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Harry clicked her fingers at him and motioned for a pen. He tossed her one and she barely acknowledged his effort with a flicker of her eyes. She was busy: he could see that. Obviously some things had progressed in their latest case while he was out. She scribbled something down while holding the phone in the crook of her neck, and she looked so damn adorable that for one split second he was unreasonably jealous of the phone.

That thought tripped something in his brain; when had he started thinking of Harry as adorable? She was beautiful, yes. Hot and sexy and sublime and sensual, and she could do things with her mouth that would make a nun faint, and he had to stop himself right now because those were not thoughts one should have about ones partner while at work. Even if she was gorgeous and alluring and so damned cute when she furrowed her brow in concentration that it elicited an involuntary grin from him.

He pulled a chair around from the other side of the desk so that he was sitting beside her, and waited. She looked up from her notes to find him grinning stupidly at her. Apparently it was infectious because after her eyes narrowed in confusion her lips curved upwards as she mouthed, 'what?' before her attention was again focused on whoever was on the other end of the phone. Fucking adorable.

He was not a man who did adorable. He did sexy and easy and once or twice slightly psychotic, but not adorable. He didn't even know what to do with adorable! He could probably figure it out, he was a detective after all. And Harry was still talking, so he had the time to think about it. So, alright then. Harry on the phone: adorable. Harry with a gun: adorable. But also kinda hot, and just a little bit dangerous, so maybe that cancelled out the adorable aspect of it. Harry in his bed: well, sexy as hell. Nothing adorable about that. But Harry on his couch, feet in his lap: adorable. Harry ironing his shirt because he was running late: adorable. Harry sneaking chips off his plate when she thought he wasn't looking because salad is stupid: adorable. Okay, he got it; he now did adorable. As for cute – well, he knew exactly what to do with cute, but that wasn't gonna fly at work. So she could sit there, exuding cuteness and adorability all she wanted, but now that he knew what she was doing it had absolutely no effect on him. At all.

"Uh huh. Yup. Thanks." And she hung up. "Something funny happen while you were out, Dempsey?"

No. Nothing happened. But now he had to either think up some outlandish story to explain the idiotic grin he'd been grinning for the last five minutes, or let it go and have her think it was just another quirky Dempsey-ism. He almost decided to go with a story when she let the matter drop and filled him in on the phone call.

Or at least he thought she did. He couldn't quite seem to concentrate on what she was saying. Her lips were moving, he could hear noise, but every now and then her tongue ducked out, and that, in combination with her pink glossy lips, was proving to be very, very distracting. Being adorable led to all sorts of trouble, it seemed. Because his brain was busy throwing scenarios at him in which cute and adorable morphed into naked and wanton, and his body was starting to respond.

"Jesus, Harry, if you don't shut the fuck up I'm going to take you right here," he thought, his attention caught on her mouth, on her perfectly pink lips. It took a few moments before he realised that she'd stopped talking, and was looking at him like, well, like she was considering it, actually. Which made no sense at all, unless. . .aw, crap.

He tried to cover his lapse of concentration and professionalism by ignoring it completely and reaching past her for the information she'd jotted down. It would have been a fine plan, too, if she hadn't moved her head at that exact moment so they wound up almost nose to nose. She parted her lips like she was going to kiss him – slap bang in the middle of SI 10, mind you, and his head spun with possibilities. She wouldn't, she might, he shouldn't, but he would, shit, they were both gonna get the sack.

"Dempsey?" she said instead.

"Hmmm?"

Her lips grazed his ear. "This is not the time or the place."

He pulled back. She wasn't. Damn. "I know that, but you started it."

"How exactly?" she asked with amusement.

"You –" He tried to think how he could explain without sounding like a love struck fool, but no valid arguments came to mind. Cute and adorable weren't going to win this one for him. "You just did, okay?"

He rolled his chair back to his side of the desk. "You really need to be more careful about things like that, Harry. I can't always be the one on high alert."

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