The end part of this chapter I could see being played out on the screen. I suspect they had a conversation such as this too but we never saw it.

Chapter 6 - Run

Harm couldn't sleep. Conversations he'd had that night were churning in his mind waking him the moment he tried to doze off. He was exhausted both from late night activities and thoughts of what had transpired earlier that evening. He was hoping talking with Mac would clear the air between them, make things start fresh. Instead, he was confused and then, in the midst of engaging in amorous activities, Jordan gave him another glimpse at her insecurities...

"Mac could do with some couch time." She said. Despite Harm's attempts at being alone that night, Jordan had followed him to the loft and eventually wound up in his bed.

The statement was so out of the blue that it paused his lips that were somewhere down her chest. Although Harm could not argue it wasn't the type of sentiment he needed at the moment. His body was still tingling from the areas where it brushed up against Mac as they danced. His hand could feel the warmth of her skin through the layers of clothing and that gentle swell where her six met her lower back. He could smell her and was pretty sure her sweet perfume overpowered the smell of stale beer and cigarettes on his clothes. He sighed and raised his head up to look Jordan in the eye. "Odd thing to say."

"You don't think so?"

"Let's not talk about Mac right now." Harm resumed touching her, grabbing her roughly on the hips so that he could pull her body intimately against his. His mouth latched on to her breast and by Jordan's approving moan, he believed she would let the topic go. He was wrong.

"Mmmm... Maybe I can convince her to swing by. Get a little couch time."

"What?" Those words had him backing off as if he'd been burnt. He sat back on his haunches, his partial erection now deflated completely. "Why would she want to do that?"

"Why not?"

"You're my girlfriend." She was staring at him with a raised brow demanding a little more from the plain answer he'd given. The truth of the matter was that he didn't want Mac talking to Jordan. True, he needed both women to get along but, he didn't want them to be friends, didn't want them to be chummy. That night had been uncomfortable enough which was why he stayed away as the women gossiped at his expense.

What would Mac speak of? Would she tell Jordan the things she knew about him? Would she betray his trust? That was highly unlikely and though he agreed Mac probably needed someone to talk to, Jordan wasn't it - the thought was actually rather sickening. Besides, she had him, why couldn't she just confide in him? Deciding sex was no longer in the cards, he flopped onto his back and propped his head up with a pillow. "Wouldn't it be a conflict of interest?"

"That's a legal term, Harm."

"For good reason."

Jordan chuckled. "You do realize I have doctor/patient confidentiality, right? I am ethically bound to not divulge her dark little secrets to you or anyone." Although she could see herself doing just that, telling him all of the reasons why Sarah MacKenzie wasn't worth his time or effort.

"She doesn't have dark little secrets."

"You sound sure of that."

And if it had been several months earlier he would have been. "I've been arrested for murdering my husband." He couldn't unhear those words and for a moment had the audacity to laugh. Her husband. Mac was married and he didn't know a damned thing about it. That hurt more than it should have as did Brumby's attempt to use her vulnerability to ask for a date. They had gone to dinner and he'd spent the following day telling anyone who would listen the details of said date.

"I didn't mean to ruin our night." Jordan said casually. Her hand was on his chest moving lower and lower until she wrapped it around his length. "What are your dark little secrets?"

"I don't need therapy."

Her actions got the response she wanted given the sweat that began to coat his body and that look of desire when he glanced at her. "Oooh, that's too bad 'cause I think you would have liked the therapy I had in mind."

And he did. It was a little rougher than usual, like an insatiably pent up sexual energy that he couldn't sate. And then it happened again when images of Mac flashed behind his closed eyes. The frequency of those kind of fantasies were concerning and for the life of him Harm could not get it to stop. And so when he pulled out of Jordan, Harm rushed to the shower feigning some nonsense that she didn't dare question for once.

He ran the water as cold as possible, letting it cascade down his fevered body, hoping it would stop his mind from running. It didn't, all he could see was Mac beneath him, her body straining to meet his, her hands guiding him how she liked it. "Damnit." He just couldn't get her out of his system. And when Jordan demanded sex once more he'd kept his eyes open and on hers but, it wasn't the same.

The intense fantasy of making love to Mac could never be replaced by the woman on his bed no matter what she tried. There wasn't enough to fuel his passion and as he flopped onto his back, frustrated and annoyed, he claimed exhaustion and apologized for a lackluster performance.

Thankfully, Jordan had fallen asleep which allowed him the solitude needed for endless contemplation. Mac was a friend, his best friend and it shamed him tremendously the carnal thoughts which had begun to rule his evenings. At work he was ever the gentleman but then her Marine uniform put things in perspective for him. After hours, he was consumed by what that uniform hid. What the hell was wrong with him?

He had a beautiful woman in his bed and his mind was drifting onto subjects that could never be. And so he decided to run when another hour ticked by and the vestiges of sleep still eluded him. Harm squirmed out of bed, put on his running clothes and took off in hopes the surge of endorphins would vanquish the feelings that lingered in his veins. He pounded familiar pavement, kept his pace hard and fast but the more he pushed the more his brain went into hyper drive.

Harm thought of his former morning runs with Mac and then breakfast at her apartment. Late night dinners over case files, the gentle way she'd touch his forearm in order to get his attention. It was the mundane things he missed the most, the softness of Sarah MacKenzie when she stripped out of that Marine mode - the caring friend that harbored him - a fugitive when he'd been arrested for murder. He thought about Russia, the nightgown he only realized she wore when it was too damned late for him to do a thing about it. Did she want him to do something?

While it wasn't exactly the most risque thing in the World, she looked sexy. Although he often preferred her in running attire. In the winter it was the tights which hugged her six and wrapped around those luscious legs of hers. In the summer it was the tiny running shorts and equally skimpy tank tops - normal running clothes any female would wear but made Mac that much more alluring. He thought about stripping her out of those sweaty clothes, kissing and licking her salty skin. "Ugh!" Now that was something new to add to his growing repertoire of Mac fantasies.

And why the hell was he having those kinda thoughts about her anyway? It's true she was attractive, a knockout but then he'd been with plenty of attractive women in his life before. The woman currently occupying his bed was a testament to that effect. But when he thought about Mac it wasn't just desire or a good ol' romp in bed... he wanted her… Harm wanted her, forever and that thought disturbed him. He wasn't willing to settle down, not yet. He was still too young for that sort of thing so he settled for being a serial monogamist although Jordan had buried deeper and deeper into his affections.

Harm rounded a corner and pushed past his regulation weekday four miles and continued running although the pace had slowed considerably. Mac was special to him, he realized that from the start when he found himself keeping the secret of her uncle, defending him with all that he was. He felt protective of her, loved her.

He loved her.

"What?" That thought had him running past an intersection at top speed, his toe clipping the edge of a curb sending him onto the ground. He lay on the ground, trying to catch his breath checking his limbs to make sure nothing was broken. His face had taken a bit of a hit and he could feel the burn from the scrape on his cheek and feel the trickle of blood from a gash on his left knee. "Damnit." Gingerly, he stood, hopping on one leg until he reached a fence that he leaned against and got his bearings.

He'd been running for a solid three hours until the sun had risen. It took another ten minutes or so to get moving much slower than before but at a slow even clip. He didn't dare think about Mac again.

"What the hell happened?" Jordan gasped as she gauged the man limping towards her.

"Toe clipped a curb. I'm fine, just a few scrapes."

She was already dressed, ready for work and when he came close enough to kiss her she pushed. "Eww. You're so sweaty. Do you run every day?"

"I'm a runner, Jordi. It helps me keep my girlish figure." He teased, tapping her six as he moved passed her and gingerly made it up the steps to his bedroom.

Harm was stripping out of his clothing when she followed behind. "You don't normally run for this long on the weekdays. Or this early." She bit her lower lip not wanting to bring up the evening or what had happened to make him pull away from her so suddenly. It wasn't exhaustion, she knew. A man that tired wouldn't haven gotten up and suddenly gone running. "If I didn't please you last night, you need to tell me."

"I told you, I was tired. It wasn't you." With his back turned she couldn't see his eyes or the lie he'd told to not hurt her feelings. Harm stepped into the bathroom, turned the shower on and when he turned to grab a towel he almost slammed right into her. "Babe, I need to shower and get dressed. I'm gonna be late as it is. We'll talk about it later, okay?"

Jordan didn't budge, simply leaned against his sink watching Harm shower. He had an impressive body and she lamented that last night hadn't quite gone as planned. "Is it because we didn't do it how you like? If you have a particular fantasy I'm willing to…"

"Jordan. Stop."

"Harm, sex is meant to be a conversation and if that's not working well between us we need to analyse the why you suddenly needed to burn off energy you didn't have last night with an early morning run."

If he didn't have soap running from his hair into his eyes, Harm would have stared at her indignantly. He felt naked, more so than he already was as if all of his inadequacies as a man were being laid bare. There was no retort for her questioning, his brain wasn't fully operational without the coffee that he now desperately needed. And so he rinsed off as fast as possible, took the towel she was offering him and pressed his lips against hers in a chaste kiss. "You're crazy. I'm allowed to have an off night, aren't I?"

He slipped his boxers on and then the undershirt quickly padding out of the bedroom and towards the kitchen where he poured a cup of coffee and drank it without the usual fixings. Harm sighed hoping she'd be appeased but the woman had hopped up on one of the stools eyeing him curiously with a questioning gaze. "What's going on with you and Mac? Please be honest with me."

Harm made to argue and it felt short when she raised a hand to stop him. "I need you to be honest. Do you want to be with me or her?"

"Jordan…"

"Carolyn told me a few things that I find… disturbing in many aspects."

"Carolyn has been interested in me and is jealous of you because I'd never given her the time of day." Yes, he wasn't completely oblivious but then Imes had been blatantly flirting with him. After Brumby came on the scene and was not so subtly interested in Mac, it seemed to give the woman a red light in pursuing him and Harm wasn't going to dip his pen in company ink. Plus, she wasn't his type. "She'd say anything."

Jordan nodded. "At least we can agree on that." But, there was something else and so in the morning, after he'd left she'd fired up his computer and searched for one particularly interesting article. "Mac has an Article 32 coming up for perjury. She shot her husband, you defended and won."

"She does and I did. Mac's business is hers not mine or yours. I was her lawyer and did my job."

"And she's an adulteress from what I was able to gather? Sleeping around with her CO while married to another man."

That was the final straw and he put down the mug a little harder that he should, cracking it. The dark liquid spilled over the counter top and with a muttered curse Harm took the kitchen towel to clean the mess. Once done he could feel her eyes on him although the gaze seemed to simmer far less than it had earlier. He gripped the sides of the counter, took a breath and controlled himself despite the want to yell and scream. These kids of insecurities was one of the reasons he and Annie crashed and burned along with the neurosis that was practically manic. He couldn't begin to imagine being saddled with that again and the ongoing efforts to have a semblance of a normal life with a woman like that.

Annie also shared her concerns over Mac time and time again. "You're in love with her."

And he'd laughed it off because that was a laughable concept. So he took another breath and turned to Jordan. "Why this obsession with Mac?"

"Have you slept with her? Just be honest with me if you have, Harm. We're human, things happen and with her reputation..."

"No. No I haven't slept with her and please stop talking about Mac that way. She doesn't sleep around. I'll have you know." He said matter of factly and the cringe at how he would have such information. Something didn't appease his girlfriend he could tell on the way her head dropped and she bit her lip suddenly interested on the island countertop. Harm wanted this conversation over and done with. He needed it wrapped up once and for all in order to keep some of his sanity. "Mac's a friend and if you want to be with me you need to deal with that."

"I would if I could."

"Why can't you Jordan? Don't you trust me?"

She would have trusted him and could have maybe ignored that thing between the partners if it weren't for one key little problem. "Last night while we were making love… you called her name."