Chapter 1: JJ's Perspective

I'm not a smoker. I never was and I don't think I ever could be now that I've got a son. Theoretically, it should've been a major turn off when Emily pulled out a pack of cigarettes and offered me one. So why was it having the opposite effect?

Leaning against cold red brick in the alley outside a gay and lesbian nightclub, she was the picture of teenage rebellion all grown up. And, God, it had grown up well. We may have been undercover, but the way I saw it, that only gave me more license than usual to check her out, and that's just what I did as I decided to hell with it and took a cigarette.

Emily raised one neatly plucked eyebrow as my eyes ran over her body, but for once I was unselfconscious. Playing interested in Emily was coming surprisingly naturally to me. It made me wonder if Morgan and Reid were having the same experience inside. I doubted it, but that didn't stop me wishing I could see it.

Morgan and Reid were back-up. Hotch, Rossi, and Garcia too were floating somewhere inside, mingling as they liked. If the unsub appeared it would be Emily and I he was after, and if he continued his pattern it would be out in this alley that he'd find us.

I leaned in to Emily, who lit my cigarette and then her own - amusement shining clearly in her eyes. It felt a little naughty, and I was sure one of the others would be out to check on us before long. We were adults, I reminded myself. We could smoke if we wanted to.

Besides, why did two women escape a thriving club just before midnight if not to smoke? Maybe to get away from the noise, maybe to get a little privacy, but probably not just to talk. I brushed my lips casually against Emily's, as if in thanks for the cigarette. She smirked and took a drag. I watched her lips purse, hold, then slacken sensually as she let the breath out. And the smell... Once I would've been repulsed by it, but up close, with her, it was sexy and intimate - a reminder that we were close enough now to share the same air.

"Jennifer, wasn't it?" she drawled.

There didn't seem to be anyone around, but the question was a reminder that we still had roles to play - as if I'd forgotten.

"Mm," I replied, ducking my head in closer. "And you're Emily. So is this your first time here?"

Emily's laugh was low and I was transfixed by the focus in her dark eyes. "Not by a long shot," she hinted. Her tone dared me to question her further, but I defied the expectation.

"Me neither," I answered and this time I let my lips touch hers for a moment longer. It was hardly a kiss. It felt more like holding hands. But it gave me a sense of control - a one-up over the woman who leaned so casually against a wall and smoked like she knew enough of the world not to mind losing a few years of her life.

I took a drag too and we breathed out together.

"You got a girlfriend, Emily?" I found myself asking.

She's got this little smile, Emily Prentiss. A very little smile. It comes across as self-assured and sometimes smug, but I think it's more than that. Sometimes she smiles it when you've surprised her. Sometimes she smiles it when she's thinking about how to surprise you. Like many people with a lot of secrets, Emily takes intimate pleasure in the controlled revelation of the very smallest of them. When she smiled at me like that, I knew something was coming.

"Not right now," she breathed. "I'm happy just looking..."

Now it was her eyes that ran down my body and I felt the same flash of desire I'd felt a few hours earlier while we were getting ready in her condo. She'd appeared behind me and murmured against my ear to "Wear something sexy," then she disappeared into the bathroom before I could even turn around...

"Looking at me?" I asked coyly and I didn't protest when Emily ground out her cigarette against the wall and pulled me closer with one arm around my waist.

"Isn't it obvious?" she whispered.

Dear God. She had a way of looking both present and far away, both dim-eyed and intensely focused. She was like a woman in a book or a high school teacher who was just a little too sexy. Her fingers brushed mine as she stole the cigarette from my hand and took a long suck before putting that, too, out on the red brick. Then she brought both hands to my sides and simply held me, maybe a foot away, as if judging my exact dimensions and committing them to memory.

I kissed her again, a light touch, which she turned into something deeper. The hands on my waist drew me in, then left their stations, creeping, stroking, and splaying across my back as her teeth tugged my bottom lip and her tongue begged entrance.

Was this how it was supposed to feel when you kissed your best friend? If Morgan kissed Reid tonight, for the sake of their cover, would he feel the same pull of happiness in his chest, the same deeply affectionate yearning?

Affectionate... In my mind I was qualifying the desire as a platonic one. I was happy to be close to a woman I cared about and who didn't offer many opportunities for closeness. Was that enough to make me feel the way I did? Could you kiss a woman until your breath was gone and your cheeks were hot and your heart ached and still be as straight as you told yourself you were in the tenth grade when you spent seven minutes in a closet with your best friend's sister and never looked her in the eye again? And then there was the somehow even more pressing question: Had Emily really been here before?

It was a dizzying thought but an even more dizzying kiss, and I found myself abandoning every impulse that detracted from it.

Consequences be damned, I kissed her hard.

The sound of the heavy back door to the club opening pricked at the edge of my consciousness and I slowed our kiss reluctantly. Still, I didn't open my eyes, didn't pull away. If it were a member of the team, they'd make their presence known. If it were the unsub, better for him to think he'd surprised us. If it were anyone else, I didn't care.

The way Emily's hand traced up past my hip to tap the gun concealed inside my jacket told me she'd heard the same thing. I moved my hands from her hair to her waist, where it would be easier for me to reach my weapon if necessary, but I still hadn't regained quite enough control to stem the gasp that escaped me when one hand rose to cup my breast. My hands tightened on Emily's waist as if of their own accord and I leaned deeper into our kiss. The smack of moisture between our mouths was uncannily loud in the not-quite-deserted alley and I felt every touch and stroke of her tongue with heightened awareness. Heat pooled between my legs and I let out a moan as Emily's thigh slipped between them at just the right time. Hold on. Emily, hold on. Fuck, we were on a case. I felt my focus slipping -

Then I heard a cough, not intended to interrupt but to reassure. The voice behind it was of a familiar timbre. I knew without looking that it was Hotch who now leaned a little way down the wall. I heard the metallic snap of a lighter, smelled a fresh wave of tobacco, and if that wasn't enough reassurance, he slurred to himself a few lines from a song. There was no doubt who was there in the darkness.

Now that the danger had momentarily passed, I tucked my face into Emily's neck and felt my heart race for another reason.

We were supposed to be out here, attracting the unsub's attention, I reminded myself. So far eight women, comprising four couples, had gone missing on consecutive Fridays having been last seen at this gay and lesbian nightclub. Emily and I were supposed to draw him out by acting like a couple. That fact wasn't doing much to assuage what felt like the illicitness of the situation, however. Maybe I would've been less affected by my boss's appearance if I weren't so damn turned on by the assignment.

Fuck, I said it. I was turned on. Majorly. By Emilly Prentiss.

Before long, Hotch extinguished his cigarette and disappeared back into the club. He had fulfilled his purpose of checking up on us and didn't want to discourage the unsub from showing himself by lingering. Although I heard the door open and close, it was difficult for me to convince myself to raise my head from Emily's neck. Finally she made the decision for me, reaching up her hand to cup my cheek and direct my face towards hers.

"Is this okay, Jen?" she asked softly, and although we still had parts to play, I knew she was genuinely asking me. It made me feel a little safer.

But It was past 12.30, where was the unsub? He'd need hours to perform the torture he had exacted on the other victims and the bodies had all been found by early morning. Dread clamped down on my heart as I considered the possibility that he'd already come and gone, bypassing us and abducting another couple.

Ironically, this was the last thought I remember having before waking up in the hospital.