Earlier That Day
His hand was lying loosely on her back. Not that she minded it. But it distracted her to the point that she felt his warmth through the thin material of her dress as if his skin was on fire, aiming on enflaming hers as well. He didn't even seem to notice that her thoughts had drifted away from the case; or what his closeness did to her.
Special Agent Kate Todd took a sip of the glass of champaign that she was holding in her hand. She knew that it had been four months since they had kissed in the elevator – and neither of them had ever mentioned it again. Yet, she felt as if it had happened just yesterday, the memory of it being vividly preserved in the dreams she was having every night.
She had tried everything to get him off her mind, but not been successful. She had even caught herself comparing her dates to Special Agent Jethro Gibbs – a fact that hadn't even been clear to her in the beginning.
At first she had simply felt different when she was on a date; as if she was not seriously interested in the man she was sitting opposite to. But she had patiently listened to the stories the men told her – end eventually found a reason to avoid the good night kiss.
Only when, one evening during the last week, she had allowed one of her dates, Brian, to kiss her, it had dawned on her what the reason for the sudden lack of interest in men was. The kiss had been a complete disaster. Brian had been sweet and well-mannered, but kissing him felt as if she was kissing Tony. Not that she had ever kissed Tony – but it evoked the same feelings in her that the thought of kissing Tony did. It was something she didn't really want to do, because she wanted more than the sweetness and superficial heat. She wanted to feel what she had felt when she and Gibbs had kissed. This split second when she had felt as if her mind melted into that of her partner – as if they were one. This deep love and at the same time erotic seduction, that was what she longed for.
Men like Brian were not able to offer her that, because – as she had realized at that very second – she couldn't think of any other man than Jethro Gibbs anymore.
And now she was here, on a gala with him, tasked to protect a highly decorated Navy Rear Admiral.
It had started out as a rather normal murder case, until they had discovered a wider conspiracy, that aimed on assassinating Admiral Smith. The murdered Lieutenant had obviously, by chance, found out about the planned attempt on the Admirals life.
The team had been able to arrest the Lieutenant's murderer, but then learned that he had been hired and paid by a higher ranking Naval Officer. He had had no idea about the man who had ordered him to kill the Lieutenant, though – and therefore they had no idea who had ordered the assassination of the admiral.
That fact had, much to Tony's delight, earned them an investigation in Madrid, Spain, where the admiral had to speak on an international conference about the latest achievements in Iraq and the Navy's plans for the last two years.
And it was their task to protect the admiral during those three days, until tonight's gala would end the conference and every guest would return home – hopefully safely.
Initially, Tony had been assigned to act as her partner at the gala in the hall of the large hotel. But the male agent had, as usual, not been able to keep his mind focused on details that lay beyond women's cleavages, and eventually Gibbs had ordered him to return to the room that served as their temporary headquarters two floors above them – and had shown up himself ten minutes ago.
Kate hadn't been able to believe it, when he had entered the hall, looking absolutely gorgeous in the expensive suit that he was wearing. He had gallantly offered her his arm and she had taken it, questioning him about Dinozzo's whereabouts.
She had laughed, when Gibbs had informed her with a hint of anger still present in is voice that he had ordered Dinozzo to stay with McGee and keep an eye on the hotel cameras. Both of them knew that being stuck in the same room with Timothy McGee for hours was one of the worst punishments for him.
And now she was stuck with Gibbs for the rest of the evening. Not that she didn't enjoy his company – the problem was that she enjoyed it a little bit too much. Especially when they were just standing about two meters behind the admiral and he was so close to her that she could smell his after shave and feel the warmth of his body through her clothes.
"The whole evening he has done nothing else than shaking people's hands. He seems to have a lot of friends here." Kate informed her boss, mainly to put her mind back on focus. "Especially female ones."
Gibbs had to smirk, when he recalled the reputation that the admiral had among his colleagues. "Yes, I've heard rumors."
Kate shook her head, looking at the corpulent, bold man. He was neither attractive, nor charming, but rather slimy and disrespectful towards women. She recalled very vividly the remark he had made towards her about accompanying him to his bedroom tonight – as 'protective detail'.
"I don't get what women see in him," she shivered slightly. "He's unattractive and old!"
"He's two years younger than me," Gibbs noted dryly and Kate paled. Two years younger than Gibbs? That man looked like he was sixty – so either he was looking much older than he was or Gibbs looked a lot younger. She took a huge sip of her champaign and forced aside the thoughts that inevitably crossed her mind when she considered the possibility of feeling attracted to a man who was beyond sixty. Her first assignment once they were back in DC would be to find out the age of her boss. Anyway, what had she been thinking by remarking the age of the admiral in the first place?
"Yes, but you look way better than he does," she replied, too hastily for him not to notice her embarrassment. Then, when she saw his half bemused, half amused look, she started to stutter. "I mean, not that I find you attractive... I mean, I do..." she paused for a moment, thinking for a second about her words and how they had sounded completely different in her mind. "Wow... that came over totally wrong. I mean... I..."
'Shut up, Kate, just shut up before you make it worse! ' she thought and took another sip from her champaign and turned her head away from him as she tried to regain her composure – which she couldn't as long as she saw the amused expression on his face. At that moment she was sure she understood why he had been married three times. There was something about him that attracted women, despite the fact that he could act like a complete asshole.
"Agent Gibbs!" The admiral approached them and Kate exhaled relieved. Saved – at least for now. What was the matter with her? Had she just told her boss that she found him attractive? She groaned inwardly.
"Where is your younger colleague?" The admiral asked and looked around, his eyes obviously searching for Tony. Gibbs shrugged.
"I had more important tasks for him." He replied dismissively, signaling that he wasn't willing to give any further details about Tony's whereabouts. Instead, he took a mouthful of the scotch he was holding in his hand. "I decided to replace him myself..."
"Understandable, with the chance of such an attractive lady by your side. That's an assignment I wouldn't reject either." He laughed indecently and Kate could swear, she saw Gibbs' expression become a hint darker.
"I admire her for her extraordinary skills as a special agent, not for the factors that you take into consideration," he informed the man gruffly and turned his head to look around. He tried to suppress the voice in him that told him what a lying bastard he was.
Of course, he hadn't decided to pull Tony off in order to see Kate in this incredibly tight dress. On the contrary! He had assigned the younger agent against his better judgement in the first place. Just this one time, he had hoped that Tony would not turn an observation assignment into a personal dating party. His hopes had been futile – he should have known that Tony, being the casanova he was, wouldn't be able to resist the temptation.
And then he had seen no other options than going in himself since McGee was too insecure and had already tripped over his own feet when Gibbs had just hinted on replacing Tony with him. Aside from that he needed the youngest agent in his team at the computer.
Ever since the incident in the elevator, he had kept a certain distance to Caitlin Todd. He had forced his eyes off her body when he had caught himself scanning her beautiful, slender figure.
He had tried not to look at her when she wore one of her sexy shirts. And it had worked. At least that was what he liked to believe. Because his other option was to admit that he, a man in his fifties, was lusting after a woman who was at least twenty years younger than he was. Which alone would be alright – every man did at a certain point in his life – but Kate was his subordinate. She considered him to be her mentor, her boss – and the fantasies that were going through his mind from time to time were enough to betray the trust that she put into him.
He had stopped counting the times when he had numbered all the reasons why his interest in her was a bad idea. They were from different worlds. She was modern, he was old-fashioned; she liked to go out, he built a boat in his spare time - to name just the top of it. The list would go on for several pages if he ever wrote all of the reasons down.
There had been some incidents, when one of them had made a flirtatious remark, just like it had been before the kiss. But he had paid attention not to deepen that conversation.
Still, sometimes when their eyes met, he felt as if the glances they exchanged had been a split second too long to be casual. Even if they had brushed arms or hands, when she gave something to him, the touch had been a little too prolonged to be accidental. Most likely it was just his own imagination.
It was as if he was drawn to her and it took all of his power – and bad memories of his three failed marriages – to keep himself from giving in to this attraction. Since his first marriage, he had not felt so fascinated by a woman – and it scared him. He liked to be the one in control over the situation – as well as his emotions. But she triggered something inside him, that seemed to cause a chain reaction which always started with shutting his rational brain functions down.
Even now he had to force himself not to look her up – and that was a challenge in itself. The dress that Abby had chosen for her was incredibly tight and formed out every curve of her slender body. It was black and long, and only a long slit at the side revealed the silky skin of her neatly shaved leg.
Damned, he thought silently. He would bet that she had not the slightest idea about how sexy she was looking in that dress; about how much he wanted to show her just how sexy she was by pressing her against the nearest wall and kiss her until she was panting and begging him for more.
He forced himself to stop thinking into that direction. He was, after all, her superior – and he himself had taught her that relationships between agents never worked.
Therefore he forced his attention back to the guests in the large hall. Most of them were politicians and higher ranking admirals and officers of national and international defense organizations. He knew most of them – mainly because he had studied the guest list and gathered detailed background information on every single person who would be present on tonight's gala.
He didn't like unexpected surprises on missions where lives were on stake.
"What do you think, agent Gibbs," The admiral finally pulled him out of his thoughts. "Did I convince them with my speech? Or was I being too dramatic?"
"Hard to say. The decision is to be made by the committee, but up to now our president has never had any problems justifying his decisions. If you would excuse us, I want to take a look around," Gibbs, who was not interested in discussing political matters with the admiral, replied.
"Sure," the admiral nodded and lifted his glass towards Gibbs, "but you could leave me agent Todd? I could use company who is as charming as she is."
Kate looked at Gibbs with what he read as an almost panicked expression written on her face, and shook his head with hidden amusement.
"No, I need her with me." He replied in his usual tone that didn't allow any kind of discussions. Softly, he placed his hand on the small of her back and led her away from the admiral.
"Thank you," she murmured, once they were out of reach. "One more second alone with him and I would kill him myself."
Gibbs chuckled and looked around, quickly scanning the faces of the persons around them. His years of experience, not only as an agent, but also as a marine, had taught him to recognize persons with one quick glance.
"If the assassin is here already, he must be among the guests – or the personnel," Kate said lowly, her eyes also wandering around. "They don't allow any more guests in, but closed the doors around twenty minutes ago."
"Most assassins show up only seconds before the attack." Gibbs informed her. "But since we have not the slightest hint on the identity of the person, who wants to see the admiral dead, we have to expect that the person is among us – that maybe we have already talked to him."
Kate thought a moment, then suddenly a question formed in her head, something that they hadn't taken into consideration yet.
"Gibbs, how do we know it's a man?"
"Because there are only very few female assassins – most of which are standing on FBI's or CIA's most wanted list. None of them is present tonight. And the person who hired our first killer was definitely a man," he noted.
"Yet," Kate replied thoughtfully, "the admiral seems to have the quality to enrage especially women. Do you seriously think that I am the only one who ever felt insulted by his behavior?"
Gibbs shot her a thoughtful look, then he activated the small microphone that was pinned to his suit. Although he didn't think that her theory was right, he knew better than to leave that possibility open.
"Dinozzo!" Gibbs said into the small device and static filled his ear. Then the insecure voice of McGee answered.
"Um...McGee here...boss..."
"McGee, where is Dinozzo?" Gibbs asked, the threat eminent in his voice as he, quite rightly, assumed that Dinozzo had decided to spend his evening with something more interesting than staring onto a screen.
"He is...um...getting food for us..." The agent stuttered. It was obvious that he had just made that reason up and Gibbs inhaled deeply. Then he decided that now was not the time to deal with Dinozzo. He would yell at him in the morning and then make sure that, once they were back in DC, he would do nothing else than write reports for a whole week.
"Fine, McGee. I want you to check every woman who is present tonight. Wives, waitresses, maids, whoever. Understood?"
"Yes, Sir... um... boss... when do you need..." The youngest agent stammered almost panicked – as he always became when Gibbs addressed him.
"One hour!" Gibbs interrupted him impatiently. "Look for any hints of a past that is connected to that of the admiral and might be the reason for some kind of rage against him."
With those words, he turned off the microphone without waiting for an answer. Just as he had the habit to hang up the phone in the middle of a sentence without listening. Kate raised her eyebrows amused, and the hint of a smile crossed her face. That did, of course not go unnoticed by him. He questioned her silently with his eyes.
"Seriously," Kate finally explained and pointed at the microphone, "that is probably why you have three failed marriages."
"What?" he asked, somewhat stunned and confused at the same time.
"That!" she pointed out, "Hanging up on people while they're talking. Or not waiting for an answer. It drives me nuts when you do that. And you do it a lot!"
She was bold – as always. But they both knew that she was the only one of his subordinates who was allowed to make that kind of playful comments on his marriages. It usually ended in an ironic remark by him and them smiling at each other. He liked to see her smile – maybe that was why he let her get away with those remarks, while Tony for example had to fear for his life.
Gibbs shrugged, smiling. "Experience teaches me that those answers will either be useless information or discussions. I don't want to hear either of it."
"Useless information as in small talk?" Kate asked with a soft chuckle. "You know, sometimes that can be fun."
"What?"
"Well," Kate shrugged, "Saying hello or goodbye for starters. People on the other end don't feel so..." She paused to search for an appropriate word, then looked into his eyes in a playfully challenge, "...insulted."
Instead of answering, he simply held her eyes in that indefinable manner that always put her off. It worked. When she was the first to break their gaze and let her eyes wander around in the room, he knew that he had won.
"Your should know by now that I don't care if other people might feel insulted," he replied dryly and Kate chuckled.
"As I said... probably the reason for your divorces." She enjoyed these kind of playful banter with him. Of course she was aware that it was a privilege that he only granted her.
She remembered the moments when she had first met this hard and distant man on Air Force One. From the first moment, she had felt a certain fascination inside. He had a natural charisma of dominance around him, even when he hadn't said anything, but just sat there on his chair, taking notes.
She had never been a woman who had taken orders from other people, except superiors. That was why she hadn't accepted taking his orders – although he was obviously used to people following his orders without questioning them.
Yet, although she had been outraged by his arrogant behavior, he had also attracted her. Maybe it had been just that dominance, that had fascinated her. Recently, she had read in one of those cheap women's magazines, that women always felt attracted to dominant men – it was a genetic heritage from an earlier evolutionary state.
She didn't want to believe that the reason for her fascination was just that plain. Rather she liked to think that it was his character, the way he stood by his principles. And that he was loyal to his colleagues. She knew that, no matter what he said or how often he slapped Tony, he would stand up for them if necessary.
On more than one occasion had she seen, that his mask of coolness and distance was just his way of protecting himself. She remembered the first time when she had seen him flirt with that redhead, who had been suspected to have killed her half-brother.
Up to then, she had thought that no man was able to top Tony where hitting on women was concerned. She couldn't have been more wrong. Even Tony could have still learned something from watching Gibbs at that moment.
The memory brought up unpleasant feelings of jealousy, so Kate hurried to suppress it – as well as the thought about what she would give to have him flirt with her like that just once. She seriously doubted that any woman could deny herself to him and wondered for a moment if he was aware of that power. Most likely, if she considered his arrogance and self-assurance – and the fact that he had been married three times.
Lost in her thoughts, Kate followed one of the waitresses with her eyes. She was a thin, blonde woman whom she hadn't seen before. With an amused smile playing around the corner of her mouth, she thought about Tony and how that blonde doll was exactly his type – and how she would enjoy telling him about that woman and giving him a detailed description.
And then she narrowed her eyes. For a split second, she had seen something white shimmering in the hand of the waitress when she handed a full glass of champaign to the admiral. Something like a sheet of paper – or a folded note?
With awakened interest, Kate observed the woman more concentrated, trying to see if she behaved differently from other waitresses. But neither she nor the admiral gave any sign that would indicate, that she had indeed passed the admiral a note.
Two minutes later, she decided that it had not been a note, but possibly just a serviette. Still, there was this feeling in her gut, that pressure that she had already felt back on Air Force One, if something had been wrong...