Chapter 10

Home turned out not to be what Tabby had expected. She had almost dozed off when he pulled up and jumped out. She roused herself and realised this was not her apartment.

"Where are we?" She questioned in confusion.

Eliot swung open the passenger door and grabbed her hand to help her out. "My place. Come on."

"But…"

"But nothing. It's a lot nicer than your little hovel. I'm going to make you something to eat before you sleep."

"But….I've got nothing with me."

"What do you need? You've got what you are wearing, everything else I can provide. Come on, I'm going to look after you. If you are going to do this god damned awful job then you deserve some spoiling." He ushered her swiftly up the steps into his spacious apartment which had views across the river. Tabby was just too dazed to argue.

Eliot showed her to a lovely little room with its own en-suite shower-room.

"Make yourself at home, I'm going to make you some supper, nothing complicated but you need to eat before you go to sleep. Come to the kitchen when you've sorted yourself out." He smiled at her in that endearing way of his and Tabby's heart did that oh so familiar lurch.

She didn't really have much sorting out to do, so she removed her make-up, washed her face and hands and went out to the kitchen. She rather fancied a shower, but since Eliot had hi-jacked her, she had no clean clothes to change into, and she didn't have a night shirt either!

She went back into the kitchen to find Eliot had just completed a wonderful smelling omelette.

"Ah, there you are. Sit down, sweetheart. Everything all right?"

"Well….yes, but I don't have a night shirt!" She threw him a rather rueful smile. "And I can't exactly shower and put my dirty clothes back on again."

"You sit down and eat this, I'll see what I can do." Eliot placed the food in front of her. "There ya go. Enjoy it." He brushed a kiss across her temple as he pulled away, it was just the merest whisper of a touch, but Tabby felt it like an electric shock. She watched him from under her lashes as he left the room. Damn it all, she was going to regret this whole thing so badly in the end! She ate the omelette, it was delicious.

Five minutes later Eliot returned. "Ok, hardly Gucci, but will that do for a night shirt?" He hung a white Tee shirt over the back of the chair. "And you can put this on in the morning, it will make a dress for you if you put a belt round the waist." He hung one of his checked cotton shirts over the chair too. "It's one of the longer ones. Will that do?"

Tabby regarded him in surprise, did he often have to do this for women? He seemed to have all the answers at his finger-tips. "Yes." She replied softly. "I should think it will be fine." She looked down at her empty plate. "The omelette was lovely, thank you so much."

He stepped over so he was standing closer to her and stroked his knuckles gently down her cheek. "It's no more than you deserve, Kitten. Now, do you need anything else or do you want a shower and your bed?"

"I think I would like to sleep now, just a quick shower and I really need to get to bed."

"Off you go, I'll just clear this away." Eliot picked up the plate. Tabby took herself back to the bedroom and had a swift shower. She donned the tee shirt, it smelt clean and fresh. Finally she crawled into the bed, exhausted from the whole day's activity and tension. Within five minutes she was asleep.

Around five in the morning Eliot quietly opened the door to the spare room, of course, she was sleeping. He moved quietly to the bedside and sat on the chair and watched her sleep, she looked just as he'd imagined that morning in the gym. He wanted to crawl into the bed with her. And that wasn't all he wanted to do! He stared unseeingly at the shadowy ceiling. He generally acted on that sort of impulse, what he wanted, as far as girls were concerned, he went for, if he was rebuffed, so be it, but that rarely happened. But here and now…..dammit he wanted her, but he just couldn't do it. He'd been holding back here for weeks, aware that if he made the move something was going to change irrevocably. He just didn't know how to deal with any of this.

Tabby awoke to the smell of fresh coffee and something delicious cooking. She lay for a few seconds looking at the ceiling, the last forty eight hours had been…..pretty epic! She'd been recruited by a team of con-men, she gone back on stage and stripped and she spent the night at the home of the sexiest guy she'd ever met. Where did it go from here?

She climbed out of bed and tidied the room.

There was a knock on the door. "Hey, Kitten. You ready for breakfast?"

"Oh, yes…yes, I'll be there in a moment." Tabby was instantly flustered. She was still dressed only in the tee-shirt, and she could hardly go to eat in that. She grabbed her underwear and contemplated her top and jeans, they both smelt of the club, not nice at this hour of the morning. So she turned to the shirt Eliot had given her and slipped it over her underwear. Buttoned up it came halfway down her thighs, no worse than a mini skirt. She rolled up the sleeves to allow her hands out. All she needed was a belt. She ventured out to the kitchen, Eliot had given it to her to wear, so presumably he wouldn't be too appalled by her appearance.

Eliot wasn't appalled, just caught slightly off his guard. She'd pulled her hair back into a rather rough pony tail, she was wearing not a scrap of make-up and she was still flushed from sleep, and as far as Eliot was concerned she looked as hot as she had when she'd emerged in her glad rags last night. She had exactly the same effect on him now as she did then. She looked as if she'd just got out of bed, and he wanted it to be his bed!

"Do you have a belt I could use?" She asked rather tentatively.

Eliot cleared his throat and mumbled. "Sure, I'll find one." He spun on his heel and headed back to his room. Tabby felt a little….deserted. Two minutes later he returned with two so she could make a choice. At least with the belt around that shirt Tabby felt a little more….dressed.

It didn't help much from Eliot's point of view. His mood was…..precarious. Of course he wasn't angry with her, he was angry with the situation. And she looked so damned sexy in his shirt that it made him feel….well, angry. It made him a little short with her, he didn't exactly snarl, but small talk and light conversation wasn't easy.

Tabby found him a little odd this morning, he was still very sweet and polite, making her breakfast and enquiring if she had slept well, but he was also a bit….snarly, if he could be both at the same time.

Eliot was feeling….unsettled and more. He hated what she was doing, he hated what it was doing to him. It had got in the way of his careful pursuit, true the Louella incident had rather spiked things but he'd been trying to work his way back. Now she was thrust at him, doing something so blatantly sexual and provocative that if he made any sort of move he would look like ….a voyeur at best….a pervert at the worst, and insincere whatever he did!

He had to hold his peace, keep her at arms-length, yet guard her with his life and try to make this whole thing as trauma free as he could. All this while running a con, which they'd only half-planned. Until they had some sort of lead they couldn't begin to plan the next move.

This job was beginning to fray his nerves and they had barely even started!

Later that morning they called in at her flatlet so she could get changed out of the shirt and collect more dancing clothes. Then they headed for the office, arriving around midday to compare notes with Hardison and Parker. Realistically they'd not yet discovered much, but Hardison and Parker were pursuing leads in many directions. The cameras which Eliot had planted were being monitored continuously in the hope of learning anything significant. The camera in Kyle Absalom's office was likely to be the most hopeful source.

Around lunch time Mikel called Eliot and Hardison down to the restaurant for a conference. Whether this was about their appropriation of her from the restaurant, or whether it was about something else entirely Tabby didn't know. She was a little worried, when they'd finished this job she was hoping to go back to her place in the restaurant. Maybe Mikel needed to replace her now!

A short while later Hardison messaged Parker to suggest she should get them all some lunch.

"Dammit!" Parker growled, sounding a lot like Eliot as she did so. "Why can't they bring something back from the kitchens?"

Tabby, however, wasn't a student chef for nothing. "I'll do something." She hopped off the sofa and headed for the kitchen. Parker followed to help, or maybe it was to interfere, Tabby wasn't quite sure which!

So far she'd not talked privately with Parker, she found the girl a little….intimidating, which was odd, because Eliot was surely the intimidating one? It didn't take Tabby long to find that Parker, while in private, did not guard her words.

"You like Eliot?"

Tabby threw her a rather embarrassed look. Only the truth would suffice she realised. "Yes, I like Eliot, me and several hundred other women I believe!" She tried to make light of it.

"That's true." Parker shot her a rather strange look. "Do you know about…..people?"

"People?" Tabby was completely in the dark with that one.

"The way Sophie did. She could read people, she always knew…..how to get round them, how to….con them I suppose. But she understood people."

"You mean she understood you?" Tabby surmised quietly.

Parker cocked her head slightly. "I suppose. I'd never really had a girlfriend before. Of course, I've got Peggy, but she's in Boston."

"And there are things girls can talk about which fella's can't?"

"Yeah."

"Well, if I can help, with anything, I can listen. I won't be anything like the help Sophie was, she had obviously been there and done a lot more than me. I'm only a white trash pole dancer, but I can do my best." Tabby observed quietly.

Parker shot her an indignant glare. "Who said that about you? You'd better not let Eliot hear that, he'll punch them out, and Hardison would too."

Ten minutes later Tabby had more or less finished her lunch preparation and they had got to talking about dancing in general, not specifically stripping. Parker just seemed to accept the stripping was a job, it was the dancing she couldn't understand.

"But how do you do it?"

"What on earth do you mean? You just follow the beat of the tune."

"But how do you learn the beat?"

Tabby stared at her in surprise, to her it was in built, she had rhythm, she always had right from a child. Maybe this was something she could teach Parker!

"You don't listen to music?"

"No, not really. Hardison listens to weird stuff, Nate listens to classical stuff, I don't like it, it's dreary. Eliot…" She paused. "Eliot makes his own music, he sings and plays a guitar sometimes."

Tabby stared at her not sure if she'd heard that properly. "He sings?"

"Oh yeah. He was posing as a country singer for one con, he was good too. But it's not sort of dancing music."

"Depends what sort of dancing you do." Tabby reflected dryly. She was still feeling slightly bowled over by the idea that Eliot sang. Was there any end to this man's talents? "Shall I show you what I mean?"

"Yeah, how can you do that?"

"I'll give you a dancing lesson." Tabby grinned. She soon found a suitable musical track on the internet and switched it through the speakers.

Then she showed Parker how to hear the beat, and how to follow it. "Come on, just listen. You can hear lock tumblers, safe combinations, it's far easier than that. You don't need to listen so hard, you need to feel it." She moved her feet in time. "Feel it, follow me."

Parker did as she suggested and suddenly she saw what Tabby was getting at, she'd been trying too hard, trying to look to deep. Tabby began to sway her body in time too. "Come on shake you booty, like Hardison told me to do at the manager."

"He did?" Parker retorted indignantly.

"Yes, but it was meant in the best possible taste." Tabby laughed. "Come on, get with the beat." She began to swing her hips and gyrate her body. Parker stared in amazement, and attempted to follow her, and it wasn't many moments before she found it really wasn't that hard.

Fifteen minutes later they were both standing on the long coffee table giving it large to an invisible audience, Parker was shrieking with laughter and doing her best. Tabby was having fun, and really laying it down.

The music was loud enough that they didn't hear the boys returning. Tabby was now dressed in a pair of slim fitting black jeans and a sleeveless, close fitting black top which hugged her figure and showed her body off to perfection.

As far as Eliot was concerned she might as well have punched him between the eyes. He'd not watched her dance last night, when she'd seen him looking he'd only actually looked for a few seconds. He had realised how much she hated it, and had tried his best not to watch. Now she was fully clothed, and he could stare all he wanted. It took only three seconds for him to be right there and know exactly what he wanted, he couldn't drag his eyes off her.

Hardison was watching them both with a wide grin, Tabby gyrating and encouraging Parker to do the same, and his girl wasn't doing a half bad job either! He turned to Eliot to make some flip comment about how well Tabby could move, and caught the look on his friend's face.

Dammit all, that was something he'd never seen from Eliot before. He'd seen plenty, Eliot always had an appreciative eye for the girls, occasionally amazed, sometimes appalled, but never that look! The best description was….steamrollered, or maybe slapped with a wet mackerel. Hardison realised the train wreck possibilities here were huge, and for once it might not be the girl who got hurt!

He punched his friend lightly in the arm. "Shut your mouth man!" Then he cleared his throat very loudly.

Tabby swung round guiltily. "Ohh, ooops, sorry. We were just having a bit of fun. Lunch is ready." She hopped off the coffee table and darted into the kitchen.

Eliot beat a hasty retreat into the bathroom leaving Parker and Hardison facing each other.

"Tabby was teaching me to dance." Parker squealed in excitement.

"So I see, and you were doing real well." Hardison grinned at her affectionately. "Well done girl."

Parker bounced happily off the coffee table. "That was fun. Maybe we can do it again later."

Maybe, Hardison thought; only if Eliot had prior warning to face it!

They spent most of the afternoon looking through the tapes from the night before to see if anyone was familiar. Hardison ran a number of facial recognitions on men who had tried to hit on Tabby, but none came up as of any interest at all. Tabby and Eliot got ready for their night at work no wiser than they had been the night before.