Disclaimer: I do not own anything of, relating to, or having to do with NCIS, its characters, or its past plot/story lines.
He had so many ideas on how to do it. He just wanted to make it absolutely perfect, not to mention special.
Tony DiNozzo also wanted his girlfriend, Ziva David, to be surprised. He knew she was not expecting a proposal because the two of them had recently bought a house together, which was more than enough for Ziva, knowing how big of a step it was for Tony.
"Hey, Zi." he said as he came in through the door of the house, a few plastic bags in hand. Christmas was the following morning, and as the team usually did celebrate on Christmas Eve, even though Ziva was Jewish, Tony and Ziva had decided to host a dinner and dessert party.
"Hi, Tony." Ziva said from removing her holiday cookies off the cookie sheet with a metal spatula. Tony turned her around and kissed her.
"Mmmm. Brown sugar," Tony leaned in for another kiss, "and cinnamon." he added. Ziva smiled.
"There is little doubt your mouth works, Tony." she said, giving him a suggestive and seductive smirk.
"Well, you would know." he said, putting his recently purchased plastic bags of decorations on the kitchen table.
"Actually, I was thinking about your incessant talking because, in that case, everybody, knows your mouth works. Why? What were you talking about?" she teased, passing her boyfriend a warm cookie.
"You know what I was thinking about." Tony said, moving closer to his girlfriend, leaving a trail of hypnotizing, goose flesh inducing, sensual kisses along Ziva's neck. She sighed contentedly, knowing this would have to stop momentarily.
"Do I?" she replied, trying to regain her composure. His answer was a gentle nip on her collarbone, which never failed in turning her on. "Tony, I am still cooking." she reminded him.
"The food can wait."
"Tony." Upon hearing the tone of her voice, Tony stopped the extremely pleasant assault on her neck. They both sighed. "You have to put up the decorations anyways."
Tony complied. He grabbed the plastic bag from the kitchen table, gave Ziva a peck on the lips, and departed to the living room. He checked several times to make sure that Ziva was intently focused on whatever she was cooking on the stove, and when he was sure she was, he grabbed the velvet ring box from the bottom of the plastic bag.
With the ring, he also pulled out the only mistletoe he had purchased. This mistletoe had a purpose. Taking the two-carat princess cut engagement ring, he pulled some string through the middle of the ring, and tied it around the mistletoe, keeping it in place for when he decided where to hang it up. When Tony had finished tying it, he found a perfect space to hand the decoration, and the ring was hanging a foot below it.
It was impossible to miss if you knew where to look.
Finally, Ziva came out of the kitchen, completely oblivious and unsuspecting towards what had just happened.
"All of the cooking is finally finished." Ziva announced. "Hopefully, everyone will be happy with everything I made. They will all be here in about two hours now. I am guess that you will be the one to carve the ham tonight?"
During her announcement, Tony had pulled her closer to him. Their arms were wrapped around each other, her brown eyes staring into his green ones.
"Yup. It's our first holiday in this house. I want to carve the ham."
"I'm sure Gibbs will not mind."
"You sound exhausted, Ziva."
"I am not exhausted, Tony. I just think that after the dinner, and after you and I have some fun, I will be very ready to go to sleep."
Something darkened in Tony's eyes, and the man almost instantly displayed a face of excitement, which was soon replaced with a look of annoyance.
"Great, Ziva, now I'll be thinking about that during dinner. I'll want to get them out of the house as soon as you let them in." he groaned.
"Maybe you should go take a cold shower." she suggested as she patted Tony's chest.
"I want to do one thing first." he said, and he gently pressed his lips to hers.
She was ultimately surprised at how indescribably tender their kiss was, considering that sex was on his mind only a few seconds before. The two of them broke the kiss, their foreheads pressed together, arms still wrapped around each other, his breath mingling with hers, their hearts beating at the same rate, neither one of them daring to open their eyes.
"Look up." he whispered against her lips. She obliged him, and when she did, he heard her gasp.
"Tony." Ziva began, but she couldn't form any coherent thoughts, let alone articulate them to him.
He reluctantly broke from their embrace and reached up with one arm to untie the ring. When he had successfully completed his task, Tony knelt down on one knee before Ziva, who was still rendered speechless at the moment.
"Ziva," Tony said. "I love you more than anything else in the world, and I know I've never been very good at expressing my feelings, and I was never so good with commitment, but everything's so easy with you. All I want to do is tell you how much I love you all the time, and every day I still feel like a love-stricken teenager, dealing with his first crush. I just need to ask you this one question. Ziva David, will you marry me?"
Ziva let Tony's words sink in. By then, a single tear had escaped and trekked down her cheek, which she tried to wipe away as quickly as she could. With her shirt sleeve underneath her eye, Ziva whispered a quiet, "Yes."
"Yes?" he repeated. She nodded.
"Yes!" she exclaimed happily and proudly through a few more tears that threatened to spill over. Tony quickly slipped the engagement ring onto Ziva's finger and jumped up to wrap his arms around her and kiss her.
"I love you." he said.
"I love you, too."
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