Teresa and Patrick's lives progressed as usual over the next weeks. Every morning, they awoke, most of the time together in either Patrick or Teresa's bed. Most days, for two independent persons, they found it quite easy to commingle their time. Their conversation continued with ease, sparkling and stimulating, and they'd perfected a routine of sorts. And there was never a night where they didn't happily tumble into bed: life together was just that good.
And the boots? For one thing, they were not an option at Teresa's. Furthermore, as was often the case with important issues between the couple, once Patrick's secret was out in the open, it was not spoken of again. But the boots remained at the forefront of Teresa's mind. She sensed potential. She sensed an opportunity for a little bit of fun, to be augmented by a whole bunch of pleasure.
So Teresa began to carefully bide her time, waiting for the perfect moment. That moment when Patrick lowered his guard, when the chance for victory for her and the boots would be at its peak. Then, and only then, would Teresa strike. It was difficult for her, though. Those perfect specimens of leather artisanship reposing under Patrick's bed haunted her. She liked predictability-but how could she not have known this about him? Sometimes, she imagined him slipping them over her feet, hugging her ankles, uplifting her calf muscles just so. Her breath rushed out of her lungs in a proto-orgasmic audible gasp, the thought of the buttery leather leaving her face soft and her eyes gazing dreamily across the room.
Forget the memory of his vest against her breasts. Forget the memory of his stubble tickling her body. Anticipation-of both leather and sex-was now her aphrodisiac.
Teresa was not the only person dreaming about those boots. Patrick was also carefully biding his time. At first, he strategized as to how to get Teresa to spend more nights in the Airstream. He even contemplated buying a second set of the boots to leave at her house. But Patrick also was a man, and not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and the prospect of sex with his woman was not something he was about to postpone just because they were at her place. So he too was waiting: waiting until Teresa's guard was lowered, when his chance to see her in those boots could be realized.
Waiting was not difficult for Patrick. A man who had pined for over a dozen years could wait a few more nights for his leather moment. Yet, the thought of those boots under his bed haunted Patrick. He longed to slip them over her slim yet strong feet, gently pulling the zipper closed. He exhaled harshly as he thought of how he would then run his hands over the outside of the boots, and then coax Teresa out of her clothing. When he felt especially self-masochistic, he imagined her then walking the length of the Airstream, her calf muscles uplifted and defined just so, the staccato of the heels, the way she would invariably look both shy and incredibly sexy at the same time. And then Patrick imagined how his hands would capture her wrists, as he would lead her to bed. Once there, while still holding her wrists, he would pin them above her head as he made his move, the other hand resting on one delightful leather boot.
"Need you in Conference Room B, Jane!" Abbott barked, breaking Patrick's reverie as he watched Teresa gulp down yet another cup of coffee.
"What's going on in there?" Lisbon asked Cho when Jane didn t come back for a while.
Cho made a cryptic remark about Attention Deficit Disorder.
It was then that Teresa sensed that her opportunity had come. She and Patrick had plans to see a movie that evening, and the boots would go perfectly with her new jeans. Teresa sighed as she thought about how Patrick would lean over, and whisper his love of her derriere in jeans into her ear, his breath dancing across one of her most sensitive erogenous zones: her ear lobe.
Before she knew it, she'd quietly left the building, and found herself at the door to the Airstream. Pushing the door open, she realized she had no place to hide the booty she was about to score. She quickly made her way to the bed. Dropping to her knees, she exhaled in relief when she found that the box was still under Patrick's bed. Quickly pulling it out, she opened it and was greeted by a waft of leathery essence.
Breathing deeply, the scent transported Teresa to places well to any number of Texan emporia. But she could not allow herself to become distracted, and so she quickly stuffed the boots into a plastic trash bag. She figured she'd drape her jacket over it when they left for her place.
The rest of the afternoon passed in an excruciatingly slow daze for Teresa. She found it difficult to wholly concentrate on the paperwork wrapping up the undercover art case. She grabbed some extra work to take home, which succeeded in diverting Jane's attention when he dropped her off at her house.
Later that evening, Patrick showed up with his overnight items, ready for their movie date. Walking to the car, her sway and posture bolstered her self-confidence. Would Patrick notice? Patrick was on her like a June bug on a windshield on a humid May evening. "How do you do it, Teresa?" he whispered, "Look so sexy?" Almost leaning against her, he brought enough of himself into contact with her that she had no doubt that the jeans and the boots were working for him.
And then he took a step backward, and another step backward and she realized that he'd seen them. She could sense Patrick looking at her feet; sense his eyes moving up her legs, to her ass, and then back down again. For a moment, she swayed, imagining his hands following that same path.
"See something you like?" she purred, then whispered in his ear, "Tonight. Boots on the ground."
Her whispered promise caused any thought Patrick had of chastising her for taking the boots from the Airstream to flee his brain, as her warm breath made him shiver. The excitement began to flow, from her breath to his ear, into his veins, down to his groin.
"Let's go," she cajoled, as she tossed him the car keys.