Provenza asked him once what it was about Sharon Raydor that made him fall in love with her.
(Actually, the question was more along the lines of "what the hell do you see in her, anyway?")
He could have said her hair, or her legs, which even Provenza grudgingly admitted were spectacular, or her rack under those silky blouses and black jackets she preferred. He could have said her heels, how the clicking along the hallways of the Parker Center, and later the PAB, pulled even the newest Academy recruits into attention. He could have said her voice, sharp and strong and honeyed at the same time.
"Her hands."
"Her…hands?" Provenza shook his head. "Jesus, Flynn, how old ARE you?"
Old enough. Old enough to remember watching her scratch notes on a legal pad, her slim fingers toying with a pen distracting him as he struggled to remember just why he was in her office, telling her yet again how he'd lost his temper. Old enough to remember the color of her nails, soft pink, as she held a phone in a hospital and asked him not to identify dead Bobby Harris. Old enough to remember her patting his arm when he was ready to plant his fist square into the face of some hotshot detective from Las Vegas that had ruined his weekend.
Old enough to know that nobody – not his first wife, not his ex-girlfriends, not the few ill-advised flings he'd had after a bad night with Provenza – had ever touched him the way she did. Old enough to know that love was found in the simple act of taking her hands in his and kissing away her nightmares after a case that took her from their bed and threatened to buckle the strongest woman he'd ever known.
As soft as she was, she had a physical power that overwhelmed them all – the Chief had relied on her Southern accent and batted eyelashes, but Sharon Raydor was unapologetic in the way she strode into a room. Chief used her sexuality as a weapon; Sharon wore it as the spoils of victory through a long and hard-fought career, and woe be the man who tried to claim it for his own. The sway of her hips, the toss of her hair, the way she leaned on his desk, so casually that it could almost seem relaxed.
He might have believed it, in those early days, if not for her hands, always searching for a place to rest. Pockets, her hips, a stack of paperwork. While the rest of the squad did their damndest to ignore her, he studied her every move. She tried so hard to look casual, to be in command of the situation, but her hands always gave her away. Always moving, to adjust her glasses, or her watch, or push her hair off her neck.
In those days, he went home, took a cold shower, and still needed to do a load of laundry in the morning after fantasizing about what those hands could do to him.
Now, as he watched Provenza take Sharon's hands in his own and pull her to him to whisper some words of marital advice in his ear – and he couldn't wait to hear what that was all about – he thanked God yet again that he knew exactly what patterns her fingers would trace on his body, when they were sated and still but not ready for sleep. He loved her – all of her, soft pink and icy-veined marble and solid steel in her spine – but he loved her hands the most. And when she needed him to be strong for her at countless doctor's offices, he'd hold those hands and brush his lips to her knuckles and remember that no matter what happened, she'd left indelible marks on his body with just the slightest touch. He'd he'd kiss those hands again and be grateful for that first time that this incredible, ephemeral creature ever laced her fingers with his.