He shifted his hand so it left her jaw and instead rested on her hip. The other hand that had been massaging her neck now pushed her hair back from her ear so he could lean in and whisper directly into it.
"What is he doing now?" Bobby asked, smiling when the hand on his shoulder clenched the material of his costume for a long moment.
The sound of that husky whisper in her ear almost made her jump out of her skin. He expected her to be able to keep a serious eye on this guy while he was doing things like that? It took Alex a minute but she was finally able to choke out a response.
"He's at the edge of the dance floor. Looks like he's waiting for someone to join him," she paused and all she could do was feel Bobby's breath on her neck and the weight of his hands on her. "There's the woman he's been dancing with. I think he's trying to make a move on her," another pause followed. "Oh crap."
"What's the matter?" Bobby asked, and Alex had to fight the urge to react to his whisper by leaning into him. His mouth was only a few centimeters from her skin and it was absolute torture.
"It looks like…wait…yes. He's trying to convince her to come back here where we are. Seems she doesn't want an audience."
"Well we'll just have to convince her that we're far too interested in what we're doing to pay attention to her."
And before she knew what was happening Bobby had placed his lips on the skin of her neck, just below her ear. Her reaction was immediate. She gasped, wrapped her arm around his neck, grabbed the railing with her free hand, and arched into him, all simultaneously. The hand on her hip became an arm snaked around her waist.
"That's perfect, Alex," the words were spoken against her skin and she noticed dimly that his voice was a little hoarser than normal. "Does it seem to be working for them?"
Who cared if it was working for them? It was definitely working for her. But they were there for the case.
The case first, death to Goren for doing this to her later.
She watched Jun-Thai as a distraction. He had been able to convince the woman to come inside and go over to one of the alcoves. Alex's voice emerged from her throat tremendously breathy. "Hmmm. He's definitely convinced. She, on the other hand, keeps looking over here to see if I'm watching her."
"She has to dismiss us from her mind entirely."
Bobby was slowly starting to realize that this was not one of his better laid plans. The longer he stood there holding Alex in his arms the less he cared about the case. He wanted to simply stand there and cause more reactions like the one she had when his lips had touched her neck. He had acted like she was pretending with her reaction to help both of them remember why they were there. But she was so tempting it was getting hard to resist doing more. And when he realized that Jun-Thai's woman didn't buy into their performance he decided to just ask Alex outright to pretend a reaction for fear of what he might do to elicit a response.
"Alex, she needs to believe that you are totally into us and what we're doing over here. I need you to pretend, okay?"
Why pretend when the truth was that she was almost totally into it for real? It was the knowledge that Jun-Thai and his woman were there that was keeping her from doing something really stupid like kissing Bobby and damning the consequences to hell. But she didn't know how to make her reaction any more real without causing her further humiliation. Now his reactions, on the other hand, were something she could work on. They weren't up to par by a long shot.
"I'll try," she said, moving the hand that was holding onto the handrail to the inside of Bobby's jacket, where she placed it on his chest. She lightly scratched the material and the skin underneath while her other hand went to play with his ear, tracing its outline and the sensitive skin just below it.
He groaned aloud and pulled Alex closer, his mouth still on her neck. Well if they didn't believe the performance now they never would, Alex thought. And as she looked over she noticed with some relief that the woman had her eyes closed and was involved in some serious lip-locking. Now all she had to do was tell Bobby. And she would, in a minute. But first she wanted to feel some of those delicious shivers again and so she tilted her head slightly, exposing more of her neck. It was then that she noticed a man making his way over to the other couple. She pressed herself closer to Bobby and whispered into his ear.
"There's a man going over to Jun-Thai and his woman." She made her eyelids droop so it would be hard to tell if her eyes were open or not. This time it was her voice that caused the shivers for him. "Jun-Thai seems pissed. They're walking a little closer to us."
They both tried to slow their breathing so they could hear what was said. It sounded like the words pier and ten but it was hard to make out anything else. Suddenly Jun-Thai and the mystery man both turned toward Goren and Eames and she shut her eyes, hoping they were still buying the couple routine. Bobby felt her stiffen and knew from the lack of voices what it was. So he decided to make another move on Alex and hoped she wouldn't kill him.
"Hold on, Alex," he whispered and then he grazed her neck with his teeth.
"Oh god!" she cried out, tipping her head back slightly when he made contact. One hand had the front of his shirt in a death grip and the other had the collar of his suit coat entangled in it. She was mortified, somewhere way deep down. And she would have slapped him or done something to make him stop if she really wanted to. But that was the problem.
Bobby was torn between wanting Alex to kill him and wanting her to stay put. The way she responded to him filled him with a sensation he hadn't felt in far too long, and he had never felt it to this extent. It was more than simple desire. And it was addictive. It was one of the most powerful feelings he had ever experienced. He couldn't believe that things had gotten out of hand so quickly, and it boggled his mind that they hadn't even kissed…yet.
Once that thought entered his brain he couldn't release it, no matter how inappropriate it was. They hadn't even kissed and he was feeling this wound up over her? How much more intense would it get if they did? The part of Bobby that was the scientist, that part of him that loved to analyze, dissect, and get to the bottom of things, decided that it shouldn't be if they kissed, it should be when. And now worked for him. He could only hope that it worked for Alex.
He brought his lips up to her ear, never leaving her skin, and she shivered in his arms.
"Are they gone yet?" he whispered.
She didn't trust her voice; it would simply give away too much, so she settled on slowly nodding her head.
"Thank god," he growled, moving his head so he could look at her. He brought his hands up and over to frame her face and searched her eyes for a moment. He wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for—fear, disappointment, or a silent entreaty to stop? He found none of those, just a desire that matched his own. And in that moment he damned the consequences of what he was about to do and lowered his lips to hers.
But his cell phone's shrill ring interrupted the moment before he touched her lips and they both sprang back as if dowsed by water. She dipped her head down and crossed her arms about her waist as if she were cold. He wanted to punch something and settled for stabbing the key on his phone.
"Goren," he bit out, already wanting to kill whoever this was.
"It's Deakins."
Bobby barely restrained the urge to howl in frustration.
"Yes, Captain?"
Alex's head shot up at those words and she saw Bobby looking at her. He looked ready to kill someone, Deakins probably, and she almost grinned. Suddenly his whole demeanor changed and she knew it was serious.
"We're on our way."
He punched the phone off and turned to move, placing a hand on her elbow to gently guide her along with him.
"What is it, Bobby?"
"They found an id for one of our vics."
That was certainly worth moving for, especially seeing as this case was the reason for all of the action of the night. They went outside and Alex gave her ticket to the valet. Once the car was in front of them they buckled themselves in and made for the station. She pushed her mask up off of her face as she drove. He broke the silence first.
"I thought I heard the words 'pier' and 'ten,' what about you?"
Like she was really thinking about anything other than what happened between them? Right. But if he could go back to normal so could she.
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Disclaimer: Standard Disclaimer applies, unless you're in a country using the metric system. Then get out the old abacus and make the proper conversions before usage occurs.
Author's Notes: Reviewer shout-outs are below…you guys rock:
Zoiy Grockle—Sorry this isn't soon, at all! Hope it's worth the wait!
Thermy—Well you can thank my sister. She's the one who kept calling me and everyone else a peach for a while there and it just rubbed off on me. And I'm glad you got to work in the CI quote—I'm even happier that I got it! I kind of gave Alex's costume away a bit but I think I have managed to surprise everyone with Bobby's choice, including you so that made me happy. You crack me up, you know that? I'm not sure if they can kick people off for being creepy or not but it's a non-issue with you, I assure you. Tell you what: when I get the whole thing posted if you decide that you want to read more about someone's POV than what's posted you let me know and I'll do my best to accommodate you. I'm so tickled by your review, honestly. You're so generous with your praise and I hope I can keep you interested in the story.
QuasiAngel—Sorry about the whole hanging thing…I tend to do that a bit on the frequent side, don't I? Thank you so much for your kind words. They mean a lot to me.
MsVinD—Because I am evil, that's why. I thought I had cleared that up. I'm glad you're still reading!
Kiera Kingsley—Aww thanks Kiwi! You're the best!
Autumngold—No, that makes you normal, not evil. Sorry I didn't have Jun-Thai trip into a bowl of guacamole and leave Bobby and Alex alone but it just didn't work in the plot….yet. It may still. Thanks for checking in and for the nice things you had to say, they were appreciated.
WwMadz1087—I'm so glad that you can get visuals from my descriptions; it means a lot to me. Sorry I didn't update as soon as I should have.
Fallon3 –LOL…you're flapping on someone's boat like a dying fish? Crack me up! That is just too funny! Thank you so much for making me laugh—I enjoy your sense of humor. Thank you so much for your lavish praise….I hope I can keep you reading.