The ride back to Goren's apartment was awkward, as she had known it would be. They were far-removed now from the almost-something moment they'd shared earlier, and she didn't know about him, but she was busily questioning herself. Now how am I supposed to act? she thought. Frankly, it's easier to be mad at him than to be like this, unsure of my position. Where are we with each other? Should I just wave goodbye when we get to his building and head for my car?

Goren was feeling similarly turbulent. He watched Alex out of the corner of his eye as he drove. He could tell she was thinking hard, but he was afraid to speculate on what she was thinking of. Should he say something? They had been easy with each other on the ride out to the scene, but the wall had come back up, at least partially, since then. He was really starting to hate that damned immaterial wall.

As he turned into his parking garage, he felt his tension increase a notch. What to do now? Say "good night" and send her off? Maybe sweep her up in his arms and carry her to his bedroom?

Ok, maybe not the second one. She'd probably knee him.

He turned off the engine and just sat there, looking at her.

She knew he was looking, but she didn't think she wanted to know why. He was probably wondering why she hadn't gotten out already and made for her car.

"You're probably still . . . a little tipsy," he finally said slowly. "Uh, maybe you should hang out here a little while until you're definitely sober."

She wasn't feeling the least bit drunk, but she had to respect the man for his quick thinking. It was a convenient excuse for both of them. She nodded. "Yeah, maybe I should."

Bobby waited for her to look up so he could smile at her, but she kept her eyes down as she climbed out of the car. "So," he said as they waited for the elevator. "What do you think of this new twist to the case?"

She relaxed a little, back on familiar footing. "What I think is that I am very interested in what Andrew Kim will have to say tomorrow morning."

"Agreed," he said, following her into the elevator car. "Either he's not a very good crook, or someone's doing a good job of framing him."

"Mmm," Alex said, watching the numbers next to the door click from 2 to 3. Goren lived on the sixteenth floor. This was going to be a long ride.

"Something wrong?" he said, bending down to look at her face and casually putting an arm around her shoulders.

Yeah, this elevator is way too small for the two of us, her mind said. "Not at all," her mouth said.

"Because you look . . . uncomfortable. You sure nothing's wrong?"

"I'm fine." I'm about three seconds from having a nervous breakdown trying to figure out where we're going with this, Bobby.

"Ok."

Finally, the numbers changed to 16 and the elevator let out a soft ding. Keeping his arm around her, Goren led her out of the elevator and toward his apartment door, still groping through his mind for what the appropriate behavior would be once he shut the door behind them.

Alex glanced at him as he flipped through his keys, looking for the one to unlock his door. He looked as tense as she felt. Or possibly angry. Bobby's angry face wasn't far from his tense face, she knew.

"Damn it," he muttered, wondering why even the key ring had it in for him tonight.

Eames smirked. He was tense. Definitely tense. "Let me," she said quietly, taking the keys out of his hands and digging through the bundle for the one he could never seem to find. "Here," she said a second later, holding out the brass-colored key to his door.

He took it, shaking his head. "How do you do that?"

She shrugged. "You've got your talents; I've got mine."

"And people say I'm the smart one," he said with a disbelieving chuckle as he swung the door open and ushered her inside.

"You are the smart one," she said. "I'm just the coherent one."

He dropped the keys on an endtable and turned back to her. "I can't argue with 'coherent,' but I maintain that your brain is as good as mine in almost every way. Except maybe when it comes to the 'spotting the most important thing in the room' thing. That, I'm better at."

She couldn't help but laugh at that. "God," she said, slumping against the wall tiredly after a few seconds of laughter exhausted her, "what a night."

"No kidding. I'd offer coffee, but given that sleep would be really helpful tonight . . ."

"No coffee," she agreed. "No tea, either. Nothing caffeinated."

"Yeah," he said with a nod, then fell silent.

Alex looked at him from her place against the wall, waiting for something, anything, to happen.

Nothing happened

After a few seconds, nothing continued to happen.

Then Bobby took a step toward her. "Eames?"

"Yeah."

He took another step. "You tired?"

"No, not really."

"Good." He put his hands on her shoulders, tracing her jaw with his thumbs, and closed the gap that remained between them. "We can always sleep later."

She was shocked to find that the weak-kneed sensation that almost knocked her down last night wasn't a one-time thing. If anything, it was stronger when his lips touched hers this time. She slid her hands under his jacket and around his waist, partly for support and partly because she just needed to touch him.

When she pulled back for a breath, he realized that unless he hunched over her, he couldn't see her face. This was the downside to wanting to kiss someone so much shorter than him, he thought: he never got to see her eyes until the last second. He let out a quiet laugh, telling himself that if having to stretch his neck was his biggest problem with this situation, he was doing fine.

She grabbed his tie, pulling more gently than she had earlier in the day. "What's so funny?"

He wrapped his arms around her, realizing that her body barely made a bump under the oversized shirt. "This standing-up thing . . ." he began, touching her cheek softly. "It's something we're going to have to work on."

Alex stared at him for a second, then burst out laughing.

"Hey, I'm serious," he said, moving his hand from her cheek to her chin and turning her head toward him. "It's going to take some planning."

"Planning," she echoed. "You're so methodical, Detective."

"Out of all the insults you've ever used on me," he said, then paused to kiss her again, "I think that one's the worst."

"Tonight's not the night for insults," she said softly. "That is, unless there's something bad about you I don't already know."

"Like I'm married?"

She pulled her arms out from under his coat and wrapped them around his neck, using her palms to pull his head down to her. "That," she whispered so close to his ear that her lips brushed it, "would definitely be a problem."

"Mmm." Taking advantage of his proximity to her face, he kissed her again. "You already know all my faults, and being married isn't one of them."

She lowered her arms, touching his sleeve. "Move."

"Excuse me?"

"I can't take your coat off when you have your arms around me."

He stood up straight and allowed her to divest him of the jacket, valiantly restraining himself from wincing when she tossed it on the floor. "Better?"

"Mm-hm." She looked up at him and grinned. "You're too damn tall."

"I thought we'd already established that." He tentatively reached for the button at the collar of her shirt, keeping his eyes on her face the whole time. When she made no protest, he slipped it out of the buttonhole, exposing more of her neck. "Maybe you're just too short."

She slid his tie out of its knot. "We could get a stack of telephone books for me to stand on." The tie joined his jacket on the floor. She looked at it for a second, then back up at him. "You're dying to run over there and hang your jacket and tie up, aren't you."

He cleared his throat. "Well, yes. But in this case, they can wait."

"Wow," she said with a giggle as she tugged his shirt out of his pants. "It must be serious if you're willing to let your clothes get wrinkled."

"It's made easier by the fact that I know yours will be getting wrinkled too," he said, nuzzling her neck. "Uh, I mean they might," he hastily corrected himself. He'd known a few women who would have slapped him for implying that he expected to get naked with them.

Luckily for him, Alex didn't appear to be one of them, because she just rolled her eyes. "You get to do the ironing tomorrow morning."

"My pleasure," he mumbled, concentrating on the next button on her shirt. "Why do women's buttons have to be on the wrong side?"

"Only you would come out with something like that when you have a girl pinned against a wall," she said affectionately, pushing his hand away and taking care of the button herself. "Besides, it's your buttons that are on the wrong side, not mine."

He looked down at his still-buttoned shirt and then up at her. "How do you know? You haven't tried them yet."

"Is that a challenge?"

"Help yourself," he said. As she leaned closer to do as he asked, he ran a hand over her hair. "I like the way your shampoo smells," he blurted.

She blinked and took one hand away from his buttons to grab a chunk of her hair, sniffing it. "It doesn't smell like anything right now."

"In the morning it does. It's still a little wet when you come into work."

She raised her eyebrows. "Have you been storing this stuff up until you got me in a situation where it wasn't inappropriate to say?"

"Um, pretty much," he admitted, ducking his head and letting his hands rest on her hips.

"You have such unplumbed depths," she said with a grin as she conquered the last button on his shirt and pulled the two sides apart. "Wow."

"What?" He looked down at her, confused.

Her face turned a dull red. "Uh, nothing. You're just, uh . . . you're in even better shape than I thought you were."

He had no response to that, but he was pretty sure his face was turning red enough to match hers. "Oh."

"It's a compliment, Bobby," she teased, resting her hands on his shoulders as she looked up at him. "Say 'thank you'."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said, moving her hands from his shoulders to his chest.

Bobby swallowed hard, suddenly struck by the fact that this situation bore a disturbing resemblance to some of the dreams he'd had about his partner. Except in those, she was the one half-naked, not him. Their current situation definitely needed to be remedied.

He attacked the buttons on her shirt with renewed gusto.

His progress on her buttons was accompanied by a surprisingly intense expression on his face. Her attention caught, Alex dropped her hands and just watched him.

"Hah," he mumbled as he slipped the last button out of its hole. A moment later, he realized that she was no longer touching him and jerked his head up to see what was wrong.

"Relax," she said, patting him on the cheek. "I was just enjoying your show."

He looked back down at her shirt. "This has to go."

"That can be arranged." She shrugged the shirt off her shoulders and let it drop to the floor. "Problem solved."

"That's why I like you, Eames," he said jovially. "You're a problem solver."

"Your turn," she said, just shaking her head in response to his joke. "You're going to have to give up the shirt, even if it did cost you two hundred dollars."

This time, it was Bobby who threw an item of his clothing onto the floor. Alex rewarded him with a kiss. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he put his arms around her again, savoring the feel of her newly-bared skin. "Did you ever really think about how little you are? I'm serious," he added when she gave him a dirty look. "I know you're a mental giant, but you look so . . . I can see your ribs."

"I can see yours too," she shot back, poking him on one to make her point. "It happens when a person stretches. And I only look tiny compared to you. Compared to normal human beings, I'm just a little smaller than average."

"Tell me if I hurt you, ok?"

She put her arms around his waist and squeezed. "If you're worried about leaving more bruises, don't be; I'm tougher than I look. Most of me has a lot more padding than my wrists did. Besides, Deakins would probably be relieved to find out that I just have an over-eager nighttime visitor and I'm not being beaten." Seeing the genuine concern in his eyes, she sighed. "You won't hurt me, Bobby."

He wasn't totally convinced, but he nodded. "Ok." He looked down at her body pressed against his. "You're . . . uh . . . have I ever told you you're beautiful?"

"No, I don't believe you ever mentioned that particular sentiment at work. Luckily for our jobs."

He frowned, disappointed in himself. "Well, you are."

"Mmm," she said, more concerned with getting the rest of his clothes off.

Bobby, not to be deterred, pushed her back an inch. "It's a compliment, Alex," he mimicked with a grin. "Say 'thank you'."

"Thank you," she said with a roll of her eyes, reaching for his belt. "Now about these pants . . ."

Bobby stared at her. Had she just said what he thought he'd heard? "Uh . . ."

"Sorry," she said, picking up on his tone and moving her hands away. "Maybe I'm a little overeager."

That got a laugh out of him. She couldn't possibly have any stronger an urge to rip off his clothes than he had to rip off hers. He was apparently just better at hiding it. "We have all night."

"Well, actually," she said, checking her watch, which she hadn't gotten around to taking off, "we have . . . a little over two hours before we'd normally be waking up to get ready for work."

He'd lost track of the time, which, given the circumstances, he was perfectly willing to forgive himself for. "Damn."

"Being late to work tomorrow - today - wouldn't look good."

"We could probably still get away with it if we hadn't scheduled that interview so early."

"Since when do you like to play hooky, Bobby Goren?" she teased. "You're supposed to be the model detective."

"I think it started around the time my partner reached for my belt. Speaking of which," he said, looking down at her, "I think it's actually my turn to take off some of your clothes, not the other way around."

"Far be it from me to interfere with your plans," she said, moving away a fraction of an inch so he could get his hands between them.

Pulling off her belt, he dangled it in front of his face. "This thing goes around your whole waist?"

She considered his remark for a moment. "Was that an insult?"

"Of course not." He threw the belt toward the growing pile of clothes by his couch. "I was just thinking that I don't think it would go around one of my thighs, let alone my waist."

"Yeah, well, when I'm six-foot-four, we can compare belt sizes. Until then, you'll just have to accept it."

"Touchy, touchy."

She snorted. "You try spending almost twenty years surrounded by huge Irish guys who think it's cute to have a 'little girl cop' in their precinct. More than twenty years, if you count my family."

"Ok, you have a point there." He'd met her family; he still hadn't figured out how her father's height had been passed down to all of the children except her.

"So there," she said triumphantly, moving her hands slowly back to his belt. "Uh, is this ok?"

"Huh? Yeah." He stared down at her, hypnotized by what he was watching. He'd never dared to hope that Eames's hands would one day actually be in the vicinity of his belt.

She held up his belt, copying what he'd done with hers. "Hmm, I think I could wrap this around me twice. Oh well." The belt went flying, hitting the wall before dropping into the pile.

Bobby couldn't hold back the wince this time.

"Oops." Thinking fast, she hugged him again, this time letting her hands slide a little farther down his back. "Sor-"

Her apology was cut off as Bobby's weight hit her full-force, forcing her back against the wall as he kissed her. He got a hand behind her head just in time to keep it from hitting the wall with equal force.

Startled, she took a second to think about her position, then decided she had absolutely no problem with it as long as she didn't end up with a concussion. Returning her attention to the man currently devouring her neck, she groaned. "Bobby . . ."

He didn't seem to hear her; he was too intent on his exploration of her body. Alex stood, unresisting, fascinated by the sight of Goren completely absorbed in something that wasn't crime- or puzzle-related and equally fascinated by the fact that that "something" was her. Well, and the fact that he seemed to know how to handle her body as well as he knew how to handle her mind. That was rather enjoyable, too.

Finally, he raised his head, dragging his body up hers. "Two hours . . ." he groaned, burying his face in her shoulder.

"I know," she said, pulling his head up and kissing him. "We're going to be zombies tomorrow."

He looked like the thought hadn't occurred to him. "Oh, no sleep," he said after a few seconds. "Right."

She blinked. "What were you thinking?"

"I was, uh . . ." He shook his head. "Nothing. It sounds stupid."

"Uh-uh. You don't get to use the 'stupid' excuse after I just let you throw me up against a wall. I demand restitution."

He looked away from her. "Sorry about that. I was, uh . . ."

"I didn't say I didn't like it," she said pointedly. "Just that I demand payback."

He kissed her instead.

She kissed him back for a minute, then squirmed out from under him. "Don't try to change the subject."

He blinked, trying to slow his breathing. "Is that what I was doing?"

"Tell me what you were thinking."

"Honestly, Alex, it wasn't important. It's a moot point now anyway; we're down to less than an hour."

She checked her watched and realized that he was right. "God damn it!" She could feel it coming - she wouldn't be getting any sleep in the next hour, but judging by the look on Bobby's face, she wouldn't be getting laid, either. "Wait, let me guess what it was."

He shrugged. "Go ahead."

"You were angry that we didn't have a lot of time because you're a perfectionist and being rushed wasn't acceptable for your game plan for tonight."

He stared at her for a few seconds, then shook his head and turned away, running a hand through his hair. "I really don't know why people claim I'm the smart one."

She couldn't believe that after all this time, the guy's type-A personality was still standing in the way of her sex life. "You know, things don't have to be perfect all the time."

He dropped onto the couch and groaned. "This is not how I wanted it to work."

She watched him, holding back a groan of her own. The very picture of the frustrated male animal, she thought. Walking behind the couch, she leaned over him, resting her chin on his shoulder. "You're dead-set on this, aren't you."

"Yes. I'm sorry, Alex."

She sighed. When all else failed, accept reality. "It's ok. From what I hear, it'll be more uncomfortable for you than for me anyway. Oh, but Bobby?"

"Hmm?" he mumbled.

"You better not have any plans for tonight after work."

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A/N: Ok, so smut was never my strong suit. At least I try...