A giant thank you to my followers! I hope you enjoy the next chapter.
Tony's mind reeled.
He couldn't take it in. It was too much to process.
It was her. His soulmate. The one he has not been looking for. The one he has never actually wanted.
And now this beauty walks in and he is entirely unsure of what to do.
"Phone sex, no." He laughs nervously. "Uh, charades." Damn him. Couldn't he have come up with something better than that? But he was too distracted. By her.
"Charades? Like a…" He watches as she does the "movie" motion.
"You've played."
"Never on the telephone." Of course, you idiot! How do you play charades on the telephone?
"Yeah, my partner and I were coming up with quotes for Saturday night."
"You play charades on Saturday nights?" She sounded incredulous. Right. He wasn't eighty.
"To kill time before I go clubbing," he said, trying to sound cool and make up for his stupidity. "Who are you?" He desperately wanted to know who this woman was. After all, the tattoo says that he'll spend the rest of his life with her.
"Ziva David, Mossad."
"You're Israeli?" Shit. His father is going to kill him. He was brought up strictly Catholic. How in the hell did his soulmate end up being Jewish? Not that he was in any way against Jews - in fact he wasn't really into the entire Catholic thing as he was supposed to be - but his family might not see it that way. He spied the Star of David necklace around her neck. It was beautiful, just like its wearer.
"Very good, the way you made that connection: Mossad, Israeli." He watched as she strolled over to Gibbs' desk and he couldn't help but notice her incredible figure.
"What can I do for you Ms. David?" I want to kiss you. I want to do anything for you.
"Nothing, I'm here to see Special Agent Gibbs."
"How do you know I'm not Gibbs?" She laughs. She is even more beautiful when she laughs. He watches as she lets her backpack slide off of her shoulders and he almost wants to jump up and help her. Then she sits down in the Probie's chair and smiles again.
"Gibbs?" she asks with a raise of her eyebrows. Right. He'll never be Gibbs.
"He'll be back in an hour. You sure I can't help you?" He is pretending to be irritated now, because he cannot allow himself to feel something for this woman. Tony DiNozzo cannot settle down.
She tuts, and damn it if he doesn't find that hot. "I don't think so." She smiles again. Oh, what the hell! He can't help it. He wants to know this woman.
He sighs as they look at each other, silence hanging between them for a second. He decides that it's now or never. He better try and salvage this if he ever wants to have a semblance of normality in his life again.
"We got off to a bad start," he says as he stands up and walks over to where she is sitting. "I'm Special Agent Tony DiNozzo. I wasn't playing charades, I was remembering my partner." Oh, Kate.
"Naked?"Salvage, Tony! Not make it worse!
"No. Yes. I..." She tilts her head and looks at him with those eyes. Those eyes he just wants to get lost in. "I was just. Look, I'm not the only man who does it."
"Oh, women do it too," she pauses and she looks at him. First his feet, then to where his hands are clasped in his belt buckle. And finally, up to his face where he looks into her eyes again. "With handsome men," she continues. He has to get out of her space. Now, before he does something stupid like kiss her and ruin everything. So he grunts and turns back to his desk. He almost has a heart attack when he hears her speaking up again. "And even an occasional woman."
Oh, he is dead.
"Now you're teasing me."
She chuckles, and he finds it adorable. "Didn't your partner tease you?"
"Not about sex, Kate was kinda puritanical." Why did they have to talk about Kate?
"Sorry."
"It didn't matter," he suddenly felt the urge to explain himself. "I wasn't interested in her; we were..." He drifts off as he watches her remove her headband and loosen her hair. Oh, how he wanted to run his fingers through those thick locks... "Partners," he finished lamely.
"She wasn't attractive?"
"She was; not to me." But you are, he wanted to scream.
"Then why did you imagine her naked?" Well, she had a point there. But Kate wasn't the one he wanted to imagine naked right now. He smiled and waved his finger at her, watching as she smiled brightly again.
He had to calm down. Remain professional, even if he didn't want to. "Ms. David, you can sit there and slouch provocatively for an hour, if you'd like. Or you can tell me what you need and maybe I can help."
She pouted, then stood up and walked over to his desk. "You can't help because I'm here to stop Special Agent Gibbs from killing a Mossad Officer."
That was when everything clicked.
"Ari Haswari?"
"Yes," she said, moving her hair from her face just like Kate always did. And never will be able to do again. He felt the anger boil up inside him again and he beckoned her closer. When she leaned over his desk, he was almost overwhelmed by her scent, but he hold on to the anger. He had to. For Kate.
Finally, he whispered, "I'd wish you luck, but I want the bastard dead too." That is when he saw it. In her eyes: the pain. Somehow, he had touched a nerve.