He doesn't sleep with her, doesn't even kiss her, until Marseilles for many reasons.
There was Diane, and the fact that he was her boss.
But one of the biggest reasons is that he cannot and will not make her a cliché. He's hears the bets, the rumors, and the gossip about him and Jenny. She takes it all very humorously and often jokes with him that they might as well start dating so she can make a couple bucks.
He has been married three times and he is tired. He cannot seem to let go of the history that plagues him every day and every night, but Jenny, Jenny is a breath of fresh air. She is pretty and clever, intelligent and cultured, and of course it doesn't hurt that last week she wore a dress that showed off legs that he could not take his eyes off of.
Sometimes he finds that she glances at him as if she is expecting something, Those green eyes that sometimes question him, as if asking him Why not and When and sometimes he just wants to drag her in the elevator, his mind thinking How about right now.
But he doesn't. He won't add her to the broken relationships from his past, because she is too good, too good for that.
It is not until that night, in Marseilles, when she finally makes the first move, that he thinks, Fuck it, I'll make this different, because she deserves that.
"He sounds like a douche."
Jennifer Shephard still remembers these words, spoken by a good friend of hers who had just finished listening to her rant about a certain blue-eyed special agent.
She had laughed, her head nodding in agreement. "Oh, he is, believe me, he is. But it's just…I don't know, something about him. I can't place it."
"Is he a hunk?"
The silence is an answer all on its own.
"Well, there you have it. That's why you like him so much."
Jenny laughs again, but she knows it's more than that. It's only been four weeks, and already she finds him one of the most admirable men she's ever met. Her attraction to him is a slow burn, a heat that starts in her chest and flushes throughout her body every time he is near. It's not just the way he looks (although – he is, quite, easy on the eyes), but more the way he acts. He is professional, silent and mysterious, but also immensely caring in his own, stoic manner. She has learned more from him than from any other teacher she has ever had, and now, she wants more.
Not just to sleep with him. Not even to kiss him. (Although it wouldn't hurt.)
She wants something substantial, something that would help her to solve the mystery that is his mind, his heart. She's never found anybody so compelling and so magnetizing.
But every time she thinks she's edged a crack into his stony exterior, he blinks and looks away, the connection gone.
It is not until that night, in Marseilles, that she finally gets through, her lips on his – a beginning, if she ever knew one.
I hate verb tense. x