I was watching some NCIS:LA Chats with Reneé Felice Smith and Barrett Foa and decided to incorporate the information given there into my stories, both 'The Best Revenge is Revenge' which concluded last week in 'Enkiss Time', and this one.
A question the actors were asked was what kind of story would they like to see on NCIS:LA. Well, I'm not going to do exactly as they wished, but I hope they'd be pleased with my take on the idea for when Nell and Eric get away from Ops for the weekend and... but that would be telling.
NCIS:LA is owned by Belisarius Productions and created by Shane Brennan. The usual Legal Disclaimers about not making money and not taking any character or situation that's not mine apply.
Canonically this story takes place on the third Saturday of August, eight days after 'The Best Revenge is Revenge'. Eric tries to give Nell a pleasant day off following the events of that Mystery and the cases that followed it. In terms of the televised series, it would occur in the hiatus following the 7th Season.
You can find all my stories listed in order in my Profile.
Rated T or NCis-17
Please Review.

Camp Fire
by JMK758
Chapter One
A Day at the Beach

Eric Beal and Nell Jones pull their backpacks from John's Minivan, hoist them to their shoulders and turn toward the beach at the bottom of the steep incline. The thermometer this Saturday morning has already topped 80 back in LA but up here in this obscure section of Echo Mountain, so obscure it's ignored by every tourist site on the web, that 80 is the projected high for this afternoon.

Other sections of these hills offer spectacular views, this one does not. What it does offer is an off-road bungalow perhaps abandoned so long ago that no one in even the nearest town remembers it's here.

Eric holds her hand to guide her safely through the tangles of the incline which, fortunately, stroke her bare legs rather than bite with brambles. His solicitous concern isn't necessary, she feels perfectly capable of traversing the treacherous hill by herself but she has no intention of saying that to him.

It's been a week since they last were apart. Unable to endure the isolation of her apartment after the nightmare of being framed for a murder she'd so dearly wanted to commit, she's used it this week only as a place to switch out clothing while she and he have spent the time in the seclusion of his. They'd used the isolation to get to know each other so much better than they had in the years in which they've worked side by side, inches apart in Ops.

In efforts to support her in the aftermath of an horrendous ordeal, he's also made quite certain - all in the interest of comforting and helping her, of course - that they very frequently weren't even inches apart.

She cannot say when she's experienced a more comforting week.

He'd made her a promise last Friday. 'Nell Jones,' he'd said, 'I am not letting go.' Well this week, virtually from the moments when they'd left work each day until they'd returned on the following mornings, he's been a man of his word.

x

The hill is high enough to make a satisfying difference in the heat that wraps and blankets - and abuses - the city, but this spot is virtually unknown. Behind the isolated house the steep incline behind it cannot be seen from the road. You have to park in the driveway of the long abandoned bungalow and look down behind it to find anything, making the small beach a particular lure for those who know of it.

No one knows when the owners of the house have been here last but the rough path down the incline is already heavily obscured, the grass between hill and sand gone wild and plants have crept upward through the sand in irregular patches. But when they break from the woods the sand at the end of the untended long grass is smooth and the natural lake, the opposite shore a few hundred feet away, is placid and promises cool comfort.

Pete 'Hedley' Henderson (which gave them a brief bad moment before they got the proper pronunciation) and Mary Falcone have already staked out their spots on the sand midway between the gently lapping waves and the encroaching plants. Pete spreads a large blanket as Mary pulls her overlarge Lakers tee shirt out from her shorts and over her head to reveal a pink bikini top which has less material than it needs. Facing the beach, she opens her shorts and bends low before Pete to push them to her ankles and reveal the matched set and substantially more.

"Earth to Eric," Nell says as they walk the untended grass, the tops of which brush her knees, to the sand.

Eric snaps back with a guilty start, turns so-innocent eyes down to her. "I wasn't looking."

"Yes, sir," she agrees with a smile. She doesn't want him to stop looking, for when a man does it's time to fit him for a long box and order lilies, but she's confident that she can keep him looking in the right direction.

x

To the right of the couple, John LeFauche and Jamie L'Enfant prepare the grill and unpack the food. Jamie has already dispensed with her excess coverings, the white bikini proving her name misleading and leaving Nell, still wearing her red shorts and the pink classic Scarlet Witch tee shirt bought months ago in DC, feeling like the odd woman out. Glancing high up at Eric's eyes (her head comes up to his chest but she's always maintained that 'good things come' and so forth) she considers a strategically timed unveiling - when she decides she wants his attention. Until then, she'll let the other women serve as warm-up while Wanda casts her hex.

x

Certainly John isn't failing to take in the unveiled sights. She admires his daring if not his caution, for his attention on Mary very nearly exceeds his lock on Jamie. She'd caution him but decides that this is not her issue. He's a big boy, they're certainly big girls, and if he wants to live dangerously she intends only to stay out of shrapnel range.

Setting their backpacks down at the apex of a triangle between but east of the couples, she kneels down, the sand cupping her bare knees, and sorts through her pack while Eric pulls out and flings open the large blanket. That a northerly breeze hits at that moment to catch the material and use it to recover Jamie is a cosmic coincidence that sparks a bit of good natured chuckling, Eric's stammering apology and Nell's smile that's completely misread by the other couples.

x

The Techs owe this day to John and Jamie having invited Peter and Mary, and Peter had invited Eric who'd invited Nell. The weather is excellent; one must search for a cloud beyond the distant hills west of the lake while moderate breezes rustle the trees that encroach upon the north and south sides of the small beach. The lake is less than an irregular mile around, too small to be an attraction, and at the end of the tall grass behind them the ground climbs some sixty feet. Perched on the edge above them, the house has seen better decades and is deeply into its declining years.

Perhaps the former occupants of that house had considered this to be a private beach. It's small enough for a family and the white house is easily passed on the road without more than a glance. The sandy area is no more than sixty feet wide before it's absorbed by the encroaching tree lines on the north and south which touch the water on either side, and the grass that reaches to the hill is grown out but no wider.

A radio is pulled out, the BBQ started and the three couples settle in on adjacent blankets, conversation light and casual. Nell and Eric placed their blanket about three feet closer to the hill and house for the courtesy that no one is blocked from easy conversing. The other couples, of course, are far better acquainted and discretion prevents the Agents from discussing NCIS so they must feel their way into the matrix, Eric's connection to Pete being their only link. Fortunately the setting is not just tranquil, it inspires comfort.

x

In fact Nell decides after twenty minutes of Eric's eyes snatching glimpses of the other women that it has been long enough for her companion's warm up, so she stands and, a foot from Eric and between him and Jamie, she undoes the button on her shorts. She opens and wiggles them off her hips, pushes the material off and down her legs and onto the blanket. When she straightens again Eric's eyes are suitably locked in place.

Seeing those eyes, she's reminded of those moments almost two months ago when she'd stood on the ladder in Ops while wearing that so short scarlet dress. He'd been holding said ladder and she'd stood one rung quite too high.

The trip to New York for the Independence Day Holiday had taught him a lot about women in general and her in particular, and ever since he's been a conscientious and dedicated student. This week he's been quite happy to demonstrate everything he's learned and is well on his way to graduating Some Come Loud.

Now, standing before him, the Scarlet Witch tee shirt which she'd bought at DC's Comic Book Convention in May hangs, as she'd very carefully checked in the mirror this morning, precisely three quarters of an inch long of offering a peek at her leopard skin bikini bottom, and when she kneels down before him and sits back on her ankles, the pink material rests on her thighs an inch and a half longer than she knows he wants it to be.

x

Since they'd grown intimate in July, finally taking their relationship out of Ops, she hasn't had to concern herself with such things as bikini waxes, not when Eric has been so willing to help her keep smooth, a suggestion of his she'd found both reasonable and delightful.

He'd talked her into the experiment, promising that the removal of her intimate fur (it had all started with talk of her fennic fox persona from her Califur days) would make her feel more sensitive, as the touch of flesh normally shielded would make her feel so good.

That first time he'd laid her on the hotel's Queen bed (again but this time differently) with her legs yet again spread for him. The trimming of her onto the spread towel, first with scissors, had been exciting, both for the novelty and his intimate closeness. Then came the haircutting device he'd just 'happened' to have with him - yeah, right, a spur of the moment suggestion - and the vibrations as he worked ever so slowly, closer and closer… she'd had to make him stop for a time when those vibrations had undone her.

Next, after she'd recovered, had come the hot lather and he'd completely abandoned the pretense of the spontaneity. He'd covered her everywhere – everywhere - and the heated cream had made her tingle. It felt so very good - and then she'd looked down the length of her body and the straight razor's gleaming steel glinted in the sunbeam.

Nervousness leaped past apprehension straight into fear iced with terror as he brought the sharp device down and she'd started an unslowing mantra of how much she trusted him while her heart slammed against her ribs and her panting breath dried her throat. When the metal touched her skin she'd nearly leaped out of it.

'I trust him he won't hurt me I trust him he loves me he won't cut me I trust him hewonthurtme Itrusthimhewon'tcutme Itrusthimhewon'thurtme Itrusthimhewon'tcutmehewon'tcutmehewon'tcutme!'

She'd kept it up as, half inch by half inch, he so gently and carefully sliced every bit of fur from her, ironic after she'd confessed her furry fandom, and she started to realize how the fear itself was exciting her, making her so sensitive and moist that it was so hard to keep still. Fear vied with lust to make her want to move her hips, move herself to his touches when she'd dared not move a single muscle.

The fear, the terror, the trust, the sensations, the thrill, the total intimacy of him for so long down there, manipulating her, controlling her, being so gentle, so cautious in such intimate terror that it had consumed her and before she knew it he was gently rubbing her with the fluffy towel.

She'd looked down in time to see him duck his head and his tongue–!

She'd shrieked until she was breathless and lost herself in what his mouth, his tongue, his fingers were doing to her.

When he'd moved above her body, when she tasted herself on his lips, when she'd felt him targeting her and even his misses, so intense as she'd never felt before, drove her mad until he'd invaded her. She felt him against her lips, his hair alone touching her without her own to block it and the sensitive –

She breaks the thought, holds her breath, for if she thought about it for one more second–!

x

Since then, they've made it a point, at least twice a week, to make certain he keeps her totally smooth, totally ready. She knows it's more often than she needs but it's just so much fun. And he was right, the sensations never slackened in their intensity. Whether she wore panties, thong or nothing - and the first time he'd introduced her to a thong with a strand crotch of pearls she'd nearly lost her mind over that day. He was ever in her mind, and knowing, even during innocent briefings, she surrounded by a forest of testosterone rather than chlorophyll, that she and Eric were the only ones who know that under dress or skirt or whatever that she's got on that she's–.

Oh, God, it's been a good two months!

x

But as intimate as they've been, when they're at work they can show none of their relation, even when sitting beside him and thoughts like 'available' invaded her mind. If ever he were to reach over to her, if ever he were to dare to take the chance at work, she would be lost.

They'd done it last night, completely unnecessary (though he did remind her, oh how subtly, that she'd be wearing this bikini - yeah, right) but the tingling of that hot cream prepares her to enjoy more, the sensation of the razor sliding over her intimate flesh he alone gets to enjoy, just undoes her. And his tongue, his lips, his mouth and invading fingers – though the tingling hot cream is always gone before she gets to enjoy his tongue, she's not sure if that cream's flavored or if he just likes hers.

x

She has, however, while on the job, come to truly enjoy every opportunity to get him back for making these naughty thoughts so high in her mind by Teasing him. She does it, quite without mercy, in the safety of Ops, sometimes when the mood hits her and it's with no implication of fairness, but it has been both liberating and empowering after last week's torments as well as having done wonders for her libido and her general outlook on life.

With agents coming and going without warning, she loves leaving him completely helpless. Even were he to dare to act, security cameras catch everything, yet not once have they protected her from after-hours revenge when he settles her score.

Most memorable was that first time, the Friday before the July 4th holiday when they were in Ops and she in that stunning red mini-dress she didn't quite wear, a vast change from her normal image. On the whole, however, she didn't tease before that day but they've worked together for years and she was in a mood to make up for all of that supposedly lost time in one day.

And now, unless she's completely misread their hosts and the plans of the day, she's going to get in plenty of opportunities to tease him quite mercilessly, all in the interest of warm-up.

And if it turns out that she has misread the solitude and the temperature and the blankets and the bikinis, if it's not the innocent afternoon she believes... well, it is solitude and blankets and bikinis and...

Until then, she'll enjoy being a merciless tease, confident that she'll especially enjoy his settling the score tonight.

Or this afternoon.

x

In the meantime, she feels his eyes pet where he'd devoted so much time, energy and effort to last night. She thinks he'd duck his head if he dared but is probably thinking no one else notices the show she's giving him so he won't dare to jeopardize it.

"So, Eric, like the view?" she says distinctly enough for all five to hear.

"Ohhh, yessssss," he sighs in a long whisper.

'Noticing' the direction of his gaze, she reaches down and uses her finger on his jaw to turn his head left. "The view?" Before them the short beach, placid water and expanse of trees on the west shore ascending into the hills are a most picturesque sight.

"Yes. Yes, the view. The view. Very nice... I guess."

She catches the other women's looks and matches their smiles, knowing they only think they know what's going on.

She considers having mercy on her best friend, but decides there's plenty of time for that later – when he's gone from surreptitious peeks at the tiny bikinied Mary and Jamie and has cast enough longing glances at – or through – her Scarlet Witch tee shirt.

They say too many exposures to x-rays can be dangerous, but too much other exposure can also be jading.

Just enough to keep him interested, longing and trying, however...

xx

After a late breakfast of hot dogs, hamburgers, sodas, chips, cole slaw, macaroni and potato salads and similar unhealthy repasts (Hetty would have a conniption) they decide to go into the water.

When the other couples, already long changed, precede them, Nell kneels up before Eric and says "I think I'd like to get a bit of sun," and tugs the tee shirt over her head and off.

As she kneels a foot before him and finger-brushes her short auburn locks back into place, she feels Eric's eyes pet her. The leopard spot bikini not only hints broadly at an animal attraction but the cups support her breasts to their best advantage as they dip daringly low. The leopard bottom hides sufficiently (thank goodness she let him talk her into another trimming) yet ties with two strings into bows high on her hips, just enough to hint at the danger she faces from an accidental tug.

Ignoring Eric's intense stare she repositions the bra, low enough to put her areola at risk, into place but then checks her shoulders. "I don't know," she confesses.

"Nnn – know what?" he manages to say five seconds late. She can watch his blood pressure build in his face, unusual because when she glances down the length of his reclining body she can swear most of his blood is going elsewhere.

She inspects the garment with mounting criticism. "Well, with this top the shoulder straps detach, so I can get a good tan, see?" She peels the upper corner aside, some of the cup moves away and she fancies she can see his blood pressure spike thirty more points and hear his pounding heart through his bare chest. "But since it leaves only the wraparound, and it's so low, there's a good chance it'll fall off again." She releases the material and looks to him. "Do you think I should risk it?"

Behind his glasses his eyes are so wide she thinks it must hurt.

x

"Eric?" If his eyes could come up to her neck she wonders if the orbs would break with the effort. "Eric?"

"Hnnn ahhh nungh."

"You're right. Always time to decide later. If I go in the water without the straps it'll definitely fall off and float away."

"Hnn nughh."

She stands up, making sure the sun is before her and that Eric, still seated, has a well lit perspective as she inspects the ties at each hip, feeling his eyes ascend her body. "Darn it."

"Whahat's rong?"

"Darn ties. They slip, and they're too short for me to really feel secure. If I sit down wrong they're just going to fly apart, and if they get wet they'll slip apart. The bottom will fall right off me and I'll never find it again."

She looks down to his large eyes. "What do you think?"

"Ahhhhh... anh... abba..."

"Do you think I should put the shorts back on?"

"Nnggggaabbbbblll!"

"You're right," she says, turns and walks to the beach, giving the bikini bottom an extra wiggle.

"Right about what?" Three seconds too late he realizes she's walked half way across the sand and is heading to the water where the other four frolic.

Stopping near the edge of the water, she reaches behind herself, up high on each side and detaches the buttons, then opens the ones up front, drops the thin bands on the sand and steps into the water.

It's at this point that the rest of the world impinges upon Eric and he realizes he's alone.

"Hey, wait for me!" he scrambles to his feet so quickly he nearly falls.

x

Nell, facing away but head turned enough to see him in the corner of her eye, smiles as she watches him stumble as he rushes off the blanket. Part of her regrets deceiving her friend, for the suit is quite secure, but that regretful part is very small indeed.

Then again maybe, if he's a good boy, she'll let him find out if the suit could float away. Or tonight she'll give him a Swedish massage - he always loves those - and if he's a really good boy she'll let him do a little tugging.

.

Author's Note: For details of the red dress and ladder and what led up to that memorable Independence Day vacation, see my story 'Data'.