Disclaimer: I don't own anything; all creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator(s).
A/N: So. There's only one more chapter left. Thought you should know. Bye.
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There are marks on her neck and down her collarbone and her concealer is running out so she has to be smart about this. The lower ones are harder to see, not as conspicuous, so she starts with what's more obvious and works her way down.
"So I was thinking…" Steve says, stepping out of the shower and reaching for a towel, "…my place is a lot nicer than your place."
"The view is much better, for one." Kono agrees laughingly, staring at his abs.
"No, think about it." Steve insists. "It's bigger, it's more comfortable, the water pressure is better, it's much closer to work and the beach and it's got a pool." He says confidently, wrapping a towel around his hips and leaning against the counter to look at her. "I know you like the pool." He grins.
Kono finishes putting away her make up things and turns to look at him oddly. "Steve. My place sucks. I know my place sucks. I have embraced the complete suck that is my place. So what's with the sales pitch?"
"I think you should move in." He concludes, smiling widely. Kono stares at him for a bit, startled.
"Are you sure?" She asks hesitantly, furrowing her brow. "Because I'm…kind of messy." She reminds him reluctantly. "And you're all Super SEAL and, I mean, it could get out of hand."
Steve steps forward to lift her on the counter, slipping his hands under her top and slowly pulling it up. "I like messy." He says against her lips, hands running teasingly down her back. He's still a liar though, because whenever she throws a jacket over a chair or something he keeps glancing over at it in discomfort until she takes pity on him and picks it up.
Well. Sometimes she does it on purpose because it's kind of funny.
"Not to mention…" she adds breathlessly, as he unbuttons her jeans and helps her kick them down her legs, "…you have a pool. So you'll probably never be able to get rid of me."
"That's kind of the plan." Steve admits laughingly, and leans down to kiss her.
You know what? If he's lying, it's working.
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That afternoon he makes sure Danny and Chin are distracted, drags her to the locker room and locks the door. He tells her she has to be quiet, and she promises she will but she probably won't. She never can.
He holds her flat against the wall, his hand on her hip the other tangled in her hair as he pushes inside her, slowly—her mouth falls open in a gasp so he kisses her and keeps kissing and kissing her until she comes apart.
Afterwards she's shaky and can hardly get her legs to work and she just wants to get home and do that again.
God, she hopes the guys didn't hear anything.
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"Is that the money?" The guy asks gesturing at the pretty leather briefcase she's carrying.
"Let's see what I'm buying first." Kono says confidently, raising an eyebrow. She's undercover again, playing an art dealer trying to buy some smuggled pieces for a private collector. The team has this place surrounded, ready to go in as soon as she gets visual confirmation.
Which she does. Looks sort of ugly to her, but there's really no accounting for taste.
She sets the briefcase-supposedly filled with money-down on the table, opens it and goes for her gun calmly and it would have worked too (not to mention it'd have been totally badass), except someone tries to tackle her from behind. She drops her gun and it gets shoved under the table as she elbows the guy in the gut, turns around and uses his weight to drop him to the floor. She lifts up her skirt, draws her backup gun on him.
They've arrested everyone else while she's been otherwise engaged and HPD is taking everyone in. Kono handcuffs the guy and straightens up, putting her weapon back in its holster and smoothing her skirt down. There's an officer standing close by, gaping like a fish.
Steve walks up, shoving past the poor officer moodily, picks up the cuffed suspect and pushes him towards the cop, who's still rubbing his shoulder in surprise. "What?" Steve says, sounding pissed off. "Nobody ever tell you it's rude to stare?"
Kono has to stifle a hysterical giggle.
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They're at the beach, Kono lying on a towel and watching Steve get out of the water. Steve is admittedly a good looking guy, but wet and dripping he looks like something she'd like to attack.
She might be seeing things in slow motion. She might also- possibly-be drooling.
"Take a picture, it will last longer." Someone says from her right, and she looks up to see Meghan staring down at her, laughing at Kono's obvious distraction. "Not that I blame you." She adds in a placating tone, turning to glance at Steve. "I mean…hello six pack!" She laughs wiggling her eyebrows obscenely. Nice.
"I know, right?" Kono says casually, watching Steve come closer. Meghan starts to say something else but trails off when Steve comes to stand next to her, looming over Kono.
"Hey." He says smiling.
"Hi." Kono smiles back stupidly, squinting up at him. "You're dripping all over me." She adds after an awkward pause where they all stand around looking at each other.
"You're sitting on my towel." Steve says in explanation. Kono rolls her eyes and sits up to pass him his towel.
"Steve, this is Meghan. Meghan, Steve." She introduces dutifully.
"It's nice to meet you." Steve says honestly, wiping himself down. He's been kind of bugging her about meeting her friends. Honestly, he's such a girl sometimes.
"You too." Meghan smiles widely, glancing back at Kono. Yeah. She's pretty impressed. "Is this the guy?" She asks bluntly. Real subtle, Meghan is.
"This is the guy." Kono confirms in a flat voice, even though she's kind of amused.
They make small talk for a little while until Meghan returns to her friends, leaving them to cram their stuff into Steve's car and head home. Home. Where they both live. Huh.
They're pulling up at the driveway when she gets a text from Meghan.
"Was that your BOSS?" It reads. "Someone's been naughty!"
Oh, yeah. There is that.
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There's someone in the house.
Steve is already up and reaching for his gun, Kono right behind him. Training kicks in, and they walk downstairs quietly, checking rooms as they go. Footsteps again, boots maybe, in the living room. Steve nods at her to go around through the other door and she does because he's her boss and it's, like, in her programming. Kind of embarrassing, really.
She can see a guy, dressed in black, shoving her laptop in a bag and she's actually relieved because, hey, he's not there to kill them. Always a pleasant surprise in her book. Must be an amateur, too, trying to rob a cop's house. Real sloppy work, it's almost sad. But then he goes for the X-box. The X-box. This means war, brah.
Steve sneaks up on their would-be burglar and next thing she knows, the guy is flat on the floor face against the carpet. What? It's perfectly clean, she vacuumed recently. Like a couple of weeks ago. Whatever.
"What the fuck man?" the guy shouts indignantly, as if they're the ones that broke into his house to steal his X-box. Really, man, really?
"Hey, shut up!" Steve says in his scary Navy SEAL voice, and what do you know? The guy can take a hint. Kono calls the police to have someone come over and book this sorry excuse of a criminal and then they wait in the living room, the guy cuffed to a chair. HPD takes a while to get there, and Kono has to repeatedly stop herself from offering the guy something to drink.
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Because Kono is having a great day already, as luck would have it, HPD sends over Officer Jenkings and his rookie partner, Noah. That's right. Noah.
Kono hasn't seen Noah in a while. She's kind of been avoiding her friends in the force, mostly because she doesn't need the entire HPD gossiping about her living arrangements. Which, of course, looks like a moot point right now.
Noah is surprised to see her, but tries to be professional, takes her statement asking all the questions he's supposed to ask in the exact order he's supposed to ask them.
Afterwards, he closes his notebook and clears his throat nervously.
"So how've you been, Kono? We haven't talked in a while."
"Yeah, it's been busy. I'm doing great actually. Attempted robbery aside. And you?"
"Oh, I'm fine. You know. Not much to report."
There's an awkward silence, where Kono wants to get everyone out and go back to sleep while Noah wants to ask an obvious question.
"So, you like—you live here?" He asks hesitantly, as if he won't believe it without confirmation, even though it's probably pretty evident at this point.
"Pretty much, yeah." Kono says tiredly, rubbing her eyes.
"Well, that's—good, I mean…" He seems to fumble for something to say, gives up. "You know what I mean." He laughs, rolls his eyes at his stupidity.
"Yeah, Noah, I know what you mean. Thanks." She says smiling. If this goes on any longer, there's a good chance she'll fall asleep standing up.
"Right." Noah says, glancing over her shoulder. "Ok. We're done here. I'll just…get out of your hair." He goes to pat her arm, seems to reconsider, and walks out.
She turns around and Steve is staring, no surprises there.
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