"Yeah, sure, you betcha," the words rolled off Jack's tongue quickly as he stood in the hallway, a goofy grin plastered to his face. Instantly he cringed, he always hated it when he acted so unintelligent around his second in command. It had started the first day they had met, in the briefing room in front of a table full of his fellow officers. Somehow he always managed to look like an ass around this beautiful, intelligent, and somehow effectively charitable woman. She put up with him like no one else could, which seemed to grate on him more than the women who had flattened his advances within the first five minutes of his attraction. Being around her and not being able to have her was the most infuriating feeling he had ever known.
And she was smiling at him. Damn it all, she was flashing him that thousand watt smile, the one that made his already weak knees feel as if they would give way at any moment. She wouldn't be interested in him, especially considering their ranks and obligations. Still, there were times when she would look at him, and he would detect something in her eyes that he simply had to be imagining. Why would she want him when she could have anyone she wanted?
She was talking again. He loved to watch the way her mouth moved when she talked. It was as if everything else stopped as her two perfectly formed lips moved up and down, and his thoughts went to completely unprofessional places. He knew he got that glassed over look, but he could never care enough to stop, not even when the objects of his obsession ceased all movement.
"Sir?" she asked, her eyes on his face, one eyebrow raising slightly as she took in a familiar sight before her.
Her boss shook his head and waved a hand in her direction, smiling again as he began to back away down the hallway. Making some excuse, he ducked out of her sight, leaving her to shake her head and turn back the way she had come, toward her lab. She laughed a little to herself, wondering if he really thought she didn't notice when he zoned out her words only to stare openly at her mouth. Shaking her head one last time, she ducked into her lab to continue the work he had interrupted.