"I can sample the frosting on a cake without leaving a fingerprint."
Kate's head jerked up at once, the words seeming to stretch out in the space between her and Gibbs and deliver a sort of Gibbs slap against her brain. She was rattled. She'd been largely just rolling her eyes at the giggles from inside the kitchen, when she was close enough to hear them. Now, well, she was just sort of hoping she could pull her face into a casually confused, not wildly jealous expression. She didn't have a mirror close by, but Kate would bet she wasn't succeeding.
She wondered how it would it feel to be inside that kitchen, standing in his path, with all his focus on her instead of Melissa. Kate wondered if the statement, the hunger she imagined in his words, would have left her speechless and without air, or if she would care about the lack of either with him so near.
Out here, Kate was contemplating cold showers, or demonstrations, and she wasn't even on the receiving end of what her mind had taken and twisted into a future fantasy.
She wasn't jealous, though.
Okay, so yeah, maybe Gibbs was actually pretty handsome if you could get past the whole second b business-and hadn't that just been the first thing Kate had accepted wholeheartedly. And sure, he smelled like some incredible mix of coffee and bourbon and something far too warm to be associated with Gibbs in the first place, unless you were lucky enough to know the man. He was her boss, her friend, not someone who she knew would probably be an incredible kisser if she ever found herself in the position to find out.
Oh, who was she kidding? She was a next level sort of jealous.
The very thought annoyed her, nagged inside her brain all the reasons she was so far beyond a high school style crush, but she still nearly stared when he directed his smile at her. He looked light and boyish and she was afraid if he flirted anymore she might roll her eyes so hard she'd have to make a special trip to Ducky for treatment. He'd probably enjoy it, Ducky, probably would know exactly why she was sitting on his table with her eyes trying to see her own brain. It wouldn't be their first conversation about Gibbs. She only needed to remember where she was standing, that she wasn't looking for a job, to know that the older man had guarded their conversations well.
Gibbs was in front of her before she could understand why he was moving, concern painted across his features, wrinkling up the corners of his eyes as they narrowed to study her. The smile had already faltered, now it had fallen and Kate felt remorse for its death. She wanted to back up, rewind the moment until she could figure out just what she had done that had sent him plummeting from on top of the world back to worrying about her, firmly on the ground. Or, rather, she was sort of in awe of how she could sway him so completely when his mind should still be on the woman who had just followed him from the kitchen.
"Kate?" he asked, reaching out and cupping her cheek, tilting her face to meet his eyes. The gesture took her by surprise, the very real worry she found there nearly shook her to her core. "Are you okay?"
Was she?
"Yes," she finally agreed, when her brain stopped scrambling over itself to locate where the words were kept, and she could manage anything more than an embarrassing sound passing over her lips. "Are we done here?"
The appraisal in his eyes returned, and she felt his mood shift again as he lowered his hand from her cheek. Concern was traded for something a lot closer to amusement, and she was somewhere between grateful and upset that he wasn't looking at her so intently any longer.
Gibbs stepped back, out of her space, and spun away from her. He headed for the door, but not before flashing her a grin over his shoulder. She considered slapping him for a moment, she really did. But she was sort of love heavy and infatuated at the moment and it would have to wait until one of those passed before she could manage such a task.
He walked outside, without so much as giving Melissa another glance, without a hint of goodbye. The darker part of Kate, that she didn't often indulge in, was pleased and considering doing a happy dance with the imagined little devil on her shoulder.
Kate managed to keep her mouth closed until they were outside, and sort of blindly hoped there was some way to approach this without his legendary investigation skills and famous gut realizing that she was probably more than a little unprofessionally concerned about where his flirting happened to be landing.
It seemed doubtful at best, but her mind was all too willing to approach this future crash full steam ahead.
"You weren't buying any of that were you?" she asked, glancing at him.
Gibbs succeeded at not looking smug for about three seconds before it fell over his face, and he smiled the smile that she was fairly sure could get him the world- at least her whole world
"Any of what?" he asked, looking at her.
Damn him, he was having fun. It was almost enough to render her speechless, unwilling to be the one to steal the joy from his eyes or pull the playfulness from his words. As often as he was like this when they were alone, Gibbs was sort of...well, unpredictable.
"You know her...charm," she finally decided on.
That was casual, concerned only for his welfare, right? His grin suggested he knew too much, or maybe he just really was happy, and he wasn't going to let Kate take it from him this time.
If anything, that smile grew. It was infuriating, in that she couldn't tug him to her and press her lips against his to see if they'd burn the world down together. He was her boss, he had those rules, and while sometimes she thought he might overstep them, other times he snubbed her so hard she was sure she had only imagined it all in the first place.
"Is it really that hard to believe, Kate, that I might be attractive to a woman," he asked.
She didn't see the shrug, but it was there, in his voice. He'd found casual, she was the only one bobbing alone in confusion and love and lust it seemed.
But no, Gibbs, it wasn't. It was actually because she was on the losing side of loving him, and fantasizing about him when she fell into her bed most nights, that she knew that it wasn't actually hard to believe at all. That was the problem, really.
She saw far too often the looks women threw his way, and while most of the time he seemed about as influenced as a rock would be, once in a while he gave as good as he got. Those times, Kate thought about slugging them both for making her remember just how unlikely it was she would ever be able to receive the fullness of Gibbs' affection and attention. The sort he would give to someone that wasn't an agent, a subordinate.
Kate climbed into the car, and looked out the window, letting Gibbs' hate of small talk silence her into thought. She would not trade the job for the man, not even now. She was glad she had come, glad she had stayed, but that didn't mean it wasn't getting harder every day to never take another step towards the man-any stumbling and falling be damned in the end.
If only she could-no she wouldn't think of cake- if only she could have Gibbs and have Gibbs, she might not actually go mad working with him.
Even now, as he caught her eye and smiled, she knew it was likely never going to be happen.
She might be willing to lean over that line he had drawn, that she had agreed to with silence in too many moments, but Gibbs, well he wasn't one to bend.
Gibbs
Kate had sounded jealous.
Gibbs dropped his sandpaper on his table, needing to think deeper on the subject and unable to think of anything else. He scrubbed a dusty hand over his face, trying not realize how much trouble he might be with Kate as a whole.
He'd been certain, earlier, that she had been jealous of his flirting with Melissa. That maybe she'd react, make a move, something that would finally make it clear if he had permission to destroy his own line in the sand with any means possible. She didn't, and he didn't.
He thought back to the house, to the way he let his eyes slide over the woman in front of him, while his mind was so steadily focused on the movements of Kate in the other room. It wasn't an accident that his admission, the one that Melissa had seemed very interested in, had only come when Kate was back close enough to hear.
Had Kate heard him, though, was she listening to his words? Because they sure as hell weren't for Melissa, even murder suspect aside, Kate had been the focus of his flirting for far long than he was willing to admit. He thought of her as it slipped from his lips, and it was so easy to honestly say whatever came into his head, when it was her smile he was picturing flashing back at him.
Kate was his motivation for a lot of things these days, and she probably wouldn't approve of at least half.
Gibbs couldn't help but wonder what Kate would do if he let her in on the secret, if he had pulled her in instead of laughing her off. If when they were outside, he'd dared to take a stupid risk and press his lips to hers. That was the sort of Gibbs he used to be, not caring if the road turned sharply tomorrow and they both drove off. Messy endings didn't spoil the fun, not like they used to. Kate was bigger than that, though, bigger than his own wants or needs.
This wasn't about rules anymore, or what was proper-Kate had won out against all of that a long time ago- that wasn't what stilled his hands from running the course of her and broke his heart these days at all.
The only thing that kept Gibbs from admitting everything to Kate, was fear. It was the thought that Kate couldn't, wouldn't respond well to his advances. If keeping her as his friend was the only way to keep her at all, he'd glue his mouth shut until time ran out to say anything. He was good at being his own worst enemy, the very best he knew.
Sleep seemed like the only option now. There, at least, anything was still possible for him. There, many things had already been done. His smile was involuntary as he climbed the stairs, but he let it linger anyway. He didn't pause by his bedroom, wasn't going to let dreams of Kate be tainted by a past he couldn't change, and instead threw himself onto the couch.
Gibbs buried his face into the pillow, letting the warmth from the fire thaw him out a little. Maybe after some sleep, after he dreamed of a world where he could show Kate exactly how much he wanted and needed her, he'd be able to face his fear tomorrow.
Maybe.