"Damn."

Jean-Luc Picard was not one to pace. He was also not one to be thrown off-stride by members of the opposite sex. Yet, here he was, wearing down the tread on his boots and obsessing about a woman like a pubescent school-boy.

"Damn!"

What the hell was she thinking?

He leaned against his desk, glanced at Livingston—but the lionfish failed to offer an opinion—and ran through the events of the evening for the trillionth time.

"Lovely as always, Jean-Luc." Beverly had smiled; her voice husky from wine and several hours of companionable conversation. "Thank you."

He walked her from the couch to his doors, savouring the last moments of her presence. "The pleasure is all mine."

She stopped just out of the sensor's range and turned to face him. He smiled, expecting a farewell followed by a platonic kiss to the cheek. The pressure of her lips against his jaw, her scent filling his nostrils, and the feather-light caress of her hand on his chest defined the perfect ending to the evening.

"I have an early shift tomorrow. I'm afraid I won't make breakfast. Unless," she grinned wickedly, "0430 works for you?"

He chuckled, relishing her closeness. "I don't think so."

Beverly shrugged. "It's probably for the best. I don't think any amount of coffee could make me an agreeable companion at that hour."

"Indeed."

"Jean-Luc!" Beverly pulled back, laughter and mock-outrage playing across her features.

She twisted toward the doors and he held his breath. He needn't have worried; she turned as though having forgotten something, leaned in, and kissed him.

He froze.

"Goodnight." An impish smile tugged at her lips, and without another word, she'd left.

Jean-Luc flushed, remembering the feel of her mouth against his. The scent of Merlot lingered, and he swore he could still taste her.

"Damn!" he muttered. He was pacing again.

What had she meant with that kiss? And more importantly, what am I supposed to do about it?

-P/C-

Beverly tugged on the sleeves of her lab coat, her fingers fluttering and nipping like agitated birds unravelling material for their nests. She had five minutes before the senior officers' staff meeting, but she needed five hours. Cursing the butterflies in her stomach, she recalculated.

Better make that five years.

Whatever possessed her to kiss him like that? She shook her head. She'd crossed a line they'd been dancing along for ages. Beverly stuffed her hands in her pockets as she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.

And, of course, he'll want an explanation.

"Damn," she muttered as she noted the time on the chronometer.

What the hell was she going to say? "I'm sorry Jean-Luc, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and while I don't regret it, in retrospect I probably shouldn't have done it." She could feel his heart breaking in her palms.

Beverly stopped pacing.

Had the kiss really been such a bad thing?

Her pulse jumped at the memory. Maybe there was another explanation. "I'm sorry Jean-Luc, it felt right, and I don't regret it, but I have no idea what I meant by it."

Brilliant. If I use that he'll think he's being led on by a bubble-headed moron.

"What am I going to do?" she muttered.

Beverly stumbled to a halt in the doorway when she came within inches of bowling over her head nurse.

"Doctor?" Nurse Ogawa retreated into sickbay. "You asked me to remind you… the morning briefing… you didn't want to be late."

Beverly tried to smile, but if the look on Alyssa's face was any indication, she'd failed utterly.

No, we wouldn't want to be late, now would we?

She ran a hand through her hair as she strode into the corridor.

Where's a good spatial anomaly when a girl needs one?

-P/C-

Jean-Luc scowled at his reflection in the conference table. Asking her outright would be crass, and he was not about to ruin what they had by sticking his foot in his mouth.

Maybe she missed.

He snorted. Targs would have to overrun his bridge before he believed that kiss was an accident.

He steepled his fingers under his nose. What to do?

The remainder of the senior crew filed in and took their seats, the one to his left conspicuously empty. He checked the chronometer and opened his mouth to speak when the woosh of the doors behind his chair announced the arrival of the last crewmember.

"Sorry," Beverly said as she slid into the nearest vacant seat.

Bright spots of colour highlighted her cheeks. Was she blushing? He willed her to make eye contact with him, but she appeared intensely interested in Geordi's report – hanging on his every word as though the recalibration of the dilithium crystals was the most fascinating topic in the universe.

Jean-Luc stifled a smile as Geordi began to shift uncomfortably under her scrutiny.

Careful there, Doctor, you wouldn't want Geordi getting the wrong idea.

He tapped his lips.

And just what is the 'wrong idea,' eh, Johnny?

Who was he to judge her interests? Geordi was certainly easy-going and considerate. What gave him the right to assume she wouldn't be interested in the chief engineer?

"Thank you," Jean-Luc said as Geordi wrapped up his report. "Data?"

Jean-Luc smothered a grin as Geordi sank back in relief when Beverly turned her eyes on the android.

You have my sympathies. It's not easy having those blue eyes boring into your soul, is it?

He glanced at the woman studiously ignoring him and reached a decision. He hadn't earned a reputation as a master tactician for nothing. She'd fired the first shot, now it was his turn.

-P/C-

"Absolutely breathtaking."

Beverly jumped as the unexpected baritone rumbled through her body. Masking her shiver of arousal with a gasp of surprise, she looked over her shoulder and met Jean-Luc's hazel gaze. "Excuse me?"

He smiled and glanced out the viewport and back at her. "This sight has greeted me innumerable times over the years, yet I never tire of the beauty. I am as awed by it today as I was the first time I set eyes on it."

"Yes," she swallowed, her throat suddenly dry, "the view from Ten Forward is amazing."

He grinned. "Indeed."

The way he held her gaze made it clear he was not talking about the star cluster. Beverly's knees threatened to give out.

She scanned the nearly deserted lounge, but no one was paying them any attention. She'd come for a late lunch and been drawn to the viewports by the shimmering nebula. Lost in the raw beauty of the setting, she'd been oblivious to his approach; now he stood at her shoulder, and every nerve fibre tingled in response. She needed to escape before her body betrayed her again.

"I should— I need to be getting back to sickbay."

"Allow me to accompany you to the lift."

He was standing close. Too close. Deliciously close.

Damn it, Beverly! Focus!

"That's all right. I wouldn't want to inconvenience you," she demurred.

"It's no trouble. I was heading that way myself."

Right. And I'm a targ's uncle.

She shrugged and set her glass down on a nearby table as she moved toward the doors.

Heat pulsed up her neck as she felt his eyes following her.

Two can play this game, my dear Captain, Beverly thought as she smothered a wicked grin and changed her purposeful stride to a borderline seductive saunter.

Beverly smiled in satisfaction as the not-so-subtle shift in her walk drew a sharp inhale of lascivious appreciation from the man behind her.

-P/C-

They entered the lift and Beverly didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved to find it empty. She turned to face the doors as Jean-Luc requested their destination. The familiar whir filled the silence in the small capsule.

Her fingers itched to trace his ears, his jaw, the back of his head. He stood slightly in front and to the left of her, avoiding eye contact. She furrowed her brows at his sudden shift from intense solicitousness to professional distance.

What are you playing at now? she wondered.

It took every ounce of willpower Jean-Luc possessed not to look at her. He mentally recited his command codes for the past five years—in reverse chronological order—in an attempt to distract himself from Beverly's closeness.

For years she'd kept him off-balance with a smile, touch, or gesture. If he was going to determine how she really felt, he needed to do the same to her. She was far too good at masking her emotions – he needed to provoke a genuine response. So, he stood ignoring her, and waited.

"Jean-Luc, I…" Beverly's voice trailed off when he failed to turn.

What the hell? Beverly wondered as she continued to stare at the back of Jean-Luc's head. The lift will be arriving any second.

"I think we need to—"

"Computer, halt lift," Picard intoned.

Jean-Luc kept his face neutral as he turned to regard her.

Works every time.

He'd employed the same psychological trick he'd used on countless recalcitrant cadets and junior officers, and got the same result.

Damn! Why'd I open my mouth?

She suddenly felt five years old – the impulse to confess to something, anything, was nearly overwhelming.

Jean-Luc watched the emotions play across Beverly's features. Here was the response he was looking for – emotions hitting too fast and too hard for her to successfully hide them. He took a step closer.

Beverly's heart hammered in her ears as he approached. She instinctively retreated and gasped when she brushed against the bulkhead. His eyes searched her – she could feel them sifting through her soul, touching her desires, her fears. She could hardly breathe in the whirlwind of emotions assaulting her. Lust, apprehension, desire, love, nervousness, lust… definitely lust.

And fear.

He closed the gap. He needed her to focus entirely on him, and on what he was about to say.

Beverly trembled as he brought his hand to her cheek. She closed her eyes. The touch was so warm, so gentle, so easy to fall into.

And what would be so wrong about that? she asked herself as she opened her eyes.

"I cannot escape you." Jean-Luc's voice rumbled in her chest. "The thought of losing you—somehow hurting you—turns my blood to water."

See? she thought at him, unable to form the words with her lips. Everything is dangerous about this; about us.

He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. "But you already knew that."

Despite her mind's insistence on the dangerousness of their feelings, her body reacted to the gentle kiss in a way that confirmed it was nothing but right, and the strength of her visceral reaction terrified her.

When Jean-Luc pulled back to meet her gaze Beverly pushed past him and prowled the lift like a caged panther.

"Damn you, Jean-Luc!"

Damn me? he thought, as he tried to calm his racing heart. That kiss had enough chemistry to obliterate a small sun. There's no way you didn't feel it too.

He watched as she angrily wiped her eyes with the heel of her palm. She spun on him and only the bulkhead's confining presence kept him from backing away.

"I didn't want this!"

His blood ran cold, realizing she really may not have wanted his kiss. "I apologize if I overstepped—"

"Not that," Beverly replied, waving vaguely in the direction of the lift where he'd kissed her.

"If not the kiss, then what?"

She moved until she stood toe-to-toe with him. "Us. This."

"Then why did you—?"

Beverly shook her head and stepped away.

"Beverly, I—"

"I tried to stop loving you, to leave you," she turned, walked away, and spun back, "but, God help me, I couldn't."

"You don't have to—" he tried to interject; to tell her she didn't need to hide her feelings or be afraid.

"I do! This," Beverly gestured at the space between them, "this is too risky, too intense, too—"

"Wrong?"

The apprehension in his eyes sucked the anger from her body like air from a balloon. Beverly reached out, grasped his hand, and pulled it to her chest.

"No," she whispered. "Not wrong. Never wrong."

"Then—"

"Damn it, Jean-Luc!"

Beverly was on the verge of tears. Nothing made sense. Nothing was going the way it should. Nothing would be the same after this moment. There was only one option.

She leaned in and kissed him.

Coming up for air and panting slightly, she said, "See?"

Jean-Luc uncrossed his eyes and forced his toes to uncurl as he struggled to follow her logic. After that kiss, he wasn't certain he could see straight, never mind grasp whatever point she felt she'd been making when she set his blood on fire.

He cleared his throat. "See…?" he parroted.

Beverly shifted so she stood beside him. She closed her eyes and leaned heavily against the bulkhead.

"This will never work," she whispered.

"Why not?"

How can I explain this to him?

"You're obstinate," she replied.

Her words stung, and he responded without thinking, "And you're beyond stubborn."

"Pompous."

"Insubordinate," he countered.

"Infuriating."

"Over-bearing."

"Relentless."

Her lips quirked slightly at his volley, and he suppressed a grin.

"Arrogant," she replied, but the word was laced with more tenderness than ire.

"Quick-tempered."

"Intimidating."

He snorted.

Beverly opened her eyes at the unexpected sound. She quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Despite my best efforts, you don't find me the slightest bit intimidating," he said, crossing his arms. "You never have."

"True," she replied. Her eyes twinkled mischievously as she added, "And do you know why?"

He shook his head. "Why?"

She sighed. "Because no matter how many times I tell myself it's not true, no matter how many rationalizations I think up, in the end the truth always wins through."

He waited.

Beverly took a shuddering breath and wrapped her arms around her chest as she prepared to step off a precipice she'd vowed never to go near.

"Because I love you," she whispered.

Jean-Luc's artificial heart threatened to burst from his chest. "And I love you."

Beverly sagged against the wall like a puppet with its strings cut. Relief at his words coursed through her and washed away some of her apprehension.

Jean-Luc stepped away from the bulkhead and pulled her until they were standing eye-to-eye in the centre of the lift.

"This isn't going to be easy," she said.

He smiled. "With you? I wouldn't have it any other way."