Mix and Match
Characters: John Reese or Mark Snow/ Kara Stanton, Joss Carter, Zoe Morgan, or Alicia Corwin
Note: Pick one from Column A (Reese or Snow) and one from Column B (Stanton, Carter, Morgan or Corwin) to create your ideal scenario for this story. Then go back and read it all over again with a different combination.
The invitation for drinks was a great idea.
After several beers for him and several bourbons for her, he had forgotten who suggested they get together in this quiet upscale bar. The crowd was younger than they were by about a decade on average, but that simply added to the buzz of the evening, made him feel part of a scene for a change.
The ambiguity of the invitation's origins didn't dilute the value of the idea at all. Nor divert the exciting direction the evening was heading.
He felt good about tonight.
He liked the way she looked, her hair dipping over one eye in an old-fashioned peek-a-boo style that captivated him the more he watched her face. Her eyes were sparkling, and if not quite warm, at least not so critical or sarcastic this time.
Her outfit was simple in style and color but its lines clung to her shape in ways he appreciated in increasing measure as the evening went on.
He hadn't had time to change into something casual before they met, but he hoped she noted the classiness of his crisply pressed shirt and well-tailored suit.
After an hour of light conversation, during which she made him laugh more than once, he suggested they get out of the bar. He paid their bill in cash and hailed a taxi on the wind-blown corner.
As they rode to his hotel, he liked the way her hand lingered on his knee and the way she didn't fight him over who would pay the fare. Feeling male in basic ways like this pleased him and she seemed to instinctively get that.
It was a long time since he had been with a woman like this and he did wonder if she found the invitation to visit his room a bit presumptuous. He was excited by her, wanted her, that was for sure.
But maybe he should be a little more cautious about assuming her feelings were equally strong.
All his doubts were quickly dispelled however, when she pressed him hard against the door as soon as they entered the room.
Dates didn't used to be like this, at least not as he remembered them.
Even in heels, she was shorter than he was which meant she couldn't keep her arms around his waist, not if she wanted to kiss him effectively. So she placed both slender hands against his cheeks and drew his face down to her level. While he was vigorously engaged with her mouth, she snaked one hand into his trousers to make sure he was interested.
He was.
When he emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, she was sitting on the bench in front of the large mirror in just her black lace bra and panties.
He had never quite understood the exact purpose of a vanity, it seemed like a random piece of furniture found only in old movies and over-stuffed hotels like this one.
But seeing her sitting there like that admiring her own image and studying him in the mirror's reflection, he suddenly loved the vanity, loved all vanities in fact.
She seemed so cool and beautiful, so damned sexy the way she looked at him without smiling. He watched her slowly remove her tiny earrings and set them next to the gun she had placed on the vanity. That juxtaposition, this uncanny mix of femininity with aggression and the threat of violence, seemed to perfectly capture her essence.
Seeing the jewelry glittering next to the piece aroused him beyond all reason.
He needed her now.
He knew HQ would have a fit. This was definitely not a recommended course of action.
If his uptight partner got wind of this there would be hell to pay. But the man was so full of New England entitlement and fussy manners behind those eyeglasses that it was never going to be possible to explain the ferocious attraction to her he felt right now.
He wasn't even going to try.
He stood immediately behind her as she gracefully bent her arms to unfasten the bra, her eyes never leaving his in the reflection. She let the bra fall from her body and smiled slightly as she gauged his reaction. His hand closed over her breast without his consciously willing it to do so. Her flesh felt heavy, warm, soft as it filled his hand.
She wasn't exactly his type of woman. Abstractly, his type was thinner, younger, dumber, and certainly less lethal than this.
But for tonight, holding this woman felt right to him. This night he wanted to feel whole and simple, a part of the normal world, nothing more than that.
He would settle up with tomorrow when it came.