A/N 1: Sorry this took so long. I had a horrible time convincing Goren to shut up and let Eames tell this part. On another note, a friend dropped me a link to a really cool song that KE sang backup on – it's by "Minus Ted", and you can find it on YouTube. The name is "Riding Towards Albany". It has a real CSNY sound. Chapter spoilers for: Loyalty (which I have now seen).

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CHAPTER TWO: DAMSEL IN DIS DRESS

Two weeks later…

All evening, Bobby had been toying with the hem of her dress – the same one she'd worn that night – and Alex knew from the look on his face that he was thinking of sticking his hand up her skirt right there in the restaurant.

Drunk dropping in at Bobby's place had been a terrible mistake. A terrible, horrible mistake that turned out amazing, actually. She hadn't been too drunk that night to know what she was doing; rather, just drunk enough to let herself feel (and act) like fate was in control.

She wasn't drunk tonight – far from it. Same with Bobby. His eyes were clear and warm as he casually leaned in to whisper in her ear to cover for brushing his knuckles across her knees as he clutched at a handful of red silk. It was the end of their meal, after a lovely evening out together. Their first serious 'date', after two weeks of casual get-togethers and cuddling on the sofa. They had not shared a bed again, although twice Bobby had come over in the middle of the night to tuck her in, and once she'd fallen asleep in the armchair by his bed while she'd stayed to watch him sleep.

"What was that?" he whispered.

She knew what he was referring to. The look she'd been giving him just now. It was a look she'd felt on her face many times recently. An inevitable, fatal softening. A look that said, I can't resist you and I don't even want to. You can do anything you want with me – please don't let me screw this up. Please don't hurt me. Please don't wait any longer.

His fingers were playing across the tops of her shins. His right arm was tight across her shoulders. She'd already allowed herself to rest her cheek against his shoulder, encased in soft grey silk. He smelled wonderful… he was so warm. Heat radiated off him like a furnace. Of all the things she'd secretly imagined about being loved by Bobby Goren, the thing she'd never expected – being realistic, she thought – was that he wouldn't be able to keep his hands off her. She'd never experienced it in her life, with any man. She thought she never would. She just wasn't that kind of girl – the kind that inspired that kind of fervour.

The restaurant was quiet and dim, but still packed. Wait staff slid unobtrusively between the booths and tables. Bobby's hand traced the seam between her closed thighs. He was about to finger her in public, at a dining establishment with no prices on the menus. She felt the puff of air against her cheek as he grunted almost silently in anticipation. She let her knees fall open, and tilted her head back to see the look on his face when he felt her garter. She felt fate take charge again.

o.o.o.o.o

The morning he'd called to ask her out on their date, Alex had been lolling in bed daydreaming about him. Her awareness of his physical passion for her was almost as intoxicating as his confession of love, and to her pleasure and frustration, she found herself distractingly infatuated. Not to the exclusion of deeper feelings, but adding a gratifying, though agitating, buzz to the deep love that was already there.

"Ea – uh, Alex, I thought I could take you somewhere special Friday night, if, um, if you're free, and if you'd like?" His voice sounded soft and romantic over the phone. She smirked, even as she stretched sensuously and cuddled deeper into the bedding.

"Sure, sounds good. I just got a new dress, too."

"The red one?" He sounded earnest and hopeful.

She was glad they weren't in the same room, because she couldn't stop grinning. "What, that old thing? No way!"

"But, uh…" This was going to be fun.

"Bobby. A) You've already seen it."

"That's OK. I…"

"B) I wore it out on a date with ANOTHER MAN. As in, not you!" Which was actually part of his obsession, she fully realised.

"Alex, I don't…"

"And C) It's sweaty and smoky from that evening."

"So, dry clean it!"

Actually, she already had.

o.o.o.o.o

He'd surprised her with their first kiss, the morning after her drunken confession. She'd awoken cosy and comfortable and only a little bit hung over, surrounded by a scent that felt strangely like home. A warm, soft hand caressed her from wrist to throat, stroking her as if her skin were a bolt of satin, smoothing it and smoothing it.

She remembered feeling groggy and surreal. She'd kept her eyes closed at first, filled with dread and hope. Was she really there, with Bobby, in his bed? Or had her mind ret-conned her hazy memories of the previous evening to cover for an unfortunate dalliance with her date?

She felt lips brush whispersoft across her forehead. The body that enveloped her was twitching restlessly. Bobby. She finally opened her eyes.

Her former partner had been smiling, even as he seemed to scan her face for evidence of amnesia or second thoughts. He must have found none, for he swept in and gently touched his lips to hers.

It was electric. She'd felt her lips parting of their own accord even as he pressed her into the mattress. It should have felt perilous, suffocating – but instead she was exhilarated. His mouth was soft and warm, and the scrape of his whiskers felt like a blessing. He kept his eyes open, as did she, and the look she saw there was one of profound sincerity and love. His body, including his somewhat intimidating erection, was firm and strong and she felt herself surrendering to him fully – not so much her body, which she knew instinctively he would forgo breaching for now – but her heart and, if she were honest with herself, her life.

She'd long resisted yoking herself to him in the conventional way, and her pride had been at fault. Not because she feared people looking down on her for loving 'the whack job', but rather because she feared people looking down on her for falling for the most charming manipulator on the force. Her reluctance had been worn away of late, in no small part due to the many people in her life (Declan Gage and Chief Moran among them) who thought she'd already fallen.

She'd sighed as she kissed him back, and when she finally turned her face away wrapped her arms tightly around his neck to grant herself a small respite from the intensity of their first encounter, he whispered, "I'm very serious about you, Eames. I'm ready for this."

"Me too," she replied.

o.o.o.o.o

Her sister had called later to find out how the date with Tim went. "It was fine. He was fine." It was late morning, and Bobby had driven her home after a light breakfast that she could barely eat for nerves and arousal, and then had held her hand almost the whole drive, his face when he looked at her suffused with a mixture of love, lust, pride and incredulity. She was now on the sofa, freshly showered, her immortal red dress in the drycleaning hamper.

"And?"

Alex sighed. "And, I won't be seeing him again."

"You won't." Her sister's voice was flat and disapproving.

"Nope."

"Why."

Alex sighed again while she thought for a second. She could give Liz the brush-off. Or, she could just bite the bullet and tell the truth. "Because, I'm in love with Bobby." It felt really, really good to say that. Now in other matchmaking news, shit… meet fan.

"Bobby? Goren?"

"Yup."

"Your partner Bobby Goren?"

"Not any more."

"But…"

"No buts, not this time. It's been a long time coming, Liz, and we're both going to work our asses off to see that it stays. Don't bother setting me up with any other guys, OK? And please… try to be happy for me."

o.o.o.o.o

Alex felt a grin bubble up from her chest and bloom on her face. Bobby's gentle, assertive caresses to her knees and higher – who knew that having her knees touched would be such a turn-on? Oh, yeah, Bobby – plucked at the tendrils of arousal that had been encircling her all evening, but his look when he touched the tops of her stockings was nothing if not priceless.

He hooked two fingers under one of her garters – no stay-ups tonight! – and expelled an almost Homer Simpson-esque huff of confusion. She closed her eyes briefly. Nobody should be that cute; it gave him an extremely unfair advantage. Scared her a bit, actually, always had. One of the reasons she'd been so stoic during their partnership was because her pride had recognised the grave danger of his irresistible adorableness. She'd never allowed herself to fall for anyone that charming. Or rather, she thought she never had.

But it was too late now. She'd fallen too far and too hard, and there was nothing to do but surrender to it. Well, surrender yeah, but not completely. Hence the garters. He was going to have to work for it.

o.o.o.o.o

"I didn't think you'd wear it."

He'd shown up at her door looking absolutely delectable in a grey silk suit and periwinkle blue silk shirt. His black and silver houndstooth tie was one she'd given him. But how he looked was eclipsed by how he was looking… at her. Hunger, anticipation, determination – his face was a road map to his feelings, and the signs were making her stomach do flip-flops.

"Of course I'm wearing it. You have something to prove to this dress – far be it from me to stand in your way."

"So you're not going to stand in my way, huh? You could have fooled me." He loomed over her and began to nudge her with his chest into her apartment and towards the sofa. Pushing back proved ineffectual, and she soon found herself horizontal with 260lbs of delicious, impatient man bearing down on her. Her legs parted of their own accord and he settled between them, burying his face in her cleavage. She let out a groan of lust and embarrassment as she involuntarily flexed her pelvis against his thigh.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered, "Bobby. Let's just stay in tonight."

"No way. We're going out, then we're going to my place."

o.o.o.o.o

Bobby had his eyes glued to her literally all night, and she could barely tear her gaze away from him. They were both aware of the attention of the staff and many of the customers, their affection was so apparent.

Alex laughed. "What?" He asked.

She leaned in to whisper. "The waiters. They're looking at us like they're expecting you to roll a meatball onto my plate with your nose."

Bobby looked quizzically at her.

"Lady and the Tramp." He still looked confused. "The spaghetti scene, behind the Italian restaurant? The Disney movie about the two dogs."

"Oh," he laughed sheepishly. "Actually, in authentic Italian cooking, the meatballs are always served on the side, and they're a lot bigger. I probably couldn't have rolled it…" She interrupted him with a kiss.

She discovered that the bulge in his suit pocket was his camera, which he'd brought for the purpose of having the wait staff chronicle the progression of their evening. "This is more fuss than my family made when I graduated," she quipped self-consciously.

He looked at her seriously. "This is the most important night of my life so far, Alex. I don't want to forget a second of it."

He asked her hesitantly if he could kiss her.

"Bobby, I'm yours. You can do anything you want with me." And she meant it. Propriety took a distant second place to making sure this man knew just how far she'd go to prove she was his.

o.o.o.o.o

When his hand met the line of her panties and slipped inside, his face turned soft and sensual. She couldn't believe that she was about to hit second base, with Bobby of all people, in a crowded restaurant! As if he'd read her mind, he leaned in close and whispered, "I can't believe you're letting me – touch your pussy – in front of all these people."

"As if I could stop you," she murmured, her voice coming off less snarky and more breathless with anticipation than she would have liked.

"Are you ready for this, Alex?" He asked, circling her plump mound with two fingers. His breathing was sharp and shallow, and his whole body felt tense like a coiled spring.

"Yes," she breathed. Bobby bent to touch his forehead to hers, and stared into her eyes with almost disconcerting intensity as he brought her off.

To anyone who happened to glance at them, they would seem merely like a couple in love sharing an intimate moment. They'd never know how right they were… Alex leaned heavily against him as he dipped his fingers in the juices that had pooled at the juncture of her nether lips. His fingers barely moved as he probed her, gently circling her clit and caressing the swollen flesh that surrounded it. As he began to rhythmically brush her with the tips of his fingers, she whimpered as her climax began to unfurl from the base of her spine.

A distant part of her psyche shouted that he was doing this to her, in public, because he needed to lay claim to her, to prove to himself that she really belonged to him; she didn't care. Her days of rebuffing him out of stubborn pride were over. She couldn't deny that the situation aroused her – not the exhibitionist element, particularly – but rather Bobby's urgency, his irresistible craving to touch and please her. She accepted the fact that belonging to Robert Goren meant allowing herself to be played.

Bobby's fingers barely moved as he caressed her, but she was so moist and swollen that it was enough. She felt almost unbearably exposed, with her legs parted and her skirt ruched up around her thighs, this huge man looming over her, owning her like a demon from a virginal nightmare. Her body momentarily resisted succumbing to his ministrations, and Bobby seemed to sense it, because he brushed his slick digits deliberately across her clit.

His eyes continued to bore into hers even as she trembled and quietly gasped through her release, and only when Alex slumped bonelessly into him, trying to discreetly regain her breath, did his body and expression ease. He smiled at her gently and kissed her forehead, then straightened with a cocky smirk. The look on his face said, I bet loverboy never did that to you. You never would have even let him try.

And she wordlessly replied, Of course not. Doesn't make you any less of a jackass though.

And his face said, I know.

o.o.o.o.o

As they dawdled over dessert and coffee, Alex was quiet and lissome in the thrall of her afterglow, but Bobby was restless.

She decided to put him out of his misery. "I'm ready to go, are you?"

He looked at her gratefully and jumped out of his seat. "I'll just grab your coat and, um, take care of the bill… you OK here for a few minutes?"

She smiled at him. "Yup. But hurry back."

"I will," he murmured, grinning boyishly.

They were all over each other the second they got to his apartment. His mouth on hers, Bobby began walking Alex backwards towards his bedroom, then gave up and hoisted her bodily over his shoulder, tossing her onto his bed where she landed with a bounce.

At first charmed by his eagerness, she remained happily horizontal as he rushed to divest himself of his jacket, tie and shoes. In his trousers and shirtsleeves, he settled himself beside her on the bed and buried his face in the crook of her neck. "You smell good," he murmured, before locking his lips onto her tender skin and sucking gently.

"Mmmm, so do you," she managed to grind out, almost speechless with arousal. After a few moments he withdrew and she thrilled at his flushed face, moist lips and glazed look. I did that, she thought with satisfaction as she began unfastening his shirt. At first, when instead of reciprocating, he merely played with her hem as he had at the restaurant, she thought he was just being a gentleman. But when he slipped his hand under her skirt and began unfastening her garters sight unseen, she had a sneaking suspicion. Alex sat up and pushed him gently off her, narrowing her eyes.

"Bobby. I'm not having sex with you wearing this dress." She knelt on the bed and, looking pointedly over her shoulder, presented the back of her gown to him to be unfastened.

Her suspicions were confirmed when his face fell. "Not ever?"

She smirked as he began to unzip her. "Not tonight."

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A/N 2: Pleeeeeease review! Reviews keep me young and supple! Also, sorry for breaking my promise about the smex. Next chapter, I promise (and I mean it this time!). Goren and Eames just really wanted you guys to know how things went between then and now.

WORDS: 3041 UPLOADED Sunday, June 27, 2010