(Hey folks, sorry about the long absence…I've had this story written for some time, since before they definitely hooked Garcia up with Kevin Lynch and before the season finale, both things that made me feel like this might be a bit too AU and also a bit too fluffy for my current mindset, but I've decided to post it anyway. I was rather fond of it. Anyway, hope you enjoy! I don't own, Criminal Minds, Penelope Garcia, or Derek Morgan either.)
SPRING FEVER
It was the first mildly warm day in months and Penelope Garcia couldn't have been more thrilled. She'd had one of the worst cases of spring fever she could ever remember having for weeks now – and felt like she was about to go stir crazy if she couldn't be outdoors in some fresh air and sunlight soon. As she stepped outside of Bureau headquarters this afternoon to head home, a sweet spring breeze greeted her, kissing her face and finally granting her wish. She couldn't wait to get home and enjoy the nice weather in her backyard with a good book.
Happily, and with an extra spring in her step, she reached Esther, running a loving hand over the butter yellow side before giving her beloved convertible a pat, then opening the door, tossing her canvas shoulder bag in the passenger seat, and flopping into her own. Backing out, she saw Morgan heading into the parking lot with Reid, JJ, and Emily. She gave them a big wave and smile as she started off, knowing they were probably just as thrilled as she was to be getting out of there and to their own places while it was still daylight out for once. In fact, she thought, the grin on her face widening even more with mischief, the only thing that could make this day anymore perfect would be if Derek Morgan were going to be in her backyard with her catching some rays, stretched out half-naked so she could admire he own personal definition of a flawless sun god.
But she knew that wasn't going to happen anytime soon, so she pushed it from her head and cranked the radio up before thoughts of wishing for more with Derek could get her down. Her usual oldies station happened to be playing the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" and soon all she had on her mind was singing along, tapping her foot to the beat, and the wind in her hair. It was exhilarating, and she hoped that this time, winter really was gone for good. She was home a few minutes later and it didn't take long before she was in a random old black tank top and cut-off jeans that she'd made into pedal pusher length capris with leopard print trim she'd sewn on the rough edges herself. She carried two or three novels she'd been wanting to start for weeks now and a glass of peach iced tea as she settled in on the seat of her back porch swing and put her bare feet up on the porch railing, letting the still-appealing breeze tickle her toes.
She had her Ipod playing in her ears and she was soon deeply immersed in a lighthearted romance novel with a big, satisfied smile on her face. The rest of the world faded away as she let herself relax and get lost in the world of the story.
And when Derek Morgan arrived quietly at her house forty-five minutes later, changed into baggy camouflage cargo shorts and a tight white t-shirt, and let himself in when she didn't answer and the door was unlocked, that was exactly how he found her after making his way through the rest of her house to the back. He'd planned to surprise her, having been to her house before, but never when she wasn't already expecting him.
A devious smile crept across his handsome face as he stood in the doorway watching her for a minute. She was breathtaking without even knowing it; she was so comfortable, easy, and low-key. How she could sit there on her back porch in cut-off jeans and look better than anyone else would in even a Gucci gown. She never failed to make him smile. There was just this way she had about her, that healed whatever was wrong inside him when she was near.
But there was nothing wrong today. He grinned even wider as he left the doorway and began to silently sneak up behind her. In fact, life might just be near perfect as soon as he did this one thing he'd been dying to do for so long – that he needed to do before another day went by. He couldn't say now why he had waited.
Having reached her, he leaned forward, covered her eyes gently and whispered low, letting his deep voice rumble right next to her ear, his warm breath caressing her skin, saying, "Guess who?"
Her felt her tense momentarily and draw in a sharp intake of breath, but then her body relaxed again, as if she'd recognized his hands or his voice, either one causing a rush of pride to run through him, deep down in his bones. She knew it was him.
Playing coy, she tried to twist around to look at him over her shoulder, but, chuckling, he refused to uncover her eyes just yet, enjoying his little game. "I don't know, Love Bunny," she teased right back. "Do you want to know you couldn't fool me for a second? Or should I make up someone else I think it could be and pretend I wouldn't know you anywhere?"
"You'd know me anywhere, would ya?" he repeated, his voice rasping a little though he made every effort to keep it nonchalant. The things that she could do to him with just a few words or a look shouldn't be legal. It was absolutely unfair. Little did he know she was thinking almost exactly the same thing about him just then. He shouldn't be able to make her dizzy and short of breath and hot all over just by looking at her the way he did sometimes. His smallest little touch could flat out turn her on the second he made contact with her. Someone that looked like Derek Morgan should not be such a shameless flirt as well – she couldn't resist him, or the chance to play along. 'Whether he means it or not,' she added to herself ruefully.
"Just what do you think you're doing here anyway, Hot Stuff?" she snickered teasingly, finally taking his hands in hers to pull them off her eyes and turn and look at him with a smirk, eyes sparkling brightly. She couldn't help being glad he had showed up, whatever the reason, and the feel of his large hands closing warmly over hers and holding on as he came around the swing to take a seat in front of her on the porch railing made her skin warm pleasantly. He settled himself right where she'd propped her feet up to rest, but when she moved them and went to tuck them under herself instead, he stopped her and pulled them back over to rest on his thighs, saying in a warm, slightly soft and what she'd call seductive voice, "Here…I've got a better idea." And then just as her heart was already fluttering wildly, he started to massage her feet and toes with his strong fingers, looking up mischievously from under an expressively arched brow as if checking to see if this was alright.
Penelope felt her stomach lurch, and she almost lost his name from her lips on a sigh, biting down painfully, just in time to stop it. "Thanks, Gorgeous, that pretty much feels heavenly," she said, closing her eyes and leaning her head back to soak in the sensation of his hands touching her skin, fully expecting it to be an experience she'd only get to have once.
"Whatcha thinkin' 'bout, Sugar Lips?" he asked, sounding offhanded, a wide grin creeping across his face, so happy she could see it in the way laugh lines crinkled outside his eyes to go along with the smile, and hear it in the lazy, relaxed tone of his voice, even if she hadn't been drawn like a magnet to look up at him.
"Nothing much," she murmured, her voice soft and low, a pleased sort of hum in her throat. "Just how nice that feels and how you seem to be very good with your hands…"
He let a full-fledged laugh at that, the sound of it music to her ears. She punctuated that last comment with a wink and an evil smile on purpose, secretly flattering herself that she was the only person he truly let loose around; the only one he felt able to be relaxed and comfortably open with. He could be so tense and focused for days and weeks at a time on cases, and she made it her mission to allow him a genuine smile or a heartfelt laugh here and there, whenever she could relieve his stress a little or brighten his day for a moment.
Once Morgan had recovered his composure, he lowered his voice further, leaned in over her feet, which he still held in his hands, and gave her a molten hot look that could have turned solid rock to lava instantaneously. "Oh, Baby Girl, you have no idea just how good these hands are. You feet are just feeling the tip of the iceberg."
He could see the way she flushed pink at the suggestion. For a second, she just stared back at him, looking dazed, flustered, and stunned all at once – then the smile she was giving him turned positively impish. Her eyes twinkled before she spoke, and he realized she was going to call his bluff. "Well then, my personal Adonis, why don't you show me just what those hands of yours can do?"
He merely tilted his head, a barely perceptible nod, and then licked his own lips. She'd fully expected him to back off, make some excuse to stop at this point, but he didn't and Penelope couldn't stop the gasp that escaped her when his warm, capable hands snaked up from her feet to stroke her ankles and skim over her calves.
Chuckling low in the back of his throat, Derek knew he had her right where he wanted her and chanced a peek up into her beautiful eyes; eyes that had captivated him long before he even understood just what it was they were doing to his senses. Right at the moment, those eyes looked distinctly annoyed – Penelope knew he had her as well as he did - but the annoyance was beginning to be clouded and overcome with something else; something that if pressed he would have to classify as lust. Then, without missing another beat, he went in for the kill.
Bowing his head, her brought his lips down to meet her pale, flawless, inviting skin, and just before they touched her, he murmured, his voice huskier with feeling than he'd intended, "I've wanted to do this for so long…"
Penelope couldn't help the groan of pleasure at the feeling of his fingertips sliding under the edges of her denim capris and pushing them up so that his gently questing lips could place light, eager kisses to her highly sensitized yet seldom touched knees and then her lower thighs.
It was a highly intimate move, one that might have seemed strange when they hadn't even kissed at all yet, and Derek felt his heart pounding so hard it could burst out of his chest waiting for her reaction.
But Penelope on the other hand, was feeling her own heart racing ridiculously for a completely different reason. She knew she must either be dreaming or else she was about to die and was getting a small preview of heaven. 'But what a way to go,' she thought to herself, choosing to simply close her eyes and enjoy bliss while it lasted. Morgan had absolutely surprised her, the move he made both tender and fiery at once. The light kisses to her knees were caring and protective, reminiscent of a parent kissing their child's injury and making it better, but it was also making her blood fire and her skin tingle in a way that had nothing familial to it at all. His fingers were ghosting lightly over her, feather-soft and tentative, coasting now from her ankles up her calves and back again.
She knew she must have whimpered, because he stopped, drawing closer to look into her eyes, deep and long. "You with me, Sweetness? This still okay?"
Penelope knew she had to keep her eyes open, had to summon enough brain activity to answer him, but she was afraid that once she did, she would wake up and this moment would have disappeared. Nodding fervently, not trusting her voice, she gazed back at him, letting his beautiful, intense tawny-brown gaze capture hers, her breathing fast and shallow. "Fine," she managed to get out, "this is just fine."
Unthinkingly, before she lost her nerve, she lunged forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him in to meet her forcefully, she let her lips meld to his the way she'd always imagined them doing. If he'd just been teasing, or playing, or innocently flirting, it was too late for her to take it back now. And this might be the only moment like this between them – her only chance – to find out what kissing him felt like. She was going to take it and make the most of it while she could.
But Morgan didn't pull away, or jump back, or push her off him, like she had half-expected him to do, instead to her surprise, he groaned into her mouth, the sound deep and guttural and voicing a primal need, the kind of sound she had only thought she'd ever hear him make in her fevered nightly dreams. His lips were battling back now, pushing and demanding and dueling with hers. Their kiss was turning out much like their conversations; both aiming for the upper hand, the last word, to steal the other's breath away. One of his hands came up to rest along her neck, cradling her head, his thumb stroking the column of her throat. The other delved into her hair, pulling her face even closer to him, and then he was moving himself swiftly onto the porch swing beside her, wanting his goddess fully in his arms.
Penelope found herself clinging to Derek for dear life, not knowing how this had happened or what had changed and made today any different from the hundreds of other days that they had known each other. But she wasn't complaining. Her gold glitter painted nails scratched lightly over the nape of his neck and he jerked involuntarily before pulling his lips off hers long enough to murmur, "Are you trying to kill me, Woman?" His eyes were smoldering now, and she realized she had inadvertently stumbled across something he obviously liked.
"What, this makes you a little hot and bothered, does it?" she giggled, trying to look innocent as she did it again, then nibbled lightly with her teeth along his jawline to suddenly and unexpectedly run her tongue along the shell of his ear. "Mmm…" she murmured, "sexy dark chocolate…"
She found her whole body unceremoniously being moved in the next instant. Derek had snatched the blanket she'd brought out and draped over the back of the swing in case the evening turned chilly again, and somehow lowered them both onto the wooden porch floor, wrapped haphazardly in it on the way down.
"You're a little too good at this," she murmured, not able to think much beyond the way every inch of her skin suddenly seemed to be burning, he had her so itching for his touch. "Should I be worried?"
"You're better at it than you think, yourself," he responded, running his own tongue along her collarbone and up her neck, as if tracing imaginary lines she'd never even known were there, but suddenly felt she'd die if he didn't connect them.
"Derek…" she pleaded, her voice faint and breathy, not sure what she was wanting or needing to say, or what she was asking him to do. "Please…"
She writhed beneath him, arching up so her body was touching his all the way from head to toe, wishing she could get closer still, could simply dissolve into his skin and always be as close to him as she was right at this moment. He was going to kill her any minute when he stopped, when he peeled himself away, when he realized this wasn't really what he wanted after all.
Instead, he brushed the fringe of her bangs off of her forehead, pressing a kiss there as his hands stilled where they had been poised to push her shirt strap out of his mouth's way. "Are you sure, Mama? Really? Because if this isn't…"
"Derek, yes, please…I'm sure. This is you and me. That's all I've ever wanted. Just mean it. Please mean it…and don't stop, don't leave me."
"Never, Baby Girl, never ever. Finally we're gonna make this right." And with that, his lips plunged back down to meet hers and she dove back under his spell, relinquishing all control, all power, all hold she had on sanity and reason to put him in their place.
Panting, she clung to him tighter as her shirt left her body and she prayed he'd like what he saw. Trailing kisses down her body, Morgan tried to make it clear just how much he did love every part of her he was discovering. He hadn't planned this when he'd come to her, he'd only wanted to find some way to tell her how he felt about her. Well, now he supposed, he'd managed to do that.
A cool breeze gusted over the porch, ruffling her hair and chilling her skin that had started to gather a sheen of sweat. A light spring rain started to patter down on the roof over their heads and she shivered causing Derek to hold her even closer, his shirt now gone too and the first sensation of his skin against hers making her want to cry it felt so wonderfully good.
Penelope had known somehow, that today was going to be an incredibly good day. Though she could never have expected this. What she wouldn't have believed, except that it was happening right now, was that this perfect April afternoon, and the two of them finally giving in to their feelings for each other, would change everything for the better.