Author's Note: Thank you so much, Camelia, Carpathian, and Cerruenos. I really appreciate your comments and support.
Prompt: Burn (Carpathian, this one's for you)
Sitting on the couch, John watches her in the kitchen. She is standing on one leg, her foot sliding up and down restlessly on the back of her calf as she peers down at the recipe book. He's mesmerized by the impelling movement of her foot for some reason, rubbing up and down on her ankle.
As though she can feel him staring, Zed turns around, but John is fast and is looking down at book in a split second. Narrowing her eyes but smirking, Zed turns around and resumes chopping up peppers on the cutting board.
There's tension in the air and both can feel it – not negative tension, pleasant tension, actually - just the faint tickling of knowing something might happen tonight. Perfect night for it, too – Chas is out, and won't be back for another few days. They've just solved a case and nothing else has cropped up yet.
Three days ago, they'd been screaming at one another.
"It's time for me to go, is all," Zed said, throwing clothes haphazardly into her bag without folding them. "I've worn out my welcome and now I need to leave."
"You haven't worn out your welcome," John argued, taking her clothes out and tossing them on the bed.
"Look, ever since we got back from New Orleans, you haven't spoken to me. You won't look at me-" she moved a hand to his face, forcing his eyes to meet hers. "I can't stay here if we can't talk."
"Where are you going to go? Back down to see Corrigan?" He jerked out of her grasp and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms.
"There is nothing going on with Jim and I."
"You kissed him."
"He kissed me, not the other way around."
"I didn't see you pulling away."
"Well, maybe you could grow a pair and actually admit that you have feelings for me, and then we wouldn't be in this mess!"
He burst away from the wall and moved forward, standing an inch from her face. "I do have feelings for you," he growled. "I've offered you a place to stay, to keep you safe, because I like having you around. I don't exactly have a track record for keeping women around more than one night. You have shoved off every advance I've made to get close to you with your need to protect yourself. So I've tried to respect your distance, leave you be. Yet here you are, telling me I'm the one that needs to make the first move. What the hell am I supposed to think?"
Zed stared at him, enraged and terrified and turned on, all at the same time. He's right. "I'll stay," she said softly.
Instantly, his fury dissipated. "What?"
"You're right. I've turned you down because I'm afraid of how I feel about you. I don't want to do that anymore."
He backed away from her, nodding. "Good." John turned and left the room.
Then they proceeded to avoid one another for the next two days.
Now, on the third day, Zed asks him in the morning what he wants for dinner that night. She's cooking, she says, because when Chas isn't there, John's culinary pursuits are something akin to putting a frozen pizza in a stove and then announcing that dinner is made.
And then she gives him this smile. Biting her lip a little. John catches her mood, that flirtatious, mock-evasive, and tells her he wants something spicy.
The timer dings and Zed moves to the range to take the fajita meat off of the burner. The corner of her square potholder slips and she burns her finger on the iron skillet.
"Ow!" she hisses, then holds her finger up, looking over the wound.
John is up and moving over to her, and has her hand in his in so little time it takes her aback slightly.
"Small burn," he tells her. "It won't even blister." Holding her hand in his, he bends down and kisses her hurt finger.
And that's it. That's all it takes to break the floodgates. Later, Zed doesn't know if he kissed her first or if she kissed him, but the next thing she knows, his mouth is on hers, not bothering to be gentle or slow. He nips at her lower lip, hands on her shoulders, pushing her backwards until she hits the counter, and then he's reaching down to the backs of her legs, lifting upwards so that Zed is sitting on the counter, legs crossed around his back, and he's kissing her collarbone just so, and he chuckles when she lets out a sigh next to his ear, tilting her head backwards. She squeezes his arm, and the fingers of one hand tangle in her hair while the other hand moves south, and dinner is forgotten entirely.