"Let me see if I've got this straight," Deeks ventured verbally from his spot beside Kensi after their roll in her sheets that directly followed their wet romp in her shower. "You trick me into giving you cooking lessons…just so you could seduce me with burnt cookies and get me into your bed."

Kensi only laughed at him. "You know very well that sex was not even on the menu until about an hour ago. I most certainly did not plan it from the beginning."

He chuckled too. "Well, it sounds good anyway. So I think I'll stick with my theory, if you don't mind."

Kensi shrugged, playing along. "You might as well add to your collection of other delusions."

She snuck a peek over Deeks' shoulder at her alarm clock on the other side of the bed. It wasn't too horribly late at night — just past 11:30 pm.

She stretched luxuriantly and snuggled up against the full length of Deeks' wonderful, muscular body. "You know what we should do?"

His hands roamed the silky skin along her naked back. "Take a couple more showers?" he suggested hopefully.

"Nooo," Kensi drew out with a smirk. This man really was insatiable. "We should make another batch of cookies."

Deeks grinned down at her. "I hate to break it to you, babe, but I don't think all the cookies in the world are ever gonna top that last batch."

"So true," she agreed wholeheartedly.

"Besides, it's almost midnight," he said in afterthought, snuggling a little deeper into the comfy bed and closing his eyes. "And we have to work tomorrow."

Kensi looked at the cutely scruffy face and closed eyes of her partner, and told herself that she should probably go to sleep too.

But she really wanted cookies!

She laid there silently debating only a few minutes longer before she rose from the bed, deliberately dragging the thin topmost blanket with her and wrapping it around herself.

"Where are you going?" Deeks voiced in protest, his eyes opening again and his gaze following her to a chest of drawers.

"I'm getting dressed," she answered simply, as if he was blind for not seeing that himself. She opened a drawer but paused and turned around.

"I'm not sure what you're gonna find to put on," she quipped with a sudden grin, remembering that his clothes were covered in uncooked cookie and he hadn't brought a fresh change with him. "But I suppose you could wear my nightgown if you prefer."

Deeks played along, sitting up in the bed and folding his legs Indian-style under the rest of the blankets. "Yeah? Is it bright pink? I bet it is. I bet you wear the pinkest pink to sleep in."

"Actually, it's black," Kensi answered truthfully. "And much more of a t-shirt than a nightgown."

She pulled a short-sleeved cotton shirt from her dresser drawer and tossed it at him. "And since it's a man's shirt, it should even fit you."

Deeks unfolded the t-shirt and held it up by the sleeves. LAPD was emblazoned in white across the black front, but he knew she didn't snitch that one from his own collection.

Which only left one other explanation of where it came from. And if he ever found out which of his fellow officers had left a t-shirt behind in Kensi Blye's bedroom, somebody's head was definitely going to roll.

"I am not wearing one of your old boyfriends' shirts," he declared staunchly, wadding it up in his hands. He'd go naked before he'd do that.

"You won't be," Kensi assured him. "I bought it myself, brand-new."

"Why?" he crinkled an eyebrow at her.

"It was a novelty shirt and I liked it," was all Kensi would answer. "Is that a crime?"

Deeks unwadded the shirt and looked at it again. On second glance, it did kinda look like the novelty shirts sold in many of the tourist shops on the beach.

Kensi probably wasn't lying to him about that, he decided. In which case, he would gladly wear it.

And since Kensi obviously wasn't going to join him in reaching happy slumber-land anytime soon, Deeks might as well get out of the bed too.

He found his boxers and pulled them back on, then stood there bare-chested holding the shirt in one fist as he regarded his partner still standing before him in nothing but her thin little blanket.

"You were pretending it was one of mine, weren't you?" he accused with an impish grin and cocky tilt of his head.

Kensi blushed at the not-inaccurate allegation. "No…"

"Come on…LAPD? Really?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she evaded, quickly grabbing her own set of clothes to dress in and escaping to the bathroom to do so.

"You totally want to sleep in my shirt!" Deeks hollered after her. Chuckling to himself, he pulled the black fabric over his head.

It fit him just fine, which wasn't all that surprising. After all, if Kensi was going to pretend to sleep in his shirt, she logically would have chosen one his size to be more properly authentic.

He was pleased to find that his jeans — discarded earlier in the hallway — had somehow escaped the brunt of the cookie dough attack. He put them back on and scrubbed at the one little smear on the right knee with a wet paper towel.

Barefoot in Kensi's kitchen, he got to work cleaning up the mess they'd made.

Kensi joined him a minute later, also fully dressed except for her own bare feet. As Deeks cleaned, she stirred up a new (and mistake-free) bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough, and –feeling quite expert in her dough-shaping skills at this point — dropped round globs onto her second greased baking sheet.

This time she set the timer on the oven so there would be no repeat of the previous burnt disaster. Although she wouldn't mind a second round of steamy action on that floor with her partner…

Her cheeks flushed just slightly at the thought of their intimate activities in the past hour.

They'd made love. Twice. First in her shower and then in her bed. That went above and beyond in the 'spicing-up-a-partnership' department!

First they were partners, then best friends, and now lovers. How in the hell were they ever going to go back to being just partners and friends after tonight?

Well, they'd figure it out. They always did.

In the meantime she joined him on the now-clean kitchen floor, sitting with her back flush against his chest and his back pressed against the closed door of her refrigerator.

A plate of perfectly baked chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven rested beside her on his left thigh, while his right knee was bent casually at her other side, trapping her between his legs.

Well, not trapped, exactly. She could've easily gotten up if she'd wanted to.

But she was far more contented to lean back into him and feel both of his strong arms around her as they shared the plate of warm cookies and a glass of cold milk.

Kensi, of course, polished off more than Deeks did. She devoured two in the time it took him to savor one.

Deeks dipped another chocolate chip cookie into the glass of milk in Kensi's hand and poked it into his mouth. "Delicious," he mumbled with his mouth full.

He chewed and swallowed, adding, "You've ruined me. I don't think I can go back to snickerdoodles after this."

Kensi's eyes sparkled up at him as she popped a bite of cookie into her own mouth. "No? Aren't snickerdoodles your favorite?"

"Mmm…not anymore. Totally overrated."

Kensi grinned in agreement, settling even more comfortably against him. "Totally."

"So…" Deeks tightened his arm around her waist, his free hand grabbing one more cookie to dunk it into the milk. "What fantastic dish are we making tomorrow night?"

"I dunno," Kensi replied. "At this point, I'm up for anything."

Deeks took a bite of his soggy cookie. "Awesome."