(A/N: I'm really uncertain about this Chapter. Morgan and Penelope's relationship, it's such an unusual one to describe if you're deliberately not shipping them. I hope I did it justice. At least Morgan's side of it. Let me know what you think?)
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Hotch stepped into his office, not surprised to see Derek standing by his desk.
Moving to sit down, Hotch asked his question, "Morgan, did you have something for me?"
"Hotch, I'm at a loss." Derek refused to look at him at the moment.
"What seems to be the problem?" Hotch knew his team well. Something was deeply troubling Derek Morgan.
"Did you just see what went down out there?" stepping back, Derek dropped into one of the seats facing his boss. "Hotch, I really don't know what to think."
"Yes, I did. Two of our team members are going to dinner," Aaron Hotchner leaned back in his chair.
Frustration coloring Morgan's voice, "Hotch! You know it's more than that!"
"Talk to me, Morgan. What's really bothering you?" Hotchner's quiet voice seemed to aggravate Morgan even more.
"You're telling me that you don't see anything wrong with what we just saw?" Derek ran his head rapidly over his head.
Hotchner leaned forward in his seat. "We're not talking about what I just saw. We're talking about what you saw and what you think about it."
"Don't profile me, man. What you're thinking, right now, that's not what this is about." Morgan dropped his hand back to the arm of his chair.
"Then tell me, Morgan. Tell me what this is about. I can't understand until you explain." Hotchner leaned forward, focusing on Derek Morgan. If something was going to disrupt his team, he wanted to know.
"Hotch, come on, man. Rossi just cozened up to Penelope like they were a couple and waltzed her out of here as if he had every right to her. I won't have Rossi treat Penelope that way. No one does. I won't have it." Morgan was winding himself tighter the more he talked.
Aaron Hotchner kept his voice low, causing Morgan to have to keep calm to be able to hear him, "What makes you think that such a situation is happening? Have either Rossi or Penelope said anything?"
"I've talked to Penelope. I got more from what she didn't say than what she did. She wouldn't tell me anything. But, they are involved. I don't want her hurt, Hotch. I won't have her hurt by the likes of Rossi and the games he plays." Morgan's hands were clenching the arms of his chair, as if he was physically holding himself in place to keep from storming after the couple.
"Morgan, Dave has never played games with the women in his life." If Aaron Hotchner was positive of one thing, he was positive that Dave could never treat a woman with anything other than the respect she deserved.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, "You know that's not what I mean. Penelope isn't meant for short term relationships. She needs stability. Respect. Not to be treated as a casual affair. Everyone on the team knows that. Why is he pursuing her this way?"
"You can't judge what is going on or not going on between them from just one day of observing them. " Hotchner's reasonable voice filled the room.
"Well, I'm not about to wait around to pick up the pieces when Rossi moves on. " Morgan tapped his fingers impatiently on the arms of the chair he was sitting in.
Hotchner closed his eyes before he spoke his next sentence, "What if he doesn't move on, as you imply?"
Morgan's head whipped up to face Hotchner, "Do you know something you're not telling me, Hotch?"
"Morgan, all I can say is that Dave hasn't truly dated anyone recently. It's the only fact I have. The rest, well, you are a profiler. Watch, wait, observe, before you make a judgment. She knows David Rossi." Ruefully, Hotchner took a couple of seconds to roll his eyes, "Actually, she probably knows more about each member of this team than any of us do." Shaking his head at the thought, Hotchner continued, "She has worked with this team and knows each member, Morgan. She's an adult. You can't protect her from everything in life."
Quiet filled the room for a few minutes. Hotchner's chair squeaked as he leaned back in his seat.
"Morgan, do I need to worry about this team?"
"You remember when Penelope first joined our team? Remember what she was like?" The questions seemed inconsequentially out of order from the present concerns but Aaron just answered them.
"I remember hiring her. She turned her application in on homemade pink stationary and purple ink." Aaron smiled with the memory, "How could I not have that commitment and creativity working for our team?" The question was rhetorical, as the decision had already been made.
"She was pretty and joyful. She was innocent. And she was so sweet she made my teeth ache, I wanted her so bad." Derek leaned his head on the back of his chair and breathed out.
"What kept you from her?" Curiosity underlined his tone. He remembered that time. Morgan always had a quick word for Penelope, a tease, a flirt. And Morgan had also been garnering a reputation that had rapidly closed in on Rossi's previous one as the office Lothario. The only difference being that Morgan carefully kept his romances separated from his job.
"Gideon spoke to me." The words came quietly.
"Gideon?"
Derek kept his head leaning back against the back of the chair. "I hate being profiled. You remember my reaction to it." The allusion to Derek's past was well recalled by Hotchner. Having to delve into Derek's history had been hard for all of them. But, Derek had reacted with a fury that had gone well beyond trying to just hide his past.
Morgan sat stiffly in his chair. "Gideon profiled me, Hotch. He brought me in and sat me down. He talked about family, and love, and sacrifice. He talked about friendship. And he asked me if I was ready. That I had a choice to make."
"What choice did you make?" Aaron Hotchner suspected he knew. He, himself, had tried to merge his choices, trying to keep his life outside of work and his life at work. He had tried to live both lives at the same time. He still had memories to hold onto of that time. It had been scary, and hard, and beautiful and totally wonderful all at the same time. But, he had come into this job with his family, trying to forge a new life with the family he had and the family that was created at the BAU. He hadn't been a young single man starting out in this job.
"I chose friendship." Derek finally raised his head. "I don't regret it. I wasn't ready then to fight for something that hard. Even if it would have been worth it, I wasn't prepared for that responsibility then. Gideon knew then, what I know now. If I had went after Penelope, whether we stayed together, or split apart, there would always be a wound. Memories left behind, that would spoil our happiness."
"What did he know?"
Rambling a little, "I always thought she would find someone away from this. Move on. Take her skills and her smiles and leave this life behind. I didn't want to be the one that held her here. She's so strong, though," Derek moved restlessly in his seat. "Back then, Gideon knew, he knew that what I wanted would override everything else. She is so giving, that without finding her center, without learning her own strength, I would have run roughshod over her, Hotch. She would have become what I wanted her to be. And neither of us would have been really happy."
Aaron Hotchner voiced the question that needed to be said. "What about now, Derek?"
Morgan's eyes stared out the window before he turned his head to Hotch. "She's my best friend, Hotch. Hell, she's my family." With a huff of sound, he continued, "And strength of will, my Baby Girl has that in spades now." Rubbing his chest where she had hit him with the folder several times, he went on, "I want for her what I want for all of my family. To be happy. To be safe."
"We'll keep her safe, Morgan. We all love her here." Hotch replied, the words more a vow than a promise. The next words seemed reluctant, "But, her happiness, that is her own. To find, or not to find."
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Rossi kept his hand on Penelope's back as they rode down the elevator. He could not pull his hands completely from her. His skin felt like it was pulled tight over his muscle and bones. Tight and burning hot. "Where do you want to go, Kitten?"
"Ah, Mon Loup, I thought we had decided. We're picking up Thai food and watching 'Arsenic and Old Lace' at my apartment." Penelope was enjoying the feeling of Dave's hand spread over her back. Sometimes, with their movements, the very tip of his fingers would flick over the upper part of her ass. Her bare bottom beneath the smoothness of her slip. His fingers sliding back and forth over that one spot, making her squirm. Looking up at Dave, she noticed a slight quirk to his lips as she felt his fingers once more drift down and over her ass. "David Rossi! You are doing that on purpose!"
"What am I doing, Kitten?"
Swirling around, she placed her hands on Dave's chest and leaned up towards him, "You, sir, are playing with my ass!" The elevator doors slid open with both she and Rossi just ten feet from the guard's booth. A guard who was looking right at them with a healthy interest.
Battling a blush, she stepped away from Dave, but not before brushing her hand down between their bodies and stroking dancing fingers over his hard length. With the thought that there was no reason to end Dave's suffering to early, she put a little extra sway into her step as she walked away from the elevator.
Dave's body stiffened. Damn his Goddess! How was he supposed to walk now? With a stiff legged gait that spoke more than he wished to the guard he passed, Dave caught up with his sweet vixen. Wrapping his arm about her as they stepped past the guard's booth, he leaned down to whisper in her ear, "That was particularly evil of you, Cara. Especially after I watched that delicious video you sent me."
"Well, Super Sexy Agent Rossi, sometimes I like to be bad." With a daring smile and an extra wiggle of her hips, she added, "It's a good thing you know what to do with bad girls, isn't it?"
Rossi felt all his instincts stand on end with one big snarl of lust as they reached his SUV. Opening the door, he placed both hands around Penelope's waist as he helped her inside. Murmuring in her ear, "Would you like to be punished, Kitten?" he kept one hand on her waist and clenched his other hand over her thigh. With a questioning tilt to her head, Penelope looked back at Dave. "I need to know." Dave confided to her. Flexing his fingers, he moved his hand millimeters up her leg.
"Dave!" Penelope's eyes flared, with alarm and lust both. "We're out here in the open."
"No one can see, Kitten." The leash that he had kept on his needs all the way back on the plane and later in his office, had been broken the moment he had stepped from his office to see her go down on her hands and knees. Watching her sway before him, he had known, known with an animal's instinct that he would have her that way. If not then, then tonight. But, to keep what remained of that leash intact, he needed her now. Needed her to submit to him, at least this little bit. "Please, Dolce. There's not much of me left here."
Looking up into Dave's dark eyes, she raised her hand to cup his cheek. His eyes were so compelling, and the feel of his skin beneath her hand, the muscles of his jaw drawn tight in her hand, his heat was soothing and hypnotic. Penelope widened her legs a bit. Enough to give Dave her consent to his plea.
Leaning in to her to block any view from the sides, David hovered over her, as if preparing for a kiss. Sliding his fingers steadily up her inner thigh, he breathed in deeply as his fingers touched lace. Helplessly he slid one fingertip under the edge, pulling it out slightly before letting it slap back against her thigh. Penelope's right hand came up to clasp his shoulder as she clenched her seat with the other.
Their eyes were still locked as his hand moved on, deeper into the warmth hidden between her thighs. Dave paused as his fingertips pressed against her uncloaked secrets. Letting out his breath in a groan that was loud enough to override her own gasp, he brushed his fingers over her slickness. Penelope arched her hips slightly against the hand pressed against that unseen part of her, her eyes unable to leave Dave's.
"Please-" Penelope's voice broke slightly, low and needy.
Dave's voice came out deep and harsh, "Someone seems to want another spanking. Do you like being a bad girl, Kitten?" He slipped fingers slightly inside, to stroke her before sliding lower. He eased one finger inside, his eyes never leaving her face, even as her body twisted before him.
"Please, Mon Loup." Penelope couldn't focus on anything else but the overwhelming need that was pushing through her blood and the intense look that Dave had focused on her, his eyes not missing anything of her reaction.
"You're so wet, dolce." Leaning down, he whispered in her ear as he eased a second finger inside, "Can I watch you come for me?"
He moved a thumb up to brush across her sensitive nest of nerves, causing her to arch hard into his hand. They both moaned at the contact but Dave refused to move any further till she answered. Penelope tried rocking her hips against his hand, but even though it moved his fingers inside her, it wasn't enough. She wanted more. More of what Dave could give her.
"Make me come, Dave, please." Penelope moaned the words out as Dave eased a third finger inside her, finding her clenched tight around his fingers.
Keeping his thumb moving upon her, "That's it, Cara…" Dave slid his hand up till he could cup Penelope's neck and the base of her skull in his hand, holding her so he could see her eyes, her mouth, her face, wanting to watch the sensations flood over her.
"Dave! I'm close!" Penelope gave a sharp cry and Dave twisted his fingers inside her, curling them to press against that place inside he had found that seemed to wind her tighter and tighter.
With an exquisite twist of his fingers and low coaxing words spilling from his mouth unbidden, "Come for me, Cara," he watched as she tensed and froze for one brief moment before shattering apart.
Seeing what he wanted, he swooped forward to catch Penelope's strained scream between their lips, licking into the inside of her mouth before thrusting his tongue against hers in a dance that enticed more shivers into wracking her frame. Feeling her begin to settle down under his hands, he pulled his fingers slowly free, pressing one last caress over her before bringing his fingers caressingly down her thigh.
Leaning his forehead against hers and easing his grip on her neck, Dave closed his eyes, pulling his raging need under some kind of control.
"I believe it's time for us to get home." Penelope's voice nestled around him, soft and welcoming. Then it became strong and hard, her demand wringing the last of Dave's control from him, "I need you inside me now, Mon Loup."
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(A/N: I have got to get these two home before they burn down the BAU!
I've found myself as nervous about this chapter as the very first chapter I every posted.
Opinions and reviews! Share them please!
Hope you're still enjoying the story. KK)