"'Fraid you have that effect on people, love. They're either sadistic bastards like I am – who stand tall and take your punishment just to prove that they can handle it, or they're like Foster, here. Too poised and polite to volley insults, so they look for an escape hatch instead. Fight or flight, that is. She just happens to be smart enough to choose 'flight.' Because let's face it, love. She's too good to ever stoop to your level."

In like a lion and out like a lamb.

What had begun as a hate filled rant, filled with shouting and accusations, ended with silence when Zoe finally turned to leave. She kept her head held high and her cold, steely gaze fixed straight in front of her – not daring to look at anyone or anything, especially Gillian.

When she was finally gone, Cal waited only a few moments, at best, before he used the intercom on his phone to reach the front desk. And during those few short, tension-filled minutes, his eyes never once strayed from Gillian's face. He was intently focused, and when prompted by the Ana's voice on the other end of the line, he only managed to speak a few words.

"Is she gone?"

That was it. Just three words - three single syllables that made her heart begin to race and her palms begin to sweat, because the sheer number of possibilities they brought to the table were infinite. The inflection in his voice, the tilt of his head, and the tension in his frame… all of those things, in any combination, had the potential to mean something… different. Something new. They were subtle, minor changes that meant little to the rest of the world, but spoke volumes to Gillian.

He was marginally angry, of course; she'd expected that. Those feelings surfaced each and every time she did something risky, because he was always afraid she might get hurt. But behind it – behind the few tendrils of anger that had already begun to fade – Gillian saw something that was so unbelievably strong and appealing that it nearly stole her breath.

Uh-oh.

She squeezed her eyes shut in an effort to regain her composure, and when she opened them again, she noticed Cal's jaw muscles clenching rhythmically as he waited for a reply to his question. When it came ("Yes, Doctor. Lightman. Ms. Landau just left…"), the tension in his body did not dissipate. Instead, it grew.

His eyes were dark. Dangerous. And because she still hadn't managed to move, and she was too far away to see many of the finer details in his face, Gillian could not decide if the shift in the color of his pupils was prompted by the anger that she'd already seen, or by something entirely… different.

She was a vocal expert; trained to recognize inflection, speech pattern, and sentence structure. She knew how to put those clues together to form an opinion about a person's emotional response. About their feelings. But Cal gave her nothing to work with. Aside from his single question about Zoe's departure, he'd gone silent – standing stock still behind his desk and studying her features with wide, pensive eyes.

They were trying to read each other. That much was obvious. They were trying to find their footing; to navigate terrain that had been left shaky and soiled in Zoe's tumultuous wake. Gillian's impulse told her that Cal was waiting for her to make the first move. To set the pace. To decide if she wanted to opt for radical honesty and explain what she'd done and how she'd done it, or… rely on the theory of plausible deniability to sweep everything under the rug.

"It's just a coincidence. Right, Gill? Because surely there's no way to prove that either one of us – most especially you – had even the slightest hand in any of this. Is there?"

Those were the words that echoed through her mind as she watched Cal lift his hands from the phone and drop them to his sides. She heard the inflection again in her memory, just as it sounded a few moments earlier. She remembered the control in his voice… remembered the way that he'd looked at her. The way he'd trusted her. And when each of those factors inevitably combined, she just… snapped. In that moment, her decision was made.

She owed him the truth. About Jacobs… about Alec… about everything.

"Listen, Cal… I can explain."

Gillian's voice was uncharacteristically quiet, as if the volume of her own words somehow gave them power she didn't want to comprehend. She was timid and bashful; self-conscious, and shy, and so bloody beautiful that he had no idea at all how he managed to simply stand there and watch her for as long as he had.

And trust him, that was a literal question in his mind - not a string of clichéd words, or meaningless phrases. Because he truly didn't know how he managed to stand there – behind the desk, beside the phone, and away from her – for even so much as a second, let alone a few full minutes, when all he wanted to do… was hold her.

Jesus, he did not understand what was happening. Not at all.

He wasn't a blind man, though, and he certainly wasn't stupid. He'd seen the changes. Remembered the way he pictured her face in his mind when he'd poured himself into bed and allowed himself to wonder if he'd ever manage to touch her again without automatically craving more. He remembered the way he'd felt two mornings earlier, when the dumbfounded revelation that he was beginning to fall in love with her finally made itself known.

And even then, as scared as he'd been of facing that truth... he still wanted more.

He remembered how it had felt to hold her in that restaurant, weeks ago; how reassuring it felt to know that his words made her smile. That his presence brought her comfort. And since then, he'd pictured her body against his, more times than he could even count, wrapped in an embrace that turned into a kiss that always, always turned into…

More.

So while he knew exactly what the feelings were – and what they had the potential to become – the part that he could not understand was how in bloody hell they'd managed to develop so quickly. It felt as though someone had set them on fast forward; that some higher power had taken "The Line" they'd naively tried to respect, snatched it up, and dangled it over their heads, just to taunt them.

Little more than one month ago they'd been wrapped on Gillian's sofa, bound by embarrassment and friendship and so many secrets. And now, as his darkened eyes roamed her features – from her throat to her lips, to the slope of her shoulders and the flush of her chest – Cal knew only one truth.

That "Line" dangling above their heads?

Gillian had already crossed it. She'd made the first move; she'd taken the first step.

And now he was ready to make the second one.

"Listen, Cal… I can explain."

He didn't respond right away. He let her wait in silence, as slow, deliberate movements brought him ever closer to the spot where she stood, right in the center of the room. His eyes roamed her body, and his fists remained clenched at his sides. And when his gaze dropped from her throat, to her shoulders, then finally to her cleavage, she felt tiny pinpricks of heat begin to form at the base of her spine and flow upward, until they traveled throughout every last inch of her entire body.

Her reaction to him was… primal.

Under the heat of his stare, Gillian swallowed. She felt the need to fill the silence that had fallen between them. To convince herself everything was still perfectly normal. That she was fine, and he was fine, and they were fine… all while her mind's eye began to conjure up a dozen different images of his lean, strong body surging against hers and capturing her in an embrace, that turned into a kiss, that turned – blissfully – into more.

So much more.

She didn't know which one of them had actually taken the steps, but suddenly he was right there. Inches, rather than feet, away from her. Too close for things to be considered conversational, and too far away for them to become sexual. Push and pull… truth or denial… the fact was, she wanted him to come closer, even as one tiny fragment of her conscience tried to argue that she was treading on very dangerous ground.

She wasn't blind, though, and she wasn't stupid. She'd seen the changes; remembered how she felt when he held her in that restaurant. How his words had made her smile, and his presence had brought her peace. She remembered picturing his face as her anchor during that horrible situation with Jacobs; knew that she'd drawn strength from his photograph even when he couldn't be there with her in flesh and blood. And of course, she remembered reaching out to him, just to hear his voice, when the demons in her own imagination wouldn't allow her to find comfort alone.

It was obvious that her feelings for him had been changing for weeks, now. That they had already begun to grow past the boundaries designed to contain them, and that she'd soon have to make a choice between letting them flourish, or… try to deny what was almost certainly inevitable.

In her fantasies – which had become more and more vibrant as time progressed – she often pictured his body against hers, wrapped in an embrace that turned into a kiss that always, always turned into…

More.

And while she knew exactly what her feelings had the potential to become, the part that she could not understand was how they'd managed to develop so quickly. It felt as though someone had set their relationship on fast forward; that some higher power had taken "The Line" she'd invented – the one they'd both naively tried to respect – and snatched it up to dangle over their heads, just to torment them. Just to make a point that it was wrong to want anything more than what they already had.

And yes, Gillian knew that it was wrong. She knew that she was playing with fire, and risking what was left of her marriage in the process. Trouble was, it was becoming harder and harder to care about the consequences.

She tried to be patient. Tried to stand there and let him decide what happened next. But her resolve crumbled after less than a minute, and she reached for him with hands that trembled a little bit more than she would've liked. "I know I overstepped the line," she said lamely, just because there was still too much silence between them. "And I know that I went so far past the damn thing that I practically erased it completely, but I just… I just wanted to…"

For whatever reason, Cal chose that particular moment to interrupt her explanation and offer two short, strained words that were filled with indecipherable emotion. With his fists still clenched and his mouth set in a firm line, he shifted even closer toward her. "Gillian, please…"

Because her heartbeat was thudding so loudly and every last nerve ending in her body feeling as though it had suddenly begun to fray, Gillian misread what he was trying to say. She was truly worried that what she read on his face was only anger, complete with blackened eyes and labored breathing. If it had been anyone else standing in front of her, she might've felt uncomfortable. But it was Cal, and she felt perfectly safe. And so when his white-knuckled grip caught her attention and her imagination, she couldn't help but picture that very same hand wrapped around her waist, or her hip, or her wrists, in a touch that was designed to bring pleasure, rather than pain.

Passion, rather than anger.

In that moment, all she wanted to do was soothe him. To justify her actions and make him understand that she'd never meant to cause a problem for anyone, least of all him. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined herself with enough nerve to try and blackmail anyone, but she'd done it for him with barely even a shred of hesitation. And once the entirety of that truth was revealed, she had no idea how he'd react.

He'd either eat her alive (so to speak) for daring to be so stupid, or… not.

Gillian sighed. She felt like a teenager – hormonal and needy and overly dramatic. After all, this was Cal – the man she trusted more than anyone else in the entire world. Yes, he was angry, but no, she wasn't afraid of him. She knew that he'd never physically harm her. And even if she had been wrong… even if it was arousal she still saw on his face… it wasn't like he was going to do anything about it.

Right?

It wasn't like he was going to press her against the wall, or the door, or the bookcase and ravage her with hands and mouth until the only thing either one of them understood was that they needed to invest in soundproof walls.

Was it?

A sudden narrowing in Cal's eyes told Gillian that he'd probably just seen the path her thoughts had taken, and embarrassment snapped her back to reality in an instant. She needed to calm down. Take a few deep breaths, focus, and just talk to him.

And so she gave a frustrated sigh, willing her fingers to hold steady as she reached out for him again. "Believe me, Cal, I never meant to make anything worse. I swear to you, I only wanted to help."

A quick flex of his bicep caught her attention, and she couldn't help but notice the way the muscles pulled against his skin, shifting between ink and bone in a pattern she couldn't help but study. It did absolutely nothing to help her straying thoughts, or calm her heartbeat, or remind her that all she could do to him – all she could do with him – was talk.

Just talk.

She was too distracted to notice when he deliberately repeated the same motion with the other arm. She didn't realize that he was testing her; teasing her. And she certainly didn't hear the gruff, guttural sound that came out of his mouth when he opened it to speak again. All she heard was the repetitious sound of her own name.

"Gillian..."

It was a warning. A plea. And when she finally had sense enough to look at him – to really look at him, into his eyes, and past the assumptions she'd made that had oh-so stupidly tried to convince her he was angry – she shivered. Because what she saw in that moment wasn't anything even close to anger.

And then her fingers were trembling even more, though she wouldn't have imagined it possible. Her heartbeat took off like a rocket, and all the swirling thoughts in her brain streamlined into a single, sexual demand that made her resolve begin to crumble and her moral compass begin to forget that what she wanted – desperately wanted – was absolutely, unconditionally wrong.

Her mind knew it was wrong to want him so badly, but her body?

Her body didn't care. It wanted to forget all about marriage, divorce, blackmail, friendship, and risk – all of it – and just feel.

Through gritted teeth, Cal only managed to speak three short words, but they were enough make the burgeoning sexual tension in the room become thick and palpable and oh-so appetizing.

"Lock. The. Door."

A/N: Thanks for reading! Next chapter coming soon - I promise. ;)