Author's Note: This was supposed to be Hotch's birthday, but then I started a little prelim to ramp it up, and the prelim ended up taking on a life of its own. It's a breezy chapter though. Just popping in with them at different points throughout the next few days, so it's a 'light' read :)

Prompt Set #28 (February 2013)

Author: Catherine Bybee

Title Challenge: Not Quite Dating

Not Quite Dating

Monday morning, Hotch had a class to teach at nine and then a budget meeting at two, so he set the alarm on his phone to wake him up at five. That was two hours earlier than the alarm on Emily's bedside clock.

Fortunately she barely stirred when his phone started buzzing.

And after he'd reluctantly let her go, and slipped out of the warm bed to take a quick shower and shave, he came back out to get dressed in the dark. Unfortunately though, he was a little out of practice at getting dressed in the dark . . . it hadn't been an issue since Haley left a year earlier . . . and he tripped over one of his shoes.

Emily clicked on the light just as he leaned over to pick it up.

"What time is it?"

Her voice was hoarse and gravelly . . . he could tell she was barely awake. He walked over and sat down on the edge of the mattress.

"A little after five," he whispered back while brushing her hair off her cheek, "sorry I woke you. I meant to tell you last night that I had to go in early. I have a class first thing this morning, and a meeting later that I need time to prepare for."

Seeing Emily's sleepy face wrinkle in confusion, and watching her clearly befuddled brain trying to process his words . . . her eyes were half closed . . . Hotch's expression softened. Then he leaned in to give her a kiss goodbye.

"You go back to sleep," he whispered as he pulled away, "I'll be gone when you get in, but I'll see you later this afternoon."

Emily gave him a sleepy smile.

"K," she murmured back as her hand came out to pat his cheek, "have a good day."

His lip quirked up.

"You too."

Then he pressed another kiss to her forehead. And when Emily's eyes started to fall shut again, he felt a little tug in his gut. There was something about a beautiful woman and a warm bed.

He really didn't want to go.

But . . . he bit back a sigh . . . go he must. He had work. He always had work. And he really did need the extra two hours to prep for the budget review. God help him if Strauss asked any questions about the Q1 expenditures and he got caught short. So with another muffled sigh, he rose up to his feet.

Emily had already fallen back to sleep.

So he checked her alarm . . . reset it to give her another ten minutes to make up for waking her up two hours early . . . then picked up his gun and phone from the nightstand, and snapped off the bedside lamp.

After he got downstairs, he filled Emily's coffeemaker and set the timer for it to start percolating five minutes before her alarm went off. The last thing he did before leaving the apartment, was to scribble her a note that he left lying next to what he had learned the previous week, was her favorite coffee mug. Once all that was done though, he turned the lights out again, grabbed his bag and his suit jacket, and headed out the front door.

He made sure the lock clicked behind him.

/*/*/*/

Emily woke up to the sound of her alarm going off and the smell of coffee in the air. For a second she was utterly confused . . . she lived alone, how was there coffee? But then her eyes crinkled when she remembered that Hotch had stayed over. And then she flashed on him getting up earlier, so he must have set the timer on the coffeemaker before he left.

Sweet man.

So with a muffled yawn, she rolled over to turn off the annoying buzzing at her side. Then she sat up and scrubbed her hands down her face.

Though she'd usually hop in the shower first thing when she awoke, Emily wasn't about to look a gift cup of fresh coffee in the mouth. So she stumbled out of bed in her flannel pajama pants and Hotch's borrowed FBI T-shirt. A T-shirt she was thinking about keeping/stealing.

It was really comfortable for sleeping.

When she got downstairs, she was still yawning and rubbing her face, trying to decide if Hotch would mind parting with an article of clothing. Then she walked into the kitchen to see her favorite Picasso mug on the counter next to the coffeemaker with the visible carafe of freshly brewed coffee. Her eyes crinkled.

Again, sweet man.

Then she noticed the piece of paper lying next to the mug, and her eyes widened slightly.

What's this?

She picked it up.

'Sorry I had to leave, the bed was nice and warm. Actually you were nice and warm, the bed was incidental. Either way, thank you again for having me over for Chinese and Jasmine Bogart. How about next Sunday we do pizza and Cary Grant? Or does he go by Bianca?'

By the time she was done reading the note, Emily had a bright, watery, smile on her face.

Sweet, adorable and funny. Not to mention, considerate enough to actually think to leave a note saying goodbye. If he kept it up . . . she shook her head and put the note back on the counter . . . by the time this affair was over, she was going to be ruined for all other men.

Ah hell . . . Emily huffed to herself as she reached out to pick up the coffee carafe . . . given how many orgasms he was capable of delivering, she'd probably been ruined for all other men by their second night together.

Aaron Hotchner was definitely going to be a hard act to follow.

But . . . Emily shook her head slightly as she lifted the mug to her mouth . . . no use thinking about the future. They were very much living in the right now. And right now, she had a handsome man who was a fabulous lover and did nice things for her.

What else could a girl need?

/*/*/*/

Traffic leaving the city was light . . . a lot of people probably taking a long weekend . . . so even though she left the house about ten minutes later than usual, Emily still arrived at the office a few minutes early. When she walked up to her desk, her eyes widened when she saw a little white bakery bag sitting on her blotter. Then her lip quirked up.

Hotch . . . again. It had to be. And her bag slid to the ground just as her eyes snapped up to his office.

His lights were out.

Must've already left for his class.

And hardly anyone else was in yet, it was barely eight-thirty, so with an expectant smile on her face, she opened the small wax bag.

Inside she found a gooey raspberry cheese Danish . . . it looked delicious and smelled even better . . . and a giant, fresh baked, chocolate chip cookie.

Ditto on the sensory overload there.

Each item was wrapped in its own wax paper, and a little sticky note was stuck to the outside of the cookie wrapper.

'This one is for AFTER lunch, Prentiss.'

The 'after' was capitalized and underlined . . . twice. Emily burst out laughing, then quickly slapped her hand over her mouth.

Even if there were only four other people in the bullpen, it wouldn't do to draw attention to herself. Or more specifically herself, and her little present.

People might wonder where she got it.

So she put the Danish on a napkin, then she tucked the cookie back into the bag, and tucked the bag into her side desk drawer.

The sticky note she put in her purse.

Even if the words were printed, again, it was proof of a gift that she didn't want anybody to know that she'd received. So it would be best to take it home.

But besides that though . . . her eyes crinkled as she started up her computer . . . she liked it.

/*/*/*/

Emily's vagina was still a penis free zone from Monday into Tuesday night. But then Wednesday afternoon, she popped into Hotch's office and shut the door behind her. When he looked up, she shot him a big grin.

"Landing strip is once again cleared for arrivals."

That was the beauty of being on the pill. Her periods were nice and regimented. They'd usually left town completely by day five.

Hotch's lips twitched slightly.

"Roger that. So how about we book that charter for," he checked his watch and then his desk calendar before his eyebrow inched up, "nineteen hundred hours?"

She nodded and gave him a little smile.

"Works for me. Do you want me to order dinner?"

"Um," Hotch bit his lip, "if you want, I can make dinner. Spaghetti would be easy. And I noticed on Sunday that you had the basics in the pantry."

It would be nice to make somebody else dinner again besides just Jack. His son wasn't generally a fussy eater, but his culinary palette was still fairly limited. Hotch adding a sprinkle of cheddar to the mac and cheese last month had been enough to throw Jack into a tailspin. "But it tastes FUNNY, daddy," had been run on a repeat loop all through dinner. A dinner that ended up only being half eaten. After that, Hotch had decided to stick with the powdered cheese alone until Jack hit four.

Then they could try to mix it up again.

"That'll be nice," Emily's lip quirked up, "and while I'm waiting for you to arrive, I'll dig out my pots and blow off the dust."

Hotch chuckled.

"Yes, please. Dust free pots would be good." And he was just about to open his mouth again, when his phone rang. When he saw the caller ID, his nose wrinkled slightly.

"Ah," he put his hand on the receiver, "this is Los Angeles, and I have to take it. Agent Ramirez is trying to get a transfer out there and I promised I'd be available today for a reference call. So," he picked up the ringing phone and put his hand over the mouthpiece, "see you tonight," he whispered.

After Emily mouthed back a, 'bye,' she gave Hotch a little wave and slipped back out of his office. Her brain was whirling with excitement as she walked back down the stairs, considering what she wanted to be wearing when he came over.

Maybe something a little slutty.

It would be a treat for him to make up for Sunday's communication mix up. Not that they hadn't had a very nice day anyway, but . . . she dropped back into her chair . . . it had still been a mix up worthy of an apology.

And nothing put a girl's karma back in the black, quite like a little skin on display.

And fortunately she was a multi-tasker. So with the back of her brain digging through the contents of her lingerie drawer, she settled in at her desk to read over the latest ViCAP bulletins.

Three hours until she could go.

/*/*/*/

That night, Emily did indeed greet Hotch with (more) than a little skin on display. She was wearing the black and white flowered teddy that she'd put back in the drawer the week before.

It barely covered, well, not a lot.

Hotch took one look at her, dropped his bags on the floor, scooped her up, and tossed her over his shoulder. As with the week before, the accompaniment for him jogging up the steps, was the sound of her upside down giggling. And then they spent the next two hours making up for their lost Sunday.

Emily was pretty sure that she set a Guinness record for greatest number of orgasms in the smallest period of time. Hotch told her that if she wanted to look it up, to make sure she did it on her personal laptop.

He didn't want to have to explain that google search to the tech guys.

And given how industrious their activities were, it wasn't surprising that Hotch . . . as with the week before . . . needed a nap when they were done. The woman did wipe him out. But by ten-thirty, he was feeling completely rejuvenated. Well, except for a minor case of starvation.

He'd burned off a hell of a lot of calories.

So when Emily went into the bathroom to freshen up, he went downstairs in his boxers to start their late dinner. First he turned on the pot of water that Emily had already filled and left sitting on the stove. Then he dug into the back of the freezer to get the bag of pre-cooked meatballs that he'd seen in there the week before when she was taking out her ice cream.

A half dozen of the meatballs went into a separate pot that he then filled with two cans of diced tomatoes from the cabinet. He was just measuring out the basil and garlic powder, when he heard Emily come down the stairs. Then a moment later she was wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Where's my dinner, woman?"

He chuckled and gave another shake of oregano into the dish he was stirring.

"It's coming, dear."

Then he put a cover on the pot, checked the heat on the spaghetti, and turned around to see Emily in his dress shirt, licking her lips.

"I'm so hungry I could eat you."

"You already did that earlier," he responded drolly, memories of her talented lollipop sucks still fresh in his head, "remember?"

They were still going slow on the blow jobs . . . a bit of licking and kissing had been allowed . . . but tonight she'd asked if it would be okay if they tried out the whole enchilada again soon.

And given that he had been enjoying the licking and the kissing quite a bit, he had said okay.

He could always shut it down if he started feeling uncomfortable.

But he could tell from the sheepish grin Emily was giving him, that she was remembering how they'd started up round two that evening. At the time she'd made her presence known down below, he had been checking his voicemail.

The phone had nearly gotten thrown across the room.

"Oh yeah," she leaned up to smack a kiss on his lips, "I do remember." Then she winked and laced her arms around his neck, "that was good stuff."

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered while scooping her up in his arms. "I know. I taste amazing."

And with her chuckling in his ear, he hefted her up a little higher, and started walking down to the living room.

"You want to watch TV?" He asked, while dropping the two of them down onto the couch.

Emily shook her head.

"Not yet," she nuzzled his neck, "let's just sit for a minute."

"Okay," he bit back a sigh, "sounds good to me."

And with Emily shifting slightly in his arms, he settled back against the couch. She rubbed her cheek on his bare shoulder.

"You smell good."

"I think it's the sauce," he responded drolly, and she chuckled.

"Yeah, there's that too, but this," she kissed his shoulder, "is you." She kissed him again . . . and again.

"And you smell yummy."

It was a mixture of his fading aftershave, his regular Hotch smell that she'd always found so comforting, and then there was this new scent that lingered. This 'post coitus' musk that she was now so intimately acquainted with.

It drove her wild.

And then one of his hands slid down to run along her bare thigh.

"I'm all for a final round before we go to sleep," he whispered in her ear, "but fair warning, if I don't get some of those carbs in me first, I might just pass out on top of you."

Emily lifted her head to give him a smirk.

"Finally, an excuse for me to get on top."

His lip quirked up.

"Always working an angle aren't you, Prentiss?"

"Yeah," she rolled her eyes, "you got me. I was hoping to drive you the point of hunger induced sexual exhaustion, for the sole purpose of working in a bit of cowgirl before the weekend."

"See," Hotch harrumphed, "just as I thought, ulterior motives." When her lips began to twitch, he winked. Then he tugged her back down to his chest and whispered in her ear.

"Round three, first half you on top, second half, we do that belly thing you like so much."

She loved the belly thing. And he loved to play with her breasts, so this proposal seemed like a win all around to him.

Emily's eyes crinkled as she nuzzled his throat.

"That sounds perfect."

A/N 2: See, a lightweight chapter. Just gauging how things are moving along in between the bigger stepping stones. And NEXT time, we'll definitely be up to Hotch's birthday.

Thanks everybody for all the feedback here :)