AN: Thank you for the reviews! Here comes another chapter! Enjoy...

Chapter 10

The moment she shut the door, she leaned against it and hung her head. Tears gathered in her eyes. What had she been thinking? She was no femme fatale. Even in her younger years, she wasn't the kind of woman that warmed a man's blood. She couldn't keep the interest of Richard Strauss enough to keep him from divorcing her for a much younger woman; how on earth did she expect to hold the interest of someone like David Rossi?

She glanced in the mirror and wanted to break it. What a fool she'd been! She'd thought she had the power, had thought she was stunning, when instead, she'd looked like some pitiful geriatric slut. Erin knew better than to be prancing around, trying to be something she wasn't.

Amber Cartwright could prance around. Amber Cartwright wouldn't have to hide sagging boobs and a pouchy belly that had bore children.

Even worse, she had to come to grips with why it hurt so much to imagine David with that tramp Amber. Because it really hurt—oh! How it hurt!—to think of him with someone else.

She shook her head in disgust. She was double the fool, feeling bad about her foolishness in believing in her own appeal and falling in love with David Rossi.

A knock startled her. "Erin...let me in."

"I'm getting dressed," she lied, growling over the throaty, tear-soaked quality to her voice. Curse you, David Rossi!

"Erin, please," he begged, but she didn't care. She was done flirting with him, done letting him tease her, doing this dance that would only lead to heartbreak for her.

Erin began tugging the satiny top up, when the door swung open neatly. She pulled it down quickly and gasped.

Dave stepped inside. "It pays to have grown up on the wrong side of the tracks," he drawled, holding up a paperclip he'd obviously used to pick the door lock.

"Get out," she ground out, glaring at him.

"My answer to that...hmmm... How do the kids say it nowadays?" he asked, stroking that irritatingly sexy goatee of his. "Ah, that's right. No."

She raised her chin higher. "David, I am warning you. Leave."

"Nope," he said, closing the door. "Not until I get my say."

She scoffed. "Of course you'd want it your way."

"I'm selfish like that," he said with a smile. It was a warm smile, not his usual snark. It threw her. Was he pitying her? "Besides...I have a lot to say."

Her icy disdain and self-protection mode came back. "I think we've said enough to one another to last a lifetime."

"Oh, we've talked," he said, "but we've never listened."

"You need to go," she said before her heart exploded in her chest.

He stepped closer. "I can't do that, Erin."

"Don't come any closer," she snapped, holding her hand up. "I... I will scream."

She hated how melodramatic that sounded, but she couldn't think of anything else to say. She could never think when David was nearby.

He pulled her struggling form into his arms. He was so much stronger than she was. It galled her, their physical differences. She was a woman who could take care of herself, but he had a way of making her feel very...feminine.

She hated it.

"I'll stop you," he murmured softly, "in the best way possible."

"Go stop Amber Cartwright!" she snarled, and then she groaned, realizing how much that statement revealed. Great, Erin! Show him you care... Give him more ammunition!

"I can't do that, either," he said, not taking the potshot she anticipated he would.

"Why not?" she huffed, still struggling to get away from him.

"Because I don't want to kiss Amber Cartwright." Dave held her chin in his hand, forcing her to look at him. "I don't want her...not like I want you."

Erin paused in her struggling and stared at him. "What did you say?"

That warm smile was back. "I said I don't want Amber Cartwright." He brushed his thumb over her cheek, tucked a stray blonde hair behind her ear.

Erin couldn't stop the fluid that accumulated in her eyes. "But...but you said..."

"I was jealous of the idea of you with other men, and I struck out like the immature bastard I can be at times." His look of self-disgust was plainly evident. "I'm sorry for that."

Erin felt her heart pounding erratically in her chest as she stared into the warm, espresso depths of his eyes. She wanted to believe in him, but he'd hurt her...so many ways.

"Yeah, right," she said, tugging her chin away from his grasp. "This is coming from a man who willingly left my bed a month ago and never looked back."

"You're wrong." He secured her chin again. "I look back all the time, constantly. I think about it, about us, always. I was scared, and I was a fool, but I can't be... I can't let you go.

Suddenly, he reached for her bottom and drew her close to him. "Feel what you do to me...what you've always done to me. I need you, Erin," he whispered fiercely, leaning in to kiss her neck.

Erin stood still, shocked, feeling the heat of his burning erection through the satin of her pants, making her knees weak.

"I need you, Erin. I've never needed anything or anyone like I need you," he repeated, holding his temple against hers. "You're a necessity to me. Hell, I'm so pathetic, I look forward to our fights."

She couldn't help but smile. She was just as pathetic: she looked forward to them, too.

"Please, Erin," he said softly. "Be my girl...mine alone. I can't promise you peace and a life of ease, but I can promise you devotion...to the point where you'll be sick of me."

She snorted somewhat. She highly doubted she'd get sick of him. He was in her blood as badly as she was in his.

"Sweetheart...put me out of my misery."

She pulled back and looked into his dark eyes. "I think we put each other in misery sometimes..."

He chuckled. "That we do...but at least we're together."

She smiled to herself; that's what really counted. He was her fire, the passion in her life. "You are a devil, David Rossi."

"But I'm the devil who loves you," he murmured softly, folding her willingly into his embrace.

There. He'd said it—he loved her. Although you couldn't tell by looking at her, her heart was bounding crazily inside her chest, but the desire to gloat didn't come forward as she anticipated. Frankly, she'd won. She'd brought David Rossi to his knees.

Or maybe he'd won...because she was kneeling right down there beside him.

She snuggled next to him and sighed happily. "That you are, David... That you are."

After lunch, JJ and Aaron returned to the Quantico campus to finish their CPR training. It was being held in one of the basement rooms, which was a classroom with desks and chairs and a blackboard, rather like grade school. This teacher was quite a bit like her grade school teachers—ancient, rather dry, and non-animated. Mrs. Patrick seemed to drone and drone, the same facts and procedures. It had never seemed to be such an endless class before, but today, it was lasting forever.

At least there was a comedic content to the class. Morgan and Reid were in the class with them. Derek was sitting behind Spencer, kicking under his chair to rile him up. Reid obviously didn't want to give Morgan the satisfaction of turning around to show it bugged him, but the young man was positively rigid in his chair. Poor Spence... Someday, he needed to turn and sock Morgan when he least expected it.

Aaron didn't seem to mind the class as much as she did. He was sitting next to her, paying attention to the instructor, his long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankle. She couldn't help but stare at those legs of his, encased in perfect-fitting stonewashed denim. Lord, he had beautiful legs. They were wasted in the suits he wore every day at the BAU. She felt a touch of heat stir in her body as she studied him; he could model those thighs for an artist.

JJ had the sensation she was being watched, so she looked up at Aaron. He flashed a dimple at her, a knowing grin that told her she'd been caught red-handed ogling him. Immediately, she felt her face heat with a scarlet blush, and his smile increased as he winked at her.

JJ turned her gaze forward, but she was smiling, too. The lecture was still the furthest thing from her mind.

Moments later, a note appeared on her desk from Hotch.

May I walk you to your car after class? Circle Yes or No

The note was so cute, it made her giggle, which caused the instructor to look her way.

"Is there something amusing about the Heimlich Maneuver, Agent Jareau?" the woman asked, glaring down her long, hooked nose with disdain.

"No, ma'am," JJ answered guiltily.

Morgan and Reid were smirking over at her—Spencer a bit more sympathetic, but smirking nonetheless—after having been caught earlier themselves for their own outbursts. She'd find a way to get even with them, sooner or later.

"Everyone, please practice the Heimlich on each other," she said. "First one partner, and then the other."

Morgan and Reid were the first two standing. "Come on, kid. Pretend you're choking."

"Morgan, if you make me barf, I will kill you," Reid warned, obviously—and sadly—serious.

Derek looked chagrined. "Hey, man! That wasn't my fault. How was I to know last year that you'd had three bagels and extra coffee for breakfast?"

"I like carbs!" Reid growled defensively.

"Sad, aren't they?" Hotch said, standing by her side.

She snickered. "Very."

"Are you ready?" he asked, moving behind her.

She nodded and made the universal choking sign with her hands at her throat. A second later, she felt Aaron's big, warm body behind her as he looped his arms around her waist. He placed one fist in the center of her abdomen and the other on top and simply held her against his chest.

JJ closed her eyes as a wash of sensation fluttered over her. He smelled so good, like delicious, clean male and a little bit of spice that was in their lunch. It was intoxicating and overwhelming, the feel of his body—so much larger than hers—cradling and protecting hers.

"Is that okay?" he murmured, the low rumble of his voice stroking over her like napped velvet.

"A-A little higher," she said, her voice a touch husky. To emphasize what she meant, she ran her hands down his strong forearms, the crisp hairs tickling her palms, until she reached his wrists. She lifted his hands to the right spot on her abdomen, and her nipples sprung into alertness in futile hope of her moving his hands even higher.

She felt his breath against the part of her hair, a hot waft that burned like a back draft on her sensitive skin. "Right there?"

She nodded. She couldn't answer verbally.

He continued to hold her thus. "I'm sorry I got you in trouble with the teacher," he apologized softly.

"That's okay," she whispered when she managed to get her voice back.

"You didn't answer the note," he said, his tone hopeful and somewhat husky, too.

She turned in his arms. "I'm circling yes."

He liked that—both of his dimples flashed in his cheeks. "I believe it's your turn to demonstrate the maneuver," he said, but he didn't release his hands from her waist. He chuckled. "I'm having a hard time letting you go."

She shot him her smile. "The faster we complete this, the faster we can leave."

Aaron released her quickly after that.