Let Go by Becky Love

 

Harm & Mac fic, rated PG

Spoilers: none really

Timetable: early eighth season

 

I don't own them, though if I could.... well anyway... This is my first completed JAG fic. Please, feedback! If this is liked I will expand it into more. E-mail me at [email protected] and let me know what you think. Bad, good, I'll take any and all criticism I can get. Just put 'Let Go' in the subject line so I know what's it about. Okay, enough blather, on with the story!

 

 

"Are not."

 

"Am too."

 

"Are not!"

 

"Am too!"

 

"Listen here, for the last time, Flyboy, there is NO way that you are strong enough to lift someone her size that high with no warni...Harm! Let go!"

 

"You were saying, Colonel?" Harm laughed, as Sarah Mackenzie began to struggle against his grasp of her waist.

 

This had all started when they were assigned opposite sides of a case in which a Petty Officer was accused of sexual assault against a woman from a bar.  David Brown was accused of picking the woman up above his head while dancing with her and pushing her against a wall so that he could feel her up. He was of about the same size as Harm, and the woman, a Beth Doherty, was slightly larger than Mac.

 

Mac was defending the PO, and had been trying to convince Harm that he couldn't have lifted Ms. Doherty without her aid, as she was no tiny thing, and so it was consensual contact that the woman simply regretted. The only problem was, Harm had immediately started to take it personally the moment she commented on the similarities in size that they shared towards their clients.

 

Now Mac had first hand knowledge that it *was* possible, as she tried, most unsuccessfully, to glare down at the man holding her against the wall of her apartment, a full foot and a half off the ground.

 

"All right, all right. You made your point, Commander. Now, let. Me. Down!" she squirmed as he stepped closer to her. It took all her self discipline to keep from just relinquishing and falling against him.

 

"Wait a minute. Did I just hear my infallible Marine admit that she was wrong?" Harm grinned, loving the feel of her waist in his hands, wishing he could step up against her and feel more. "Now, I think I'm going to have to hear it again, just so I get a firm grasp of it in my mind. Tell you what, you make me let go, and I'll go easy on you," he teased.  Here, he unthinkingly squeezed her waist more tightly for a moment; both gasped at the sensation, each trying to hide their reaction to the other.

 

"Don't you have better things to do than this? I said it once, and I'm not saying it again."  She sighed. Suddenly, an idea occured to her. She would do something she'd always wanted to, and get him to let her go all at the same time.  She smiled evilly and ran her hands softly up his arms to his shoulders.  "So let me see," she said huskily, letting her voice drop into the deep, sexy tone that she knew drove men wild, "I have to make you let me go. Hmmm... well, what if I just do this?"

 

"Mac..." Harm quickly realized that the tables were being turned on him as she began tracing his chest muscles through his shirt. "Now cut that out... Mac!" She had given up her perusal of his chest and one hand had just reached around him to pinch his six. The other was caressing his face, her thumb brushing over his suddenly dry lips.

 

She giggled. She had wanted to pinch him there ever since she had seen him in his boxers at his apartment once.  But now, she had an agenda. 'No focusing on what could be, Marine. Just get him to let go. There will be plenty of time for daydreaming *after* he leaves' she told herself. Renewing her touching of his chest, she leaned as far forward as his hands would allow.  "Give it up, Sailor. I know what you want, and it's not to hold me against a wall... or is it?" she chuckled seductively. 'Okay, now for the clincher, and I hope to God I can stop soon enough so that he doesn't understand how right this is.'

 

Very slowly, watching the stunned Commander in front of her, she slid her hands to his own waist, and pulled him up against her.  As she leaned down from her vantage point on the wall to kiss him, she waited until their lips were only an inch apart... and squeezed his hips.

 

The response was immediate. Harmon Rabb Jr. dropped Sarah Mackenzie like a hot potato, curling up as she tickled him mercilessly. "Okay, okay, I give! You win! If you're gonna be like that, you're gonna pay!" Harm had completely fallen for her act, and now was regretting losing himself in those chocolate brown eyes of hers. As the tickle fight continued, he tried valiantly to keep her from feeling just how much he had fallen for that act.

 

They rolled on her floor for several minutes, laughing hysterically, each one trying to focus on the moment at hand to commit it to memory. Finally, it ended. Mac was lying prone beneath Harm, his hands gently pinning hers above her head.  As they began to catch their breaths, they froze, suddenly realizing that not only were they in a *very* compromising position, they could both feel how he had reacted to their play.  His arousal was straining against her thighs through the denim of both of their jeans.  As he started to pull away, Harm noticed that she was biting her lower lip, and that she had gone very still all of a sudden.

 

"Mac, I..." Harm trailed off, embarrassed beyond belief.  He backed up and off of her, reaching back down to help her to stand.

 

'Oh my God, oh my God, oh my GOD!!! Focus Marine...'  She made a decision. They had been dancing around each other for more than seven years and by all the gods there were she was *not* going to let him get away when they were so close.  She stepped up to him, pressing him back against the wall where a few minutes ago he had held her prisoner.  "Harm, don't even say it. Don't even *think* about apologizing," she bit out each word harshly, more so than she had intended.  Softening her voice, she reached up to brush his cheek once more. "It's okay. No, in fact, it's more than okay." She reached her hand down to where he had unconsciously grasped her waist again. Taking one of his hands in her own, she brought it slowly to her lips. Gently, she kissed his palm, then slid it down her neck to rest against her chest, where her heart was beating frantically. "Just because I can *see* your reaction better than you can my own, doesn't mean that I'm not reacting. Feel what you do to me. Feel how my heart races the instant you come near me. This is *not* something to be sorry about."

 

"Mac... Sarah, I... oh God... I'm not sorry," Harm couldn't believe what he was hearing. He knew somewhere in his heart that he had known that she wanted him, too, but he could never bring himself to attempt anything.  He knew that she only wanted fun, not a commitment. So many times he had watched her shy away from it. For God's sake! She had backed out on her own wedding! Still, here she was, taking the initiative, putting herself in his hands. He stared back at her for so long, she began to worry.

 

"Harm, what?" He had called her Sarah.  He had *called* *her* *Sarah*.  She knew what that meant now.  She knew how he felt, now if only she could tell him how she felt. But to risk their friendship; to risk hurting him like she had so many before... could she do it? She took a deep breath, and, closing her eyes to gain courage, she said it.  "Harm, I love you. I want you, but more than that I want US. I want there to be one. If that means only as friends, I'll understand, but I want so much more. Please say something. Please, if you just want this to be for one night, I'll take it, but that's not what I want. I want you for life." Oh God, what had she said? She meant to stop before that last sentence. She tensed, fearing the backlash.

 

'For life.' That was all he needed to hear as he crushed her to him. "Oh, Sarah, I want you for so much longer than that. I want you for our eternity, for longer than that."  Holding her tightly, he walked them to the couch and pulled her down across his lap.  She still had her eyes closed and her head turned away, so he remedied that by forcibly moving her chin to face him. "Open your eyes, Sarah," he whispered against her ear, before nibbling gently on her lobe.

 

Her eyes flew open at the sensation, and what she saw in front of her was a sight she would never forget.  His blue green eyes were filled with tears.  Leaning forward so their foreheads rested against one another, she stared into those pools, finally allowing her barriers to drop and falling into his depths.  Ever so slowly, she lifted her hands once again to his cheek, once more caressing his lips with her thumb. He smiled under her touch. 

 

"That's it, my love. Now you are the one who needs to let go. Just let go and let me love you," he said softly.  "By the way, for the record... I do, you know. I love you Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie, and nothing would make me happier if you were to let me kiss you right now."

 

Her own eyes filled with tears as she heard the three words she had waited for so long to come out of his mouth.  Worrying her lip once more with her teeth, she spoke finally.  "Only if you promise to never let me go."

 

"Never, my Sarah. Not until the end of time," he said, closing the final distance between their lips. And then it began.

 

The kiss that had waited for seven long years went on and on.  Their tongues dueled and thrust, savoring each and every taste of the other. Amazingly, despite the close quarters, this first kiss remained as it was.  Their hands stayed put, as each one put all the love they were feeling into just this kiss. After many long and breathless minutes, they finally broke apart, gasping heavily. Harm was the first to recover his voice.

 

"Well, my sweet thing," here he chuckled, remembering the first time he called her that, "I guess that proves that the Navy and the Marine Corps *can* work together on some things."

 

"Of course, Flyboy.  Just as soon as the Navy gets its head out of its six," she teased back.  "Now then, since you called me that, are you going to explain where that nickname came from? Or do I have to 'convince' you again?" Her eyes flashed as she began to think of delectable tortures for him.  This was going to be so much fun, especially now that she could cross all lines they had put up before.

 

"Convince away, my love, just remember one thing," he paused, standing and lifting her as he did. "At the end of the day, you get me that way no matter what."

 

And with that, he carried her to the bedroom, laying her gently on the bed and stepping away only long enough to turn the lights off.  Giggles, moans, and cries of ecstasy filled the apartment as the two best friends finally came together in a glorious way. Both knew that life would intrude the next day, and that there would be choices to be made along the way, but now facing that together, they simply let go, and let love guide them.

 

THE END