Disclaimer: If I owned NCIS I'd would have moved it to Showtime by now JUST for the explicit sex scenes. Obviously that hasn't happened.
A/N: This is what happens when I go digging around LJ (as per requested by lj user"monicadoggett", hope you enjoy this, sweetie! i blame this on you, lol) looking for a specific Ziva/McGee!kiss icon, and my muse waking me up at 3am without letting me go back to sleep before I've finished.
The first time that she kissed him it had been an accident.
They'd had a friendly dinner after work; burgers at a little diner and a drink at a bar around the corner. He'd told her stories about road trips with Sarah when they were younger. How unbearable they'd been at the time and how much he missed them now. She'd laughed along with him and even shared a few tales of her own. One of her little sister Tali and another of a long string of awkward mishaps she'd had her freshman year of college.
It was the first time since she'd joined the team that she'd felt truly relaxed and welcome amongst them. So when McGee had hugged her after walking her to her door, even though she'd insisted that it was unnecessary, and without thinking her lips had grazed his cheek- pressed and lingered a little longer than she'd intended.
Ziva had watched in embarrassment as he blushed and stuttered something about seeing her at work the next day. She'd gone to bed that night praying that things wouldn't be awkward between them. It was the perfect ammunition for Tony's arsenal. They'd have been royally screwed if he had ever found out about it.
The second time that she kissed him was just after Abby had broken up with him. Again.
He'd been moping around the bullpen for three days before she'd finally dragged him out to her car after everyone else had already gone home and taken him back to her apartment. They'd ordered take-out and watched a movie. Even played a game of cards and eaten half a pint of ice cream straight out of the box.
They'd been five drinks in before he'd finally been ready to talk.
Ziva was more than willing to be his shoulder to lean on, even as startled as she'd been when he'd wrapped his arms around her and cried quietly into the crook of her neck as he told her what had happened. She'd reassured him that he'd done nothing wrong. That Abby was just... being Abby, as horrible as that sounded. But he'd understood anyway.
McGee had leaned back just far enough to flash her the first hints of a smile that she hadn't seen in days, and she couldn't help grinning back. She'd cupped his face in her palms and dried his tears with the pads of her thumbs, stretching up just far enough to place a comforting kiss on his forehead.
He had ended up sleeping on her couch that night. A warm blanket wrapped tightly around him and a glass of water sitting on the coffee table a few feet away, two Tylenol's sitting next to it.
They hadn't talked about it the next morning. Just drank coffee with one another at her dining room table as they ate breakfast. And had swung by his place an hour later so that he could get changed on their way into work.
Gibbs had been the only one to notice that they'd arrived together. He had glared at her disapprovingly, but kept his mouth shut when he saw that McGee was finally back to his old self.
Their third kiss had happened a little differently.
Gibbs had just left them. Retired, said his goodbyes, and walked out of their lives.
Ziva had arrived home to find McGee sitting in the hallway of her building, his back against the wall, head in his hands. He hadn't even looked at her as she helped him up and unlocked her front door.
Their silence was comfortable. They didn't have to say anything to know what was going to happen next.
He was going to come inside and slip the latest jazz CD that he'd let her borrow into the small stereo in her living room, and they were both going to drink until they couldn't remember who they were or what had happened in the past week. And if they were really lucky, they'd pass out at the end of the night and sleep their hangovers off long into the next day.
So they drank.
Sitting on her couch, filling glass after glass of scotch. She'd ended up cuddled against him around three AM. Her head on his chest, squished between the side of his body and the cushions behind her, his arms wrapped tightly around her body. Their reserves had run dry long ago, and his breathing had been slow and steady beneath her ear, lulling her to the edge of sleep as her mind swam happily through a thick fog of booze.
"Do you think he'll ever come back, Ziva?" He'd whispered.
She had propped herself up, meeting his eyes for the first time that night. He'd been scared. Worried that they'd not only lost a boss, but a close friend as well.
So, Ziva had done the first thing that she could think of.
She tipped her head forward and tenderly pressed her lips to his. Sinking into him, letting her lashes flutter closed as they kissed softly. Never escalating or growing with passion.
It was comfort. Nothing more and nothing less.
He'd had a confused yet oddly accepting expression on his face when she'd pulled back. So she'd kissed him once more. Soft and lingering. Before snuggling back into him, her palm laying over his heart.
"He'll be back. I know it."
The last time that they'd kissed, McGee had been the one who started it.
It was nearly five months later and Abby had been bugging both of them to go with her to the grand opening of a new club that she'd heard about. It'd been her first attempt at returning to her normal lifestyle since Gibbs had finally come home. So they'd reluctantly agreed.
That's how they'd found themselves on a tightly packed dance floor, only a few drinks in their systems, dancing with Abby snuggly between them. Ziva's hands had slid up and down the Goth's back as she ground into her from behind to the beat of the music, and Tim's had rested comfortably on her hips. They'd taken turns leading of course; the gentle swish of ponytails turning once or twice every ten minutes, breasts rubbing against each other, Ziva's thigh just high enough between two pale ones to know that she was going commando under that little skirt of hers.
One of Abby's friends had eventually come by and whisked her away, just like they'd been expecting, leaving them with a wave of apology and a small gap between them.
The crowd had eventually pushed them together- a bump into Ziva's back by an anonymous drunk and their bodies had collided. She'd wasted no time once she was there. Giving in to the tension that'd been brewing between them. Arching her eyebrows seductively before wrapping her arms around his neck and rubbing up against him as they'd started to dance again.
Three hours later they'd been stumbling toward the open door of a taxi, laughing for no reason other than being buzzed, when McGee had spun her around and kissed her for all she was worth.
His fingers had been buried in her soft and curly hair. Tongue skillfully parting her lips. A moan slipping deep from the back of her throat as he'd pulled her flush against his body and her hands had clutched at fistfuls of shirt covering his chest.
The sound of a horn honking behind them had broken the moment. They'd parted with a gasp and a guiltily look toward the driver who sat staring at them with a questioning glare.
Were they in or out?
With a quick glance at each other, they'd agreed, and should have already known what their answers would be.
They weren't going home alone that night.
It hadn't taken long to slide into the back seat and give the man her address. Watching the lights in the city fly by as McGee's palm slowly crept higher up her thigh the closer they got.
The second her door had slammed shut he'd kissed her again.
Immediately dominating her mouth as her fingers struggled with the buttons on his shirt, blindly making their way toward the bedroom.
It had been fast and hard, and exactly what both of them had needed.
Feeling him above her, thrusting into her, his chest brushing her hardened nipples as their bodies had rocked and arched together. Clinging to him, nails trailing down his back, as she'd cried out and come around him with so much force that his face had clenched in pleasure as he followed her seconds later.
They'd woken the next morning curled up together, tangled in her sheets, as the sun slowly filtered through open drapes in beams and fell across the bed.
She'd felt peaceful, and knew that the shy smile on his face mirrored her own. He'd still had questions, though he hadn't needed to ask them because they'd been hers as well.
What did this mean for them? Had they ruined a perfectly good friendship for a romp in the sack? Was it going to happen again?
Ziva had been able to answer all of them with one more kiss.
End.