Chapter 3


Teresa Lisbon was conscious of two things when she opened her eyes. One of those things was a warm hand resting smoothly on her hip. The second thing she was aware of was something poking her butt. She raised her head off the pillow and looked down. His hand was splayed across her hip; his fingertips calm against her flesh. She was pretty sure she knew what was poking her in the backside, too.

Reaching down, she slowly began to move his hand from her side. This, however, backfired on her when he sighed in his sleep and rolled closer, snaking his arm around her waist and pulling her to him gently, but coiling her body tightly in his grip.

She could feel his lips against her neck. The warm breath on her and his arm around her waist made her gasp softly. She could feel him inhale and release a deep breath. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the fact she could feel his lips inattentively rubbing against the back of her neck.

"Mmm," he mumbled in his sleep. "You smell nice. Warm."

Lisbon rolled her eyes. Not short on cheesy lines even in sleep. She pulled her arm forward and slammed her elbow back into his chest, hitting him in the ribs. He cursed softly and she felt his lips and hands leave her, followed by the warmth of his body. She turned herself and watched as he sat up against the headboard and rubbed his ribs with his hand.

"Do you think you could come up with another way of waking me up?" he whined, wincing. "This is starting to border on assault and battery."

"I tried, but you fastened on like a snake in a death grip!" she told him, pushing herself up and resting her back against the headboard. She kept her body away from his but turned her head to him. "You need to stay on your side, Jane."

He stopped kneading his ribs and looked at her. "My side?" A small smile played on his lips as he took in her apprehensive lip bite. "So, does this mean you're going to agree to my arrangement?"

"Does it look as if I have an option?" she returned.

There were a substantial few moments of quiet between them. Neither looked away from the other as their eyes locked tight. It was just the two of them and nothing else. All surroundings melted into the background and became molded away from their faces. There was an unspoken feeling that permeated the air between them and made speaking difficult.

Lisbon, in the intense silence, was replaying last night in her mind. Over and over and over. Crying. Reaching for the phone. Telling Jane she needed him. She knew she didn't have a choice. She had come too far to back up and out.

"You always have a choice, Teresa," he whispered. "I would never force you to do something you don't want to do. I only want to help," he finally said, breaking the silence and shattering it with his rough whisper.

She broke eye contact with him and cleared her throat. He was wrong. She didn't have much of a choice. The other option was too much to bear. She'd been reliving the darkness in her sleep for years. She was so tired. Beaten down. Worn out. She didn't really like the arrangement he proposed, but there wasn't another option. How long could she go on with this? Last night, she had broken down on the phone. She'd burst and finally let the nightmare win. She was so, so tired. So very weary.

The only thing that worked and gave her peace and a decent night's sleep was Jane lying next to her. She didn't know why or understand how he could drive the dream from her mind when she closed her eyes, but he did. Perhaps it was his touch? Maybe it was just down to her feeling safe in his arms? Whatever the reason, he made her nights better. Not in the way she had expected, of course. Not that she expected to...

"What are you thinking about?" he asked, dragging her from her disconnected thoughts.

"If I do agree to this...compromise of yours, what do you get out of it? What's in it for you?" A legitimate question, she thought.

"I don't know, yet," said Jane truthfully. "It won't be anything insensible or anything."

Didn't he know what he wanted in return? Odd. She always looked at him as knowing exactly what he wanted and being straight and honest with saying so. She wasn't very comforted by the fact he considered his future request to be noble in intentions. He literally wasn't the most aristocratic person when it came to his personal wants.

"And this will remain strictly a business agreement, right?"

He cocked his head at her and beamed. "What else would it be?"

She chose not to answer that. "Okay. But I have demands."

"Do tell," he said, chuckling.

"First, you stay on your side," she said. "Or at least make an attempt to."

"I can't control that," he answered. "If I could, I'd respect your boundaries, Teresa."

"We'll figure it out, somehow."

"Second?" He was piqued now.

Keep your morning bodily functions to yourself, she wanted to say but didn't. Instead, she crawled out of the bed and headed toward the bathroom. Before she got to the door, she turned toward him and attempted to straighten her shirt that had bunched up around her waist. It bunched up again, showing some skin. She left it alone. She was nervous and a little flustered by their deal.

"When I wake up, you leave," she told him. "Just leave. Don't say anything at all. Just leave."

He looked a little hurt at her request, but nodded his blond curls and lifted himself from the bed. He slowly crossed the gap between them and stopped directly in front of her. He reached out and pulled the bottom hem of her shirt down, smoothing it against her hip.

She froze in place. The exhale that was working its way out of her mouth caught and her eyes swelled. He had touched her like that just minutes before, but this touch was different. She actually felt shock waves from his hand brushing the small patch of skin showing on her waist. It was like a hot poker had been applied to the flesh where his fingers had ghosted.

"Deal," he told her, exploding her frozen body with heat so that she could finally move and breathe. "I'll attempt to stay on my side, and I will leave when you wake up. No morning greetings, even."

"You gave me one of those greetings this morning," she blurted out, not thinking she should keep that to herself. It was already embarrassing enough.

"Huh?" he asked in puzzlement.

"Nothing," she told him. "You can leave now."

"Uh." He removed his hand from her shirt. "Yeah. Right. Goodbye, Teresa," he said quickly.

She watched as he turned from her and exited the room, not looking back. She exhaled sharply after he was gone. What the hell was she even doing? Why was she allowing this? Oh, right. Because she needed some decent sleep. But she couldn't allow him to touch her whenever he felt like it. She needed to keep her distance from him. It was nearly impossible with their arrangement, but she'd have to just figure out a way.

She had to keep this from becoming something else. She didn't want the tension to get worse, but that was a deflated idea. He was going to be spending his nights in her bed, for God's sake! They had woken up two mornings in a row stuck together like glue. This morning, she even felt his erection poking her! What kind of tension-filled relationship was going to withstand that? She had a feeling it was the kind that tore two friends apart. Even if it wasn't sleeping with her in the sexual sense, just him in her bed was enough to push that tension bubble, as he was finding out.

Friends. She kept calling him a friend. Outwardly, it appeared that was a justifiable word for them. Inwardly, she wasn't so sure. Damn her feelings and damn her heart! The truth was she enjoyed his warmth and his body in her bed, so close to her that he could touch her in places she secretly wished he would. But she couldn't let him in. She couldn't give in to her wishes. It wasn't good. Not since she had a lot of anger toward him that she hadn't yet expressed. She needed to keep her distance, and she would.

She shook her head and turned into the bathroom, closing the door on the thought of Jane sleeping with her. She turned on the shower and decided she needed to cool off the poker hot feeling he sent through her with his graceful fingers.

What did he want from her, anyway? That is what was circling in his brain as he pretended to be interested in the meeting Cho was throwing about the case they caught the other day. Frankly, he didn't remember a time when he was less interested in being the smartest person in the room and devising a plan to capture the suspect like a caged rabbit.

Right now, he was trying to understand Teresa Lisbon, who was studiously ignoring him from across the room. He couldn't read her at all. Not since he came back from the island. Well, he never could read her well, but he could at least guess what she was thinking. Now, however, she was better at hiding it.

Giving mixed signals. Yes. That was it. She was short-circuiting his brain. One time she was crying on the phone asking him to come over and comfort her, and the next she was telling him she accepted his offer, but he had to leave when she woke up. Then there were the looks she gave him that suggested that him being in love with her might not be all there was. It may, in fact, be reciprocated. He just didn't know which Teresa he was dealing with and it was very hard for him to accept that she was an unfinished puzzle and he was searching for the last piece before the picture was finished.

"You coming to Friday drinks?" Rigsby asked him after the meeting, distracting him from his inner thoughts. "Cho's buying tonight!"

It was a tradition they politely included Jane in on since he got back. Every Friday, they would go to Morley's bar and load up on shots and beer since they didn't work the weekends. He'd always loved it. He went almost every Friday just for the company.

"I can't," Jane told Rigsby, standing and stealing a glance over at Lisbon who was still ignoring him and talking to Van Pelt at her desk.

"You have a hot date or something?" asked Rigsby, his eyebrow curving. "You never miss a Friday, Jane."

"Date?" Jane repeated, blinking oddly at the tall Agent. "No. "

Rigsby looked at him suspiciously, but shrugged his shoulders and walked away, humming some song out of tune. Jane really didn't notice Rigsby's look of suspicion. Instead, he was gathering an idea in his head. He smiled to himself as he watched Lisbon leave Van Pelt and walk toward the kitchen area. No doubt she was getting more coffee.

She was obviously embarrassed by their arrangement, and a little angry that she needed this from him, too. Maybe to loosen her up he'd have to resort to something a little different. Spending hours in a bed with someone you aren't sleeping sexually with wasn't exactly weird, but neither was it commonplace. Maybe if he got her to relax more around him, she'd stop being so angry and resentful about their ... partnership during their nights. Maybe dinner and conversation would ease the ever growing tension. Maybe. Maybe she'd stop sending him mixed signals and they could actually work this out to benefit them both. Being in love with her was easy. Trying to maintain the boundary between friendship and wanting more was not so easy. Perhaps dinner would give him a better read. He didn't know. But he was going to push his luck if he had to. Besides, he considered himself a gentleman. All gentleman make sure to take the lady out before he sleeps with her.

He raised himself from his couch, looked around to make sure nobody else was heading toward the kitchen, then made his way through the bullpen and into the small room. His eyes fell on her as she was hovering over the coffee pot, her back turned away from him.

"I want you to come with me, tonight," he said, scaring her and making her jump in the air.

She hissed in pain as hot coffee dripped out of the mug and splashed on her knuckles. She turned to him as she shook her burnt hand and narrowed her eyes at Jane.

Jane walked over to her and took her burnt hand in his, reaching around her for the paper towels in the dispenser on the counter. He pressed them to her knuckles and looked up at her with apologies in his eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Teresa," he breathed. "I didn't mean to scare you." He kept his hand on hers as he dabbed gently at the angry, red splotches where the coffee had dropped.

"What do you want, Jane?" she snapped, trying to remove her hand from his grip.

"I wanted to invite you to dinner with me tonight," said Jane.

"Like a date?" Lisbon snorted. "No, thanks."

"Don't be so dismissive, Teresa!" he snapped back, growing tired of her attitude. "You're making this much more difficult than it's intended to be. I mean as friends, Teresa. It's not every day that I sleep in a women's bed that I haven't taken out at least once."

She clicked her tongue and sighed. "We—you aren't sleeping in my bed the way you did the others." She tried to pull her hand from his grip again but was unsuccessful. "I don't need a meal to know it's just necessity of the situation."

"Work with me, Teresa," he said exasperatedly. "Allow me to be a gentleman? Even if it is an innocent arrangement, I would like to take you somewhere. Just as friends, I promise. Friends go out to eat, don't they?" He smiled sweetly at her.

"Dinner?" she asked in a hush, fearful someone may come in at any moment. "You really want to take me to dinner so you feel more like a gentleman about sleeping in my bed with me?"

"Yes," he replied. "Besides, you've been through a lot and I want to take you out. I don't think you've been out to dinner in a long time, Teresa. It'll be a favor to you, too."

"Don't you usually go with Cho and Rigs to Morley's on Friday's?"

"Stop making excuses, Teresa. My nights are officially booked." His eyebrow arched up. "Apparently, I'm your Mr. Sandman."

He saw her expression flash something quickly in her eyes before changing back to her hard, moody mask. She sighed and rolled her eyes. Usually, when she rolled her eyes at him, he knew she was giving in. He wasn't surprised when this was exactly the case.

"Fine," she responded. "Dinner."

He noticed that she looked so much better now that she was getting good sleep at night. Her eyes were lighter and greener, her skin was getting more olive complected, and she just looked much better to him. Not as she had just two days ago at the crime scene.

"Thank you," he told her. "I'll be by your apartment at about eight." He smiled at her, brought her burnt hand to his lips and kissed the splotches he had accidentally caused. "Wear something nice. Sorry about your hand." He dropped her hand and turned away from her astonished face before she could change her mind about dinner.