She spends the entire drive to his flat arguing with herself, and the trouble with arguing with oneself is that it's usually impossible to declare a winner. She knows she needs to apologise for this morning, for blaming him when it was her own drunken memory loss she was angry with, and even more so for jumping to the conclusion that he was bragging about last night to the guys at work. Had this happened months ago she would have been fully entitled to such an assumption, but she knows that's not who he is now. Slowly she's seen a change in him, a shift towards who he really is as opposed to who he decided he was going to be when he first arrived. He's softer now, more patient, and for the majority of the time he no longer acts like she has no place in the police force simply because she's a woman. He used to look at her the way men often do, with a leer, an obvious interest in one thing only, but now he looks at her like she suspects she looks at him when her guard is down, like he wants her in his life not just his bed. Alright, Angela, here goes.
As she walks towards his door she spots him coming down the steps and they stop almost exactly at the same time. She kicks herself for not even considering he might have plans tonight, and she starts to back up.
"Harry?" The initial look of confusion on his face turns to a smile and she returns it hesitantly.
"Sorry, you're on your way out." She shakes her head, feeling stupid for not calling him first. "It's fine, really, it can wait."
"I was on my way out, yeah." He takes the last couple of steps down and reaches for her, catching her arm to stop her as she starts to turn away. "Wait. I was on my way over to your place."
"You were?" She really, really has to work on this habit she has of jumping to conclusions and then running with them.
"Yep." He squeezes her arm and grins at her. "You saved me a drive. Come in."
He steps back and lets her in ahead of him. He never used to do that either, she wonders if he's aware he does it now, often with a soft palm at her lower back, sometimes a barely concealed lingering look as she passes by him. She's taken by surprise by the plant on the small table as she walks in, looking green and healthy, and properly watered too, if the slight touch to the soil she gives it is any indication.
"Still alive, Dempsey." She turns to him, smirking.
"Hey, I'm watering it!" He tries to look offended, his smile completely invalidating his efforts. "You bought me a plant, you think I'm just going to let it die?"
"Apparently not." She turns the plant pot, just a fraction. "Relax, I'm impressed."
This time he does step ahead of her and she follows him into the kitchen, leaning against the door frame, watching as he moves over to the counter. She noticed how attractive he was from day one, she's a functioning human woman after all, and she's long suspected it was the reason for her initial irritation. It wasn't what she expected to have to deal with. She had been prepared for arrogance, for sexism, for a certain level of resistance, but she hadn't been at all prepared for it to come wrapped in packaging quite so easy on the eye. She used to repeat to herself that he may be attractive, and he may indeed possess a head of hair that she would love to run her hands through, but he was no doubt a complete rogue, breaking hearts all over London. And with the exception of one particularly erotic dream that left her unable to look him in the eye the next day, she was mostly successful in convincing herself that looking at him as anything other than a colleague was a recipe for disaster. Until one day...she wasn't.
"Drink, Harry?" He opens the fridge and turns to glance over his shoulder at her. "Wine? Beer? Not sure I have what we need to run to a Tequila Sunrise."
"It's quite beyond me how anyone ever swears by the hair of the dog as a hangover cure when all I want to do at the very thought of more alcohol right now is lie down and die." She smiles slightly nervously, thinking again about last night, this morning, why she's here. "So you don't need to worry about the lack of cocktail ingredients."
"How does tea sound?" He grins and she sits down at the table, tired all over again after the late night, realising he must be feeling the same way.
"Perfect, thanks." He moves towards the kettle, then to the cupboard, taking out mugs, teabags, then back to the fridge for milk. She can't seem to take her eyes off him, it's as though she couldn't quite accept how she felt until Angela spoke it out loud, and now she's fascinated by his every move. "I'm not sure I ever told you, but this place is nice, Dempsey."
"You think?" He finishes making the tea and looks over at her, a curious expression on his face.
"I do. Your last flat looked like a hotel room." She smiles, thinking about how she always had to move something just to sit down whereas he has this place clean, tidy, more welcoming. It makes her hopeful that he doesn't intend on rushing back to New York any time soon. "This feels more like a...home."
"Figured it was about time I found somewhere that felt less like a crash pad, time I settled in a bit, you know." He shrugs and sets her tea down in front of her on the table. "Then this place came up. Closer to work, closer to you...no brainer."
"It feels like home to you now, London?" He sits down opposite her and wraps his hands around his mug. She averts her eyes, focusing on her tea. "You see yourself staying here?"
"Yeah, I do. Got a decent apartment, I like the job. Hell, I don't even mind the weather too much any more. And, you know…you're here." He falls silent and when she looks up at him she sees a half smile on his face, one she would almost describe as shy if she didn't know him better. "So yeah, can't see why I'd want to go anywhere."
"Glad to hear it." She smiles and takes a mouthful of tea, glancing at him, noting his eyes still focused firmly on her. "If you weren't here, Spikings would have to start yelling at me."
"Good thing I am here then." He leans forward slightly and grins. "Your guardian angel, right?"
"Right." She sighs and realises she should talk to him, properly, and she's about to when he stands up.
"Come on, let's go sit on the couch instead of at the kitchen table." He heads towards the hallway and she follows, taking a deep, calming breath. In the living room he sits down and she joins him. "I was worried about you yesterday, partner. At the restaurant."
"I know. I'm fine, I just...I don't know, I let everything get to me yesterday. I shouldn't have gone as far as I did at the restaurant, I know that. I made a mistake not telling Jock that it was Sid Lowe we were dealing with, it was stupid and I was furious with myself. You may have noticed that when I get like that, I can't always talk myself down." She thinks about what happened at the restaurant, how she couldn't see anything past her rage. She knew she'd crossed a line, she had felt her control slipping away with every minute, but she couldn't seem to find what she needed to pull it back.
"Remind me never to make you quite that mad." He nudges her shoulder gently and she smiles, realising just how strange the last day or so has been.
"I'll hold you to that. Anyway, I just…it's why I went a bit nuts the way I did last night. It won't happen again." It's been a while too since she felt the urge to seek solace in alcohol the way she did last night, the need to just wipe the day from her mind. She won't worry about that for now. "If it helps at all, it would seem that I'm being paid back in full by what may be the world's longest hangover. "
"Hey, if it happens again, it happens again. If you need me, I'll be there next time too." He rests his hand on her arm and squeezes lightly. "I said I was worried about you yesterday, not mad at you. Last night too."
"Yeah, last night…" Now she's here and the subject has been raised she doesn't quite know what to say. "I haven't had that much to drink in a long time, I probably wasn't really in the best frame of mind to have hit the champagne quite as hard as I did, and then when you turned up I...anyway, Angela called me earlier and...you met Angela last night, she-"
"The dress." The way he's looking at her now tells her Angela was right, it wasn't the dress he was staring at last night, it was her.
"Yeah, the dress." She has to look away for a few seconds because the sheer intensity in his eyes threatens to derail her and the possibility of her words failing her feels very real. "Anyway she called and said I should just come over here and be honest with you, tell you how I'm feeling, so...here I am."
"That dress was perfect on you, by the way." He leans forward to put his mug on the coffee table, and she doesn't protest when he takes hers out of her hand and does the same. "So...what is it you want to say?"
"I want to say I'm sorry about this morning. I was embarrassed and annoyed with myself, and I could only remember parts of last night, and I…" She tucks her hair behind her ear and frowns, pausing to try to think about her next words rather than letting them tumble out freely. "I took that out on you."
"You said sorry already." She remembers her heart sinking as she realised she'd been wrong this morning, that he hadn't been bragging about anything, that nothing had happened for him to brag about had he even wanted to. "It's okay."
"The thing is, I got to work already feeling like hell, frankly, and then I thought I was the subject of the office gossip, I thought everyone knew about last night and I wasn't even sure what we'd done, if we'd done anything at all, and I just...well, when you're the only woman in a department like ours there's an element of needing to be if not better than everyone else, at least as good." She doesn't think she necessarily owes him this explanation but she doesn't think it would hurt to open up to him more, to let him know why she's sometimes the way she is; guarded, sometimes too serious, occasionally more closed off than she wants to be. A reminder of how much easier he has it as a male cop wouldn't do him any harm either. "And there's always the worry of being the token female, the butt of the jokes, the target of the sexist remarks, and alongside that is a fear is of one day proving everyone right who thinks that sooner or later you'll end up falling into bed with one of your colleagues and the boys will be able to have a good old laugh about it, pay out whoever won that little bet. It's why I don't let loose very often, it's why when we do go to the pub after work I stop after a couple of drinks even though I know everybody else probably has a few more hours of drinking left. Don't get me wrong, I love my job, Dempsey, and I know I'm good at it, but it's not easy dealing with all of the shit that comes with it sometimes, that's all. It's not an excuse for the assumptions I made this morning, I know that, I know you better than that, and I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions the way I did."
"I'm sorry too. I guess I should have been a whole lot better at making it clear that if we had slept together last night...I wouldn't have been shouting about it to the guys at work." He stops her to tell her what she already feels guilty for thinking this morning.
"Not worth bragging about?" She smiles at him and leans back against the sofa cushion, watching as his eyes track her movement.
"The opposite." He turns slightly to face her, his suddenly serious gaze sending a flush into her cheeks. "You're way too important to risk by running my mouth off to the guys."
"So...I might not remember much about last night, but I do know there's really only one thing I regret, and it's not..." She takes a breath, remembers Angela's words, and decides to just keep going. "Well, I don't regret how much I wanted you last night, Dempsey, not for a second...and I may be wrong, but I...I don't think you would have turned me down if I'd been, you know, slightly less of a mess."
"You weren't a mess, Harry...bit worse for wear, sure, but not a mess. And no, you're not wrong." There isn't a single second of hesitation, and the way he's looking at her leaves her in no doubt of the honesty in his words. "Hardest thing I've ever had to do, carrying you to bed and then leaving. Pretty damn impressive too, given your stairs."
She can't help the snort of laughter she lets out in response to that, the thought of him trying to carry her, out cold, up her always tricky curved staircase.
"It's probably why I decided to just sleep in the hallway." She smiles, wishing just a little that she had some memory of him scooping her off the floor and taking her to bed. "My subconscious must have known I didn't stand a chance against the stairs in the state I was in."
"Then I guess your subconscious must have forgotten I was there." He raises an eyebrow and she remembers once again where she found the dress earlier this evening.
"It seems...my subconscious also didn't bother to assert itself when I apparently decided to take off my dress in the living room." She winces slightly thinking about what else she may have done that she has no recollection of whatsoever. "I'm actually quite glad I don't remember that little move."
"Oh, it was pretty damn smooth, princess, considering how wasted you were, take it from me." He grins and she senses there's more to come. "The 'fine, if you're not going to fuck me, you can take a look at what you're missing' as you dropped the dress was pretty smooth too."
"I didn't?" She puts her head in her hands and lets out a groan, wondering just what else she might have said or done. "Oh my God."
"Hey…" He gently prises her hands away from her face and she looks at him, feeling the heat of shame in her face. "For the record, I knew exactly what I was missing. I knew it when you walked out the room, I knew it when I got home and had to take a cool shower, and when I was lying in bed...I definitely thought a lot about what I was missing then. I always know what I'm missing when it comes to you, Harry."
"What if I were to say you don't need to keep missing it...me?" She pauses, not sure she's making any sense, her thoughts drowned out by the rushing in her ears and the pounding in her chest. "Like I said, I don't regret wanting you last night, Dempsey."
"Good, I'd hate you to have come over here just to tell me the opposite." Her heart pounds harder but she manages a smile. "The only thing I regret is not cutting off your champagne supply and getting you home earlier."
"Ah…" One thing she does remember is dragging him by the hand to dance with her and wrapping herself around him as his fingers roamed slowly across her bare back. She remembers knowing for certain how much he wanted her as she felt the evidence hard against her, the tingle that ran through her entire body in response. "But then you would have missed out on being dragged to the dancefloor."
"You remember that part then, huh?" He grins at her and she feels herself grinning back. "Let me tell you, if I hadn't have been off-duty I might have had to arrest you for those wandering hands."
"I have absolutely no recollection of that, you must be mistaken." She grins but fears her blush may be giving her away. She decides to embrace it and slides a hand tentatively onto his knee and slowly up his thigh. "Was it perhaps something like this?"
"Something like that, but…" He glances at her hand, swallows hard, and then looks back into her eyes. "More."
"I would say I'm sorry…" She bites her lip, as though the final burst of courage she's looking for can be dug out by her teeth. "But I came over here determined to be nothing but honest, so that won't work."
She thinks again about Angela's words (he looks at you like you hung the moon...I've never seen you so smitten…), remembers how she felt this morning when she realised nothing had happened, and clearly recalls the tenderness in his eyes when he told her he'd found her lying in the hallway. But it's the memory of her shoving a cocktail glass in his hand before pouncing on him with a messy but determined kiss that gives her the push she needs.
"Dempsey…" She looks up at him and his eyes are dark, curious, and irresistibly sexy as he gazes back at her.
"Harry…" Her name is barely a murmur in the voice she's come to love, the accent that now feels like a tender caress where it used to feel like an angry scratch.
She's not leaving here without making it clear beyond question that she wants him, that she wanted him last night, that most days now there's at least one moment when she looks at him and feels a physical pull so strong that she has to remind herself to breathe. Her notepad has never seen so many meaningless scribbles as she fuels her distraction into it. She can put a stop to it right now, she can turn her attention to the cause of her distraction, to the object of her desire, and just tell him, show him how she feels.
A look of disappointment crosses his face when she removes her hand from his thigh, and she hopes her eyes communicate that he's not about to be let down. She's been afraid of this for too long, of letting her guard down, of embracing the way her feelings for him have changed, but she's determined not to be afraid anymore. She remembers resolving never to let anyone get close to her again after her marriage ended in disaster, she can't forget the absolute certainty in her mind that heartbreak is inevitable and therefore she simply won't stand in its potential path again. Then along he came, her American meteor, crashing into her life without warning or invitation and intriguing her, fascinating her, slowly but surely breaking down the walls she carried like a shield for so long.
Slowly and deliberately she lifts up onto her knees and swings a thigh over his, landing not entirely gracefully in his lap. The effort is there if not the execution, although if the look in his eyes is a guide she did better than she thought. Or perhaps it's a classic case of the destination ultimately being more important than the journey.
"I came over tonight to tell you that I think about you far more than is probably healthy, certainly far more than anyone would advise one colleague to think about another." She pauses, feeling his hands low on her back just like when he danced with her last night. "And last night when you turned up at the club I felt...well, I felt relieved, I think, because I knew if you were there then I'd be alright, I knew you'd make sure I got home in one piece. I trust you, Dempsey, more than anyone."
"That's why I showed up, angel. I kind of figured you might need me." His smile is sweeter than she's ever seen it, the tiny crinkles in the corners of his eyes just adding to the way she already feels. "And before you go pulling your gun on me, I know you're more than capable of taking care of yourself, but it doesn't hurt to let someone else look out for you sometimes."
"You're safe for now, I didn't bring my gun." She smiles at him and decides this is it, time to put her cards on the table. "So...full disclosure here, I haven't drunk my body weight in champagne tonight, Dempsey, I've had nothing stronger than that cup of tea. Meaning I know exactly what I'm doing, I know exactly what I want."
"Tell me, Harry." He strokes his finger down the side of her face and her breath catches. He's leaving the ball in her court and she's fine with that, she's ready at last. "Tell me what you want."
"You." She leans in closer, her lips just a fraction from his. "Just...you."
"You've got me." She feels his hand on her lower back, strong, solid, warm, and she closes her eyes in response. "You've always got me."
"Just for tonight?" She doesn't want to push too far, for once she feels ready to go wherever this takes them because somewhere in the most confident corner of her mind she knows they're inevitable, the two of them. "Or…"
"It could never just be one night with you, Harry…" His lips hover over hers and she opens her eyes to look at him, somewhat caught out by his immediate and honest response.
She nods as she closes the gap between them, smiling as she leans in to kiss him, knowing that tonight she's completely without the aid of champagne and she's going to remember every single moment.
