listened closely as his fingers moved over the strings, unsure at first, but smiling as the tune finally came to him, instinctively knowing it. It didn't sound like a difficult song to play on the guitar, the melody repeating itself over and over, until it broke into full song. He knew the words by heart, had learned them long ago from an old Blue Oyster Cult album his dad had on cassette. He'd play it over and over in the Impala, until Sam begged him to stop.

Slowly but surely, he found the right dynamic, and Nim's smile warmed all over again. It was probably a little disconcerting for him that she wasn't even glancing at her fingers' swift changing on the fretboard, but practise would, eventually, make perfect. Once they got him his own guitar, it'd go faster for him, too. But for now, this would have to do. Her voice melted into his, lighter, more sure, no less confident of the words than he was, still following his lead through the tune. She deliberately skipped them past the middle eight - it didn't translate onto acoustic anyway - guiding him into the last verse and chorus with just a little nudge.

She might think otherwise if it was Ellen who caught them, rather than one of the men, but who was he to argue" He slid out from beneath her legs, turning to move over her and guide her back onto the sofa. "What about the rest of the time?" he asked, as he slid his hands beneath her shirt, eyes meeting hers to see how she'd react.

There was just a hint of concern in her expression as she felt his hands against her skin - just a hint, and nowhere near enough to overwhelm the loving desire rising in her gaze to deepen the darkness of her eyes. Her arms curled around his neck as she lay back beneath him, one brow tweaking upward as she offered him a wry smile. "Get me in the right mood, I might even let you tie me down," was her teasing response.

He mirrored her expression, one brow twitching upwards in surprise at her remark. "I thought you were always in the right mood," he countered, wondering if she was just teasing him or if she was really into that sort of thing. There was only one way to find out really. His hands slid higher, his palms sliding over the flat plane of her stomach before moving to cup the swell of her breasts that were hidden beneath the confines of her bra. "You shouldn't make promises you can't keep, Nim." In his mind, he was imagining her bound half-naked to a bed, teasing her relentlessly until she begged him for release.

Her fingertips rippled to clench into his hair as the soft fabric of her tank rose under his guidance, her breath catching in her throat at the possessive cup of his hands only to release a quiet moan that was all pleasure, dusting his lips with the taste of her breath. "When have I ever broken a promise to you?" she whispered tenderly to him, the same thoughts running through her mind. To be so completely helpless at his mercy, knowing it was him and not some demon getting his kicks ....that was a pretty enticing thought.

Movement across the landing on the floor above made the floorboards creak, and Ellen's voice drifted down to them, louder than it perhaps would normally have been. "I'm tellin' you, Bobby, that don't sound like any kind of unnatural you want to be walking in on."

The voice that drifted down from upstairs brought a frown to Dean's face, brows knitting as he seemed to momentarily debate whether or not to continue, even as his lips found her neck and his hands were getting ready to do a little more wandering. "The hell....No privacy around here," he grumbled, glad that Ellen had at least given them a heads up. He sighed and withdrew his hands from her shirt, still straddling her but shifting back onto his heels, face flushed with frustration. Another part of his anatomy was obviously frustrated, as well. "If I wasn't worried about Hades and his henchmen, I'd get a hotel room."

Nim slumped with a disappointed whimper as the voice cut in on them, letting her hands drop down to her sides as Dean sat up. "I thought you said he drank too much to be an early riser?" she asked softly, her head cocked to listen to the pair at the top of the stairs even as one hand rose to stroke her fingertips up beneath his shirt.

Bobby's voice was a low growl in answer to Ellen, but his wife was apparently not having any of it. "All right, you old idjit, you get back into bed. I ain't cookin' you breakfast at this hour just 'cause you're a nosy old coot."

"Maybe we should go back upstairs and make enough noise to wake the dead," he grumbled, glaring in the direction of the stairs and the voices above their heads, tempted to shout up the stairs at Bobby to go back to bed and let them have some privacy. Not even managing a smirk at Ellen's remark, he climbed off Nimue and flopped back onto the couch, crossing his arms and looking sullen, like a boy who had just been scolded after being caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

Nim watched him thump back against the couch, rolling her eyes at his petulant reaction to their not quite being interrupted. "So that's it, huh' Warm me up and then sit back, just 'cause we nearly got caught?" She sighed, pushing herself to sit up, frustration written large on her features as upstairs a door closed with a pointedly loud click.

He glanced at her, narrowing his eyes a moment in a sudden flare of anger, but it quickly passed as an idea came to mind. He uncrossed his arms and moved to his feet, reaching for her hand to pull her up with him. "Come on. I've got an idea."

The anger didn't really surprise her, whoever it was aimed at - a frustrated Dean was never a happy bunny. Being tugged to her feet in a sudden burst of energy, now that was a surprise. She'd been expecting him to sulk a while longer. "Where are we going?" she asked, wondering if she was going to need to put her boots on.

The dark mood passed quickly as an idea came to mind, and he smiled playfully over at her. "It's a surprise," he told her, wrapping one hand around hers and leading her from the story. He was in his stockinged feet and though he knew he should probably put his boots on, he didn't want to climb the stairs to get them. If he went up there now, they wouldn't be coming back down and in the mood he was in, they just might end up making good on his threat and waking the whole house. He led her away from the study, through the kitchen, to the back of the house, where a stairway led down into the basement.

Warily amused suspicion made for an interesting twist to her expression as he went from sullen to playful in a heartbeat. "A surprise?" Nim countered through a smile of her own, padding barefoot behind him through the house. The morning chill in the air brushed her bare arms, her shirt having ended up being used to mop up spilt coffee sometime after midnight and before she fell asleep in the first place. Drawn to a stairway leading down, she felt her smile growing a little more knowing. He had, after all, told her about Bobby's little iron-lined bolt-hole.

He may have told her about it, but she hadn't seen it yet, and it was a pretty awesome sight to see, as far as Dean was concerned. He'd never a million years have predicted he'd be using it for the purpose he had in mind right now though. He pulled open the door and flicked on a light before carefully leading her down the stairway that would take them to the basement and Bobby's panic room. "Watch your step," he warned, knowing she wasn't wearing shoes anymore than he was, which was a rarity in itself. "We're gonna put one of these in our own house someday." He said it matter-of-factly without doubt. He'd seen it and knew it for fact.

Feverish was a good word. It chimed well with the scorching sensation that rippled through her as Dean stripped her jeans from her legs; it matched the frantic sense of frustration as he drew away to strip himself, too fast for her to raise hands to what was left of her own clothing and join him before he was on her again and she was drowning in his kisses. One arm looped about his neck, the other twisting to her back, fumbling with the clasp of her bra even as she traded burning, hungry kisses with the single driving force in her life, the deep coil of need he always wound so tight inside her threatening to snap before she was ready.

He pressed his body against hers, radiating with heat, barely able to contain the hunger that burned inside him, thrumming like a drumbeat, strong and deep. He waited for her to finish disposing of the cloth that was the final barrier between them, his hands moving to take hold of hers and pull them up over her head, grasping hold of her wrists to keep them in place. He had spent ten years torturing souls in Hell, but this was a different kind of torment. This was the kind of torment that ended in ecstasy, not agony. His lips grazed her neck, teasing her flesh with the tip of his tongue as he pressed himself against her, letting her feel the heat of his desire that was waiting to bury itself deep inside her.

The sound that passed from her lips to his as he pinned her down could almost have been a protest, but for the sheer force of throbbing desire that colored the stifled incoherence escaping her tongue. Her hands flexed as she moved beneath him, not so much tugging at the fingers imprisoning her as expressing the coiling, shifting need as she undulated with increasing desperation. "Baby, please," she moaned against his ear, hearing the sound echo back to her from the metal that encased the room, her breath hot against his skin as he teased and toyed with that sweet spot on her neck, the one place guaranteed to make her melt no matter where they were or what they were doing.

But there were other places he knew of that would make her melt just as easily or cry out in desperate pleas for release, just as she was doing now. He could, if he wanted to, take her quickly, quench her desire and his own and bask in the waning warmth of their union, or he could take his time, draw things out, tease her until she was wound as tight as a wire and could stand no more. She was his to do with as he pleased, but it in the end, he gave in to her, choosing to be merciful and quick, not only for her sake but his own.

Or maybe it was fear, afraid of what he could become if he let himself, afraid he might take it too far and hurt her, instead of taking her to the pinnacle of pleasure. He heard her plea, reaching deep into his soul, and he hesitated just a moment as he debated with himself, before capturing her lips once again, arching his hips and letting go of her wrists so that he could guide himself to that sweetest of places between her thighs, moaning against her lips as he buried himself in her sweet warmth, holding himself back so that he didn't lose all control.

He could have done anything with her in those moments, anything at all, and she wouldn't have raised any true objection. Indeed, it was a surprise that he gave in so easily to just a single please, a momentary surge of concern for him flickering through her as she tasted a hint of some unknown fear holding him back. But that flicker was overwhelmed as he pressed deep into her, her moans mingling with his, muffled between them as her hands rose to grasp and caress, curling to his hips as much to guide as to cling onto him with each rock and thrust until she lost herself in the eager flash of completion at the peak of their love-making.

Indeed, he could have done anything he wanted to her down there in that room where no one would hear them and no one would know, but he feared that side of him, the darker side, the side that he'd held in check for so long. He knew there was a fine line between pleasure and pain, and he didn't want to hurt her. Though she trusted him implicitly, he didn't yet trust himself. He gentled in those moments, his hips rocking slowly and steadily against hers until they were both cresting the summit of their climax, pleasure like white hot fire exploding deep inside. He moaned her name against her lips as that heat flooded him, flowing from his body to hers, filling her with that which would one day create a life inside her born of their love.

She shuddered in the wake of that gentle release, sharing breath and heat with him as her lips softened beneath his, breaking the tenderness of their kiss only to press another to his mouth, and another, each softer than the ones that went before. The delicious tension of her body wrapped about his slowly ebbed away, leaving her bonelessly relaxed beneath him, dragging her fingers through his hair. If he'd looked dishevelled on waking up, he looked even more so now. "I should serenade you more often," she murmured teasingly, releasing a moan that was just barely audible as her body arched to his once again.

He let out a long, heavy sigh all the tension going out of him as he rolled to his side, pulling her along with him so that he wouldn't crush her beneath his weight. If he was relaxed before, he was even more so now, kissing her again, a soft kiss that was warm and tender, passion ebbing away to be replaced with adoration. "I think I'm addicted to you," he told her quietly, drowsily.

"Fair's fair," was her soft murmur in answer, her body molding easily to his as he drew her onto her side, nestling close to his heat in the clinging chill of the panic room. "I've been hooked since day one." Her lips nuzzled tenderly to his, fingers trailing in lovingly random patterns down over his arm. "Won't Bobby notice we're in here?"

"Eventually," he replied, running a hand along her bare arm, admiring the view, lost in her eyes. He thought about getting up and fetching a blanket to cover them with, but he was feeling too relaxed and too lazy, and he wasn't ready to move away from her yet. "I don't think he has any cameras installed in here." At least, he hoped he didn't. He hadn't back home.

The thought of cameras brought a flicker of alarm into Nim's dark eyes. Bobby was intimidating enough, but there was something very wrong about the thought of him and his wife sifting through footage and finding this moment. But it was impossible to do anything other than laugh at that thought under Dean's gaze, her hand smoothing over his side as she shifted still closer. "You had to mention cameras, didn't you?"

"Why' You want to take my picture?" He smirked. "Should I strike a pose?" He propped himself up onto an elbow to strike a pose, flexing a bicep and flashing a cheesy grin. He could tell from the light streaming in through the grill in the roof that it was morning and that meant the house would begin stirring with life before long and their privacy would be shattered.

With a low laugh that rippled up from deep inside, Nim dropped onto her back at the sight of him posing for her, her body shaking gently with each giggle. "You're Voguing on me now?" she asked with incredulous amusement, reaching up to squeeze that flexed bicep with a teasing moan. "Oooh, baby, you're so firm."

"I can't..." He started, trailing off, unsure what it was exactly that he was protesting against. He trusted her implicitely, more then he trusted anyone else. It was a rare thing for him to place himself at the hands of another, at her mercy, to let her do whatever it was she wanted to with him. He looked up at her, fear mingling with desire, but there was nothing to fear from her. He groaned against her lips as she kissed him, desire flaring again like an ember catching flame. "Please..." he pleaded between languid kisses, brushing her hair back from her face once again, looking into her eyes so that she could see the instensity of his desire.

And there was the fear again, absent until that moment. Lesson ended, for now, at least - where Dean was concerned, Nim was prepared to stretch her limited patience as far as it would go. Next time, it would go further. "Love you, baby," was whispered against his lips as she gave him his wish, the tender sound escaping her as she speared his heat deep into her own as much a promise as anything said or done before. As instinct took over teasing with rolling, grinding, rocking assurity, she drew back from him, upright in loving display, her hands dragging over his skin still in loving caress even as her head fell back, teeth biting back a loud moan that would certainly have announced their whereabouts to the early risers above.

He watched her from his place beneath her, a position he found himself in, allowed himself to be in, so rarely. It was different not being in control, a certain excitement inherent in allowing her complete control over him, surrendering himself to her, completely submissive. He watched intently as she undulated against him, devouring her with his eyes as his hands reached upwards to cup and knead her breasts, teasing the soft pink tips with his fingers, even as she moaned aloud announcing their whereabouts.

Her hand rose to cover her own mouth a little too late, the possessive grasp of his hands over her breasts pushing her further, faster than she had expected. The instinct driving her reacted accordingly, urging on with ever increasing need, tempo and intensity rising with each moment that passed. It was her turn to whisper a plea as her head fell forward, dark eyes snapping open to lock with his, burning into his gaze with stormy desire. "I can't ..." she echoed his protest without even realizing the parallel. "Baby, please ....with me ..."

More concerned with her pleasure than his own, even as he laid beneath her, letting her use him as she would, he felt something break inside him as she pleaded with him to relax, to let himself go, to lose all control and let her take him to the pinnacle of desire. "Nim..." he whispered, her name a prayer against his lips, his hands sliding around her back to pull her down against his chest, his body burning with fever against hers. He lifted his head to ravage her lips, holding nothing back, feeling himself starting to go, heat slowly spiraling outward from deep inside. He held her tightly in his embrace, groaning against her lips, as his climax took him, shuddering violently with the intensity of it. He had to break from her lips to gasp for breath, throat closing with unexpected emotion.

She tumbled to him without a moment's hesitation, feeling that last part of his reluctance just melt away as he drew her down to him, wrapped up in his arms to reach that intoxicating crest of pleasure almost in the same moment. His shudders rippled through her, her arms come to rest against the bed by his head, fingers clenching in and out of his hair as he drank all he needed from her. Her breath was gone, stolen away by his kisses, the rushing sound of her moaning delight stifled into almost nothing as he tore his mouth from hers. She, too, gasped for breath, trembling as she lay over him, her face pressed lovingly into the smooth curve of his shoulder. How did you put into words how wonderful that moment of total surrender truly was"

He'd fantasized about this moment for so long, about what it would be like to make love to her, to kiss her, to become one with her - mind, body, and soul - never expecting that dream to become a reality, never expecting her to ever fall in love with him. A flood of emotions rushed over him as she fell against him, hearts beating together, and he wrapped her in his embrace, too overcome with emotion to find any words for what he was feeling, wondering what would happen if he were to surrender himself to her completely. His fingers trailed through her hair as she pressed herself against him, lifting a hand to wipe an errant tear or two from his face before she noticed.

As though she hadn't already noticed. Pressed so close together, she could feel every tension that rippled through his deeply relaxed body, able to recognize that specific tightness that came with tears, good or bad. But she gave him his moment, knowing that there were some times when privacy was all she could give him, slow to raise her head in the wake of that deeper connection. Her eyes tracked fondly over his face, lips touching a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth as her fingers released that tight grasp on his hair. "Not so bad, was it?" she whispered almost imperceptibly, needing to know he didn't resent her for taking control from him just this once.

"No," he whispered back, almost unable to find his voice for a moment. "No, it was..." He trailed off again, at a loss for words to describe what he was feeling. "Nim, I..." He frowned, sighing softly, wanting to explain and yet not sure if he was ready. He didn't want her pity, only her understanding, her patience. He rarely spoke of his time in Hell, not wanting anyone's pity, not wanting to be accused of feeling sorry for himself. It was over and he was thankful he'd survived, but those long years spent in Hell had changed him, made him fearful of things he'd never feared before.

His smile came to her face, warm and secret, her lips parting to blow her hair out of her eyes as she rose onto her forearms, one hand curling to his cheek. She could sense there was a lot beneath the surface, words and memories and old torments he might never be able to share with her, but it didn't matter. "When you're ready," she told him, quiet but firm. "Don't push."

He wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve such an angel as her, but he was grateful to whatever Gods had given her to him - Apollo, Aphrodite, Zeus, all of them or none of them. As much as he detested being a puppet on a string, he was indebted to the Olympians for saving both their lives and bringing them together. "I love you," he told her quietly, eyes suspiciously wet, as his fingers traced her cheek.

She held his gaze for a long moment, in awe of the glistening moisture that filled his eyes, deeply touched that he could show her even a glimpse of this broken side of him without pushing her away. "I know," was her own whispered answer, feeling her heart swell in the wake of that quiet confession.

She would never tire of hearing him tell her that, knowing as she did how hard won the words were from his lips. There weren't words enough to express how thankful she was to gods or angels or demons or whoever was truly responsible for bringing her to this point. What mattered now was what they did with the time given to them, already moving with confidence into a future they would fix for the better, together.

((It was so tempting to call this one Don't Panic! but I resisted. :grin: Always and forever big thank yous go out to Dean's player. Maybe we'll let the characters get dressed for a while now.))