Looking back, there was nothing he could put his finger on. Nothing that could have indicated that this night would be very different from every other night. Except tonight he was in bed with his partner.
"Illya, what just happened?" Napoleon reached out to brush that impossibly soft hair from Illya's sweat-speckled forehead.
"I'm assuming you are speaking of the metaphorical and not the physical?" Illya was still breathing deeply from his climax, eyes closed.
"I am. Why tonight?" His nerves were still humming with pleasure.
"I don't know. It just seemed right."
Napoleon sat back from his desk and brushed his hands together, then gestured outward, palms up. When nothing happened, he tried again.
"I believe the phrase you are looking for is abracadabra."
"That obvious?" It seemed to him that someone else should have to do his paperwork, although Illya had plenty of his own.
"Only to someone who knows you." Illya closed the top folder on his pile. "Big plans for tonight?"
"Thwarted by a baby shower."
"Another one? At this rate, we'll have to start doing our own typing soon."
"Don't even joke. My typing is as bad as my handwriting."
"Impossible. In Costa Rica, was it a truck or a car that you hotwired?"
"A jeep. I don't know if that is a car with delusion of being a truck or a truck that didn't quite make it as a car."
Illya jotted down a note in the margin of the report.
Napoleon studied his partner's profile, noting not for the first time how almost angelic the man looked. He appeared no more a killer than he did a little old lady.
"What?"
"What, what?"
"You're looking at me and smiling. That usually doesn't play out well for me."
"I was just thinking how deceptively non-lethal you look."
"Non-lethal?"
"Deceptively, so. You want to go grab some dinner?"
For a moment, it looked as if he might refuse, then Illya nodded. "Good idea. I'd like that."
And heading back to Napoleon's place seemed like a good idea, too. It was close and the evening was still young. He had a new chess board that needed breaking in and Illya was itching for a game.
Even as they played, Napoleon's attention drifted from the board to Illya, to his hair that looked so soft and inviting to the touch.
"You're wrong."
Napoleon blinked at that. "I'm sorry?"
"What you said before. I'm not deceptively non-lethal. Just the opposite. Check." Illya's eyes were issuing a challenge. Napoleon smiled and glanced down at the board, then they widened. "Your mind is not on the game."
He was right. Napoleon's mind was everywhere but there. He rescued his queen and Illya smiled. He moved his bishop.
"Checkmate." He sat back and reached for his drink. "I can't remember the last time I won against you. So what is on your mind?"
"You'd laugh."
"I doubt it."
"You. You're on my mind."
And that was all that was needed.
