They walked inside with the groceries, and Tim helped put everything away then announced he was going to workout. The machine in his office was about to get a serious workout Lucy thought. He was clearly thrown by what happened in the parking lot. They needed to find a better way to handle this undercover thing.
Lucy went upstairs and showered, then got dinner ready, and thought the best way to start this conversation out with Tim would be to start out like they had the first night. Drinks on the deck.
This time she made up a batch of margaritas. She heard him head up to shower about 530.
Table set, pitcher of margaritas on the rocks with the ice he was so fond of, and she'd paid attention to his list, steaks were marinating, she'd made a spinach salad to go with it.
Trying out the back deck doors she opened the whole thing up. It really made the house seem even bigger having the entire length of the house open. Standing in the kitchen looking toward the back of the house, it was as if the Pacific was part of the house. She couldn't believe this was going to be her life for a few weeks. Having to share her tiny apartment when this was over was going to be such a let down she thought smiling.
When Tim came down she was ready for him. She met him at the base of the stairs with a margarita ready for him.
"Whoa what'd I do to deserve this" he looked at the table already set, the fire pit outside burning, the grill prepped and ready.
"Just have a seat, enjoy your drink", and she led him out to the deck. He had one eyebrow raised, and thought he needed to steel himself against whatever she had planned. Clearly she was buttering him up for something. He guessed it would be her idea of how they were going to get this situation under control.
He sat down and she went back in to finish up, and get her own drink.
She brought the pitcher out with her, noting he'd already finished half, was comfortably leaned back into the sofa, feet up on the fire pit. She refilled his and sat down on the outdoor sofa. Right next to him. Closer than she needed to. He pulled back a little.
"Nope" she said taking a drink and leaning back into him. "We need to talk about this" she said boldly.
Before he could object she held a finger up to his lips. For once she wasn't feeling the crazy heat of being this close to him, likely because she had an agenda, and had prepared this talk all afternoon.
"Let me finish". When he finally nodded she took her finger away.
"This isn't going away, and we can't have it getting out of control like earlier" she started. So far he agreed, they shouldn't be letting it get out of control.
"Have you heard of exposure therapy?" she asked.
"Like if you're afraid of spiders so you force yourself to be locked in a box with a hundred spiders". He said sarcastically.
Lucy laughed "Yea, like that. I think that's the route we need to take here".
Tim raised his eyebrows at her..
"I think trying it out here where no one sees, try to either get it all out of our system or at least practice getting it under some kind of control so we can fake it out in public. Because right now, we are failing at faking it".
Tim reached for his drink again, emptied the glass, and refilled it before leaning back. He couldn't argue with her logic, they were failing pretty drastically at trying to fake being intimate, beyond that he didn't know what to say. The thought of 'practicing' being intimate with her in the house where nothing would stop them from crossing the line into actual intimacy scared him, he did not like feeling so out of control.
He sighed, looked at her nodding for her to go on. Frankly he didn't have a better idea. Before this assignment he had thought at least in a few weeks he wouldn't be with her 12 hours a day 4 days a week so it was bound to be easier if and when he did see her.
"Look, I don't know what all these feelings I'm having actually mean, maybe I'm just all tied up in the fact you saved my life, literally breathed life back into me, but Tim, it doesn't feel like just a personal connection, it feels like more. Where that would or could go, I have no idea. But for now what if we just put all of that on hold and concentrate on controlling our physical reactions to each other for this job. I mean it's pretty impossible to ignore the chemistry when there's a fire every time we get close".
She was proud of herself, she was trying to look at this logically. Not tell him the whole truth. That she really felt like she was falling for him, that every time he looked into her eyes, or called her by her name, her knees got weak and her head spun. That could wait until the assignment was over, but she felt like she needed to acknowledge it was a thing. They were causing people to stop what they were doing and stare at them it was so bad.
Tim couldn't disagree. Damn if she wasn't truly the best rookie he'd ever trained. The admiration he felt for her at that moment wasn't helping the feelings for her he was trying to squash. But the idea of admitting that was a thing, but saying lets not talk about it until this is over was appealing. Plus there really was no ignoring the sparks between them.
"Okay". Tim looked at her.
"Huh"? She had expected an argument, discussion, list of reasons why they should just suck it up and keep trying to ignore everything.
"I think that's a good idea, what's your exposure therapy plan" he asked.
Her mouth was still open, she was not expecting total agreement from him.
"That's it, you just agree with me"?
"Yes, I definitely am on board with not talking about feelings right now, but we have to do something so it's not so awkward when we are around other people. We need to behave more like a couple who's been married 5 years not 5 minutes".
Lucy grinned "Tim Bradford admitting I have the best plan, let me just revel in that for a minute".
"Yea, yea, okay" He looks away, Lucy gloating over a good job is another feeling he is trying to ignore, that side of Lucy is one he loves to see, but won't ever admit that. He hadn't seen that side of her often in the past few months, and was trying to ignore feelings, not fan flames under them. "So what's your plan Chen".
"We are going to have a whole 5 year relationship in 24 hours" she stated.
He tilted his head squinting his eyes at her.
"Hear me out, tonight we're dating, tomorrow married, then by the time we go to dinner tomorrow we will have gotten some of this out of our system and be able to just be around each other. Like tonight we are going to act or pretend like we are really together, dating, and physically just be around each other".
"Get it out of our system how" he asked.
She took his drink, and placed both of them back on the table. She had enough of a buzz to move forward with her plan. Lucy leaned over, staring at Tim's full lips, she nervously pulled her bottom lip in biting it, looked back up at his eyes, he was staring at her lips, but looked up into her eyes as well.
"Just go with this, we won't let it go too far" she said "I promise". and with that she moved forward taking his bottom lip with hers, catching him a little off guard. He placed his hands on her upper arms as if he were going to stop her from getting too close, but as soon as her tongue touched his lip, he was gone. He parted his lips allowing her tongue full access their kiss turned passionate rekindling that fire in seconds.
His hands still on her arms he pulled her over into his lap, their kiss deepening, breathless his tongue swirled over hers again and again. Tim's hands roamed over her back, resting on her hips. Lucy straddled him, her knees on either side of his waist holding her up, her hands moved into his hair. They were both dizzy from the sensation of kissing with abandon, nothing stopping them in the privacy of the back deck.
They finally parted, both of them panting, and Lucy, still holding herself up with her knees, "That wasn't so bad was it" smiling down at him. He brought his hand up behind her head pulling her towards him, and kissed her neck, sucking on her pulse point, she sighed, tilting her head back. As she did she relaxed into his lap, causing him to grip her waist at the contact between them. He growled her name into her neck.
He took her face in his hands, bringing her lips back down to his kissing her again, his hands moved away from her face once he had her in place with his lips, he ran them down her body, then gripped her at the waist, she moaned into into his mouth as he rolled her hips grinding her against him, knowing this had almost caused her to come undone last night.
He could feel her start to shudder as he rolled her against him again, this time she had to break free from their kiss to call his name out breathlessly as she braced herself on his shoulders, coming undone right there. Then she fell back against his chest, panting into his neck.
Lucy couldn't believe this had happened so quickly, her intent was they'd just make out for a few minutes and go eat dinner, but all this seemed to do was make her want him more. For the moment she was as limp as a rag doll against him, breathing heavily into his neck, she could barely move. His fingers were lazily tracing circles on her back while she came to her senses.
Tim was amazed at how fast that has escalated. He knew he could escalate it further pretty easily at this point but thought this was enough for right now. Although he wasn't sure if this was going to help or hurt them, they were supposed to be getting this out of their system. All he knew for sure now was that he wanted to keep going, but he had to admit knowing they'd gotten to this point here made him feel more relaxed, he could have her in his lap like this but not feel this all consuming need to finish what they started - at least right this second.
After a few minutes she sat up looking down at him, neither of them looking away. Her face still flushed, he reached up and brushed that curl behind her ear, the one that always broke free when she worked out. She smiled and closed her eyes.
"What do you say I get those steaks cooked" he said quietly breaking the silence.
