Author's Note: Okay this chapter gave me a really, really tough time! I fought with it, and fought with GLENN, but it's finally done. It's all fluff, but it does carry a purpose. The drama is about to kick up a notch, so don't let this smooth ride fool you. - Nika
The longer Jen sat, alone, watching the couples on the dance floor, the more she thought about dancing. She tried to remember the last time she'd ever been to a dance… a real dance… and she couldn't. Her friend Maggie's wedding five years ago?
Wow, that was really sad.
She dropped her elbows to the table and propped her chin on the back of her hand, promptly jabbing herself with the diamond she forgot she was wearing. She laughed. It was a sad day when she'd forget she was wearing a ring the size of Texas on her hand – a wedding ring to be exact.
And speaking of, where was that husband of hers… she smiled to herself. If she wanted to dance with someone, well, husbands were good for that much at least. And, she supposed, a husband with arms like Evan's… dancing certainly came to mind. As did a few other things…
Jen shook her head abruptly, slapping down her overactive and underused libido. This was not the time, nor the place, to be thinking about her dinner companion's arms. Or… well… any other body part.
She sighed and stared at the people swaying in soft circles around the floor.
Just one dance?
She looked through the crowd, wondering if she could spot him. If he wasn't busy. They had a few minutes yet… He'd returned from talking with Agent Ryan, dropped off her cranberry juice then immediately left again to track down Marks. With the dim lighting and the sea of matching black tuxedos, she searched, and searched, and gave up.
She needed to be taller.
Standing up, she hurried through the tables towards stairs leading up to the balcony. Maybe if she had a better vantage point? She'd almost made it to the bottom step when a hand reached her elbow.
"What's wrong?" Evan asked quickly.
Jen turned, blinked, stared, and threw out the last piece of common sense she ever owned. She grabbed his hand and tugged him towards the couples swaying to the soft orchestral music.
"Jen?"
She glanced over her shoulder, almost laughing at his confused expression.
"I want to dance." She said, pulling him through the dancers to an open spot in the middle.
"You…" Evan stammered.
Oh shit.
"Dance." She stopped and turned towards him. "With you. You know. Boy. Girl. Music. You do know how to dance?"
"Yes… well, of course… but…"
"Good." She teased. "Then dance with your wife, Mr. Lorne."
Evan stalled, looking around for something, anything to save him. Dance. Dance equaled bad. Dance equaled touching. Now dinner. Dinner had been safe. Simple. With the distraction of the conversation, the food, the other people, he'd been able to forget the dress. Forget how stunning she looked in the dress. Forget that her hair smelled like vanilla. Forget the way her eyes sparkled as she tried to see everything, take in everything. Forget the adorable hesitation as she fretted over which piece of silverware to use.
But there was nothing out here on the dance floor to distract him except her.
"Just one song." She asked, her face hopeful. "I promise not to step on your toes. I haven't danced in years. Come on. Please?"
Lord help him, he should be saying no, but his head started nodding the minute she said please.
Jen smiled brightly and put her hand on his shoulder. "Arms go around me, flyboy."
He reached for her free hand, then slid his other arm around her waist. When his hand met soft, silky smooth, bare skin, he jerked and pulled it back, tried to place it in a different spot where his fingers feathered across more skin, tried a third time, and eventually settled on using his fingertips. And even that was torture.
Silk in front, bare skin in back, and likely nothing on underneath. He'd done a damn good job of blocking it all out while she'd been sitting down during dinner, because her naked backside was out of his line of sight. But now… good lord she was going to kill him.
"Evan." Jen laughed and leaned back so she could see his face. "What are you doing?"
He stared at her, swearing he heard the door slam as his brain walked out on him. "I can't… it's… I just… that dress… there's no way to hold you without… touching…" skin.
He let the last word drop.
And with it, so did her smile.
"You… don't want to dance with me… because you'd have to… touch me?"
Evan blinked, unable to comprehend anything other than the sudden realization that his words had made her eyes look so sad.
She dropped her hand and turned away.
"Jen." He grabbed her arm and pulled her back around, replaying exactly what he'd said and kicking himself for being such an idiot. "I… No… Wait."
"It's fine." She said quickly, her face stony. She looked everywhere but at him. "I understand."
"No, you don't." He said quickly, trying to pull her closer.
She stood stiffly in front of him, her arms at her side, looking at a spot somewhere to his left. She looked down at herself and smiled sadly. "It's okay Evan. I told you I don't do these kinds of events. I just got a little carried away. I'm sorry."
"No." He said, scrambling to find a way to fix what he'd just broken. "Jen. I'm sorry. That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean." She finally looked at him, and he felt a knot in his chest to see the hurt in her eyes.
He shook his head and tried to think of the most tactful way of explaining what the thought of running his hand across the soft smooth skin of her backside, while she danced in his arms, was doing to his nether regions.
But when he opened his mouth, all he could manage was... "It's just you in that dress…"
"Again with the dress…" Jen exhaled.
She turned away and he pulled her back around, but this time he stepped into her, locking his arms around her. He splayed his hands against the bare of her back and held her firmly against his chest.
"I wasn't finished."
"Yeah." She nodded, standing stiffly in his arms. "You were. You hate the dress and don't want to touch me. How much more finished do you need to be?"
"I love the dress." He growled. "And that… that is the problem."
Jen rolled her eyes. "Would you make up your mind?"
"I have." He looked into her face, seeing confusion and hurt, wanting very much to have the smile back, to see the sparkle she'd had in her eyes when she'd dragged him out here. Knowing he needed to be the one to give it back because he'd been the one to take it away. But what he wanted to say was so far over the line of inappropriate he'd never be able to take it back.
Ever.
She looked down, then turned her head away, and he was lost.
Taking a deep breath, he jumped into the abyss. "If I thought I had even an ice cube's chance in hell with you… I'd take you back to the hotel and show you - very, very slowly - exactly what it is that I want to do to you, all because you're wearing that damn dress."
Her head turned back around, her eyes piercing his. He held his breath, and let his hands drop away, giving her freedom. She was either going to slap him, or walk away, and he'd have to let her do either.
But she didn't move.
So, neither did he.
Evan knew the precise moment she realized just what it was he was implying, because her face turned several shades of scarlet, and her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth.
Yet she didn't look away.
"Oh." She finally whispered.
"Yeah." He exhaled.
She stood in front of him, not moving, and not blinking.
"If?" She finally said.
He shook his head. "If what?"
"You said… if." The directness of her gaze held him frozen.
"I did?"
She nodded, once. "If you had a chance." Then she blinked. "Why did you say if… and not… when."
"When." He repeated.
She nodded again.
"When… is not an option." He said firmly.
"Why not?"
"Because a woman like you does not deserve a when."
"And what…" She hesitated, holding her fingers in the air before lightly placing her palm against his shoulder. "Does a… woman like me… deserve?" Her eyes narrowed, but a small smile edged the corner of her mouth. "And I would be very careful how you answer that, if I were you."
Evan took her tiny smile for the lifeline it was, and stepped closer. He slid one hand in behind her back, and clasped their free hands together. With a turn he led her slowly around to the music. The fall he was taking was going to end with an incredibly painful splat, but if he was going to go out, he may as well do it full throttle.
"You, Jennifer Keller," he said quietly, placing his mouth next to her ear. "Are an incredibly beautiful woman who deserves these kinds of dresses and outrageously expensive jewelry. Castles and fairytales. With the kind of true heart that makes a man want white picket fences and porch swings. You're not a when. You're a forever. And that is precisely why when is not an option."
Jen stopped moving, stopped dancing, and stopped breathing, under the single thought that slammed through her body.
That had to be the most amazing, most spectacularly romantic thing, she had ever heard in her entire life.
And he'd said it… to her. For her. About her.
She raised her head and looked into his eyes - those amazing blue eyes which were watching her with such intensity she was having a hard time concentrating.
But he'd said… if.
"You don't think you deserve forever." She stated, wrapping his own words around the question that suddenly popped into her head.
"Forever." He started to smile, and shook his head. "Career military, Jen. Incredibly dangerous, and, one of the highest divorce rates. Not worth forever when you don't even know if you're coming back tonight. When all you have to offer is a set of dog-tags she can brag to her friends about… Well, let's just say that by the time Monday morning hits… Guys like me don't get forever."
Jen inhaled sharply, not bothering to hide her frown. "Whoever she is, I hope she gains three-hundred pounds and goes prematurely bald."
"Who?"
"The woman who put that idea into your head."
"Put what idea?"
"The idea that you don't deserve… forever. That has to be the stupidest thing I think I've ever heard you say."
"Ouch…" He started to smile, then blinked in surprise when he saw the look on her face. "Wow. You're really angry."
"Damn right I'm angry!" She nodded, her voice quick and harsh, heat fueling her words. "You want to know what I think?" She pulled back from him and dropped her hands to her hips. Not waiting for an answer she continued on with her verbal tirade. "Well I think that you are an amazing man. Strong, sexy, incredibly intelligent. You talk about castles and fairytales? Well you, Evan Lorne, are a knight in shining tactical armor and any woman who's too stupid to see that never deserved you in the first place. There's absolutely no reason you can't have an if, when, forever… whatever you want to call it… and I don't give a flying fig about dog-tags or… or… Monday mornings." She finished by poking him hard in the chest.
Evan stared.
He couldn't do anything but stare.
She'd just called him sexy.
Blurred between the motion of dancers around them, they stood in the middle of the floor, unmoving, unblinking. Jen's face flushed and she dropped her hands, letting them hang loosely at her sides.
"Did I just…" Jen started to say.
"Yeah." Evan answered, taking a very purposeful, half step forward. "You did."
"And… you just?" She looked suddenly ready to bolt.
Evan grabbed for her, pulling her into his arms. "Yeah. I did."
"So…" She exhaled, slumping into him.
"So…" He answered, feeling her fingers gripping his shoulder as his hand pressed firmly against her lower back.
"You think I'm beautiful?" She asked softly.
"Well, you think I'm sexy." He countered, grinning when she turned red and hid her face against his shoulder. When she started to shake, Evan leaned back quickly, afraid she was – god forbid - crying, and was shocked when she lifted her head in laughter.
"I'm sorry." She shook her head. "Apparently, I've completely lost my mind."
"And it took mine along with it." He said quietly.
Jen sighed and leaned forward, letting him pull her closer.
"So." He whispered against her ear. "What are we supposed to do now?"
She stopped dancing again, and he felt her fingers tighten against his shoulder. He watched the smile slowly fade from her face, and his chest tightened when her eyes dropped slowly to his mouth.
"I think you're supposed to kiss me." She whispered.
"You do, huh." He leaned closer.
She nodded.
"Why?" He asked, inching lower.
"Because."
"Just because?"
She nodded again.
"Is that an order?" He asked.
"Do you need it to be?"
His nose was almost touching hers. She tilted her head oh so slightly.
"I always follow orders."
"Then kiss me." She said, her breath mingling with his. "And that's an order."
"Yes ma'am." He exhaled, dropping the final distance.
.
.
.
Author's Note.... OKAY! Now that we've established the Lady likes the Knight, and the fearless Knight likes the Lady, it's time to put our damsel in distress and give our rescue heroes somethig to do! Onward!