The second he turned around and his eyes focused on her, he knew he was done for.
The most he had hoped to get out of this evening was a few beers on the boss and at least a mention of possibly moving some of Brennan's goods for him before going back to his own place and getting hammered out of his mind, as had become his usual late night ritual.
But now, halfway through tipping back the last of his beer, looking at her at that moment, for the first time in almost a month, he couldn't help but break into a smile. Not the tight half-smile, half-smirk with just a touch of menace in the eyes that he had come to perfect over the course of his life as J.D., but a real, honest-to-goodness Sam Swarek smile that he quickly rationalized in the J.D. part of his brain as happiness at the opportunity to play pool with two smoking hot women.
The J.D. part of his brain also made a snide remark about the perks of ebony and ivory that he would have said aloud if Jake or Tyrone had been there with him, but the Sam in him chose to ignore it.
In the nine seconds it took for him to retrieve another beer and make it over to the pool table, he had figured a few things out in his mind.
One, he knew that somehow, someway McNally had figured out that the Alpine was, if not specifically J.D.'s haunt, then at the least the haunt of whatever drug addict or dealer she inevitably thought he was playing. Part of him was proud of her for deducting that (if he had mentioned in passing this dive bar to her, he didn't remember), for Boyd sure as hell hadn't told her (whenever she was brought up in their conversation, Don had always associated his rookie with handcuffs - and not in the sexual way).
Two, he recognized the incredible danger that they - as well as Nash - were both in at the moment. He had long ago perfected the mile long, unaffected stare that was so crucial in a job filled with the unexpected, so he wasn't worried about blowing the cover on his end. He wasn't even that worried about McNally blowing it either, but with Nash, it was a different story. She was a solid cop and all, but she had been on desk duty for the better part of the last several months, and was inevitably rusty in field, let alone undercover, work.
Three, damn Andy looked even better than he had imagined her - frequently - in the past weeks. He wasn't usually into the whole button-down look, but she somehow made it work. Typical McNally sexiness.
Four, as he watched her lick her in lips in the apparent attempt to recover from the dry mouth that had set upon her due to seeing him, he was acutely, and painfully, reminded of the dream he had had last night where she had licked her lips in that exact same manner (she actually licked her lips in every dream he had of her - which was a lot - since it was one of his favorite things to watch her do).
Five, he couldn't wait to hear what cover story she and Nash had cooked up for themselves.
It had taken less than six minutes for Brennan and him to sweep the girls in an embarrassing loss at the pool table, and he was having a more difficult time at keeping it together than he had originally thought he would. For one, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't keep his eyes from wandering to her form, which he knew wasn't entirely a bad thing, since J.D. was the type to leer at attractive women, and McNally was far more than attractive - but he couldn't bring himself to leer. So he studied, and watched, and studied some more, looking for something that he didn't quite know.
He was in the middle of studying her for the eighth time when her eyes flickered to his, their gazes meeting up, and despite his initial reaction to how beautiful her eyes were, even in this dingy light, he recognized something akin to fear in them, and prayed that she would be able to keep it together.
"So what brings you two here?" Brennan asked.
"We're just here for a couple of nights. Actually leaving tomorrow on a six a.m. flight." Her answer brought some relief to his worrying. Choose a story, commit to it. Simple, vague, details only when necessary. No fancy frills. He had learned this while cutting his teeth in Guns & Gangs running heroin for King and Johnson's (now defunct) business, and was pleased to see that McNally was adhering to the same rules.
"That's too bad." His boss's reply had Sam laughing inside. Brennan had no idea just how too bad it really was.
"It's okay. What sucks though is that I lost all my luggage. I've got nothing left except for a bus token."
Ah, so that's what she and Nash were doing here. The bus token was the white shirt's way of giving the rooks tickets to freedom if necessary. Boyko had given him and Jerry a token each and dropped them off in the vicinity of Richmond Street West for their first undercover exercise. Jerry had hated those eight hours like no other, and still to this day bitched about it at poker nights, but Sam had caught the UC bug, bad.
"Been there. You'll make it." His words were meant to be both an encouragement and an understanding for her, and he was rewarded with a bite of her lip, another favorite McNally mouth activity of his.
"Jamie. Jamie Brennan. That's J.D. He started working for me a couple of weeks ago."
He was careful to keep his features schooled even as his brain shot off a warning signal at Brennan's nonchalant introduction of himself. Apparently he didn't consider two women a threat to security, or else he wouldn't have given his real name.
"I'm Candice. This is Doreen."
He couldn't believe that she had actually chosen to call herself Candice. It took a considerable amount of willpower to refrain from snickering at the memory of one of their past conversations about strippers. He had told her that if she ever started dancing, she had to call herself Candice, because it was an absurd name for an absurd woman. She had shot right back that he didn't even deserve a stripper name because no one would ever want to hire his ugly ass to take off his clothes for them. His ego had stung for a few minutes after that.
"Okay Candice," Brennan said, and Sam wrapped his fingers around his bottle just a little bit tighter when his boss put his arm around McNally's shoulders, "only eight ball left. Don't choke."
This was going to be fantastic. McNally was dreadful at pool, and he should know - he had made the mistake of partnering with her at the Penny one night in an attempt to end Noelle and Oliver's winning streak. It hadn't ended well.
She didn't disappoint, shanking the ball to the right, and it was like that night at the Penny all over again, right down to the part of him staring down her shirt as she leaned over the table.
"All yours. Take it away." Brennan handed him the pool stick, and he took it almost gleefully, knowing that McNally would see the gleam in his eyes at the thought of beating her in their grand tradition of taking everything as a competition.
"No mercy." Brennan's words had him laughing to himself again. As if.
Was it just his imagination, or was she totally checking out his ass right now?
The satisfying sound of stick connecting with ball was like music to his ears as the ball sank into the middle pocket. He swung the cue stick at the women - at McNally, really. "Pay up ladies."
"No, no, let's go double or nothing."
Andy's pathetic attempt at weaseling out of another game had him biting back another smile, but Brennan's words, "Sweetheart, I hate to tell you, but you're dragging your partner down here," was almost exactly what Ollie had said to her at the Penny, and he just couldn't help himself from smiling.
For the first time since starting to work for Brennan, Sam silently thanked the man, this time for leading Nash away, leaving him and Andy alone.
Alone. He tipped back his bottle again, and realized that yet another one was empty. His mother's nagging voice at the back of his mind told him that by the time this particular operation was over he'd have permanent liver damage from all of J.D.'s drinking.
He quickly approached the bar and ordered two more beers, reasoning that if he was going to have to endure liver damage down the road, he'd might as well enjoy it with the beautiful woman who was currently walking towards him.
"So what brings you to town?" he asked, the question partly for keeping up appearances, partly for wanting to find out her cover story (and if she really was Candice the stripper, which he hoped to God she was), and partly because he just wanted to hear her voice again.
"Conference." Her answer was short and to the point, the two syllables far two few for his liking. But then she pulled on her earlobe, her fingers fidgeting with the pearl earrings she always wore, and just like that, she was his McNally again.
"Conference, what kind?" Okay, so maybe she wasn't Candice the stripper after all, unless the conference was for the different metals used for the poles.
"Insurance."
She was an insurance agent - that was so much better than being a stripper in his book, not because that job was particular sexy, but because he had a funny feeling she had chosen that occupation based on a conversation they had had back in the early days of their partnership. They had been talking about which jobs they would have had if not for being a cop. He had said a firefighter, because the ladies love the uniform, any uniform, and you didn't have to fill out paperwork, and she had said an insurance agent, to which he had replied that she would have killed herself out of boredom within eight months.
"Insurance. How's that been?" He was hoping she'd rise to his bait and make some witty comment on how dreadfully boring it was.
"Great. Terrific. A little lonely." Her words had him swallowing hard, the hidden meaning not lost on him. "What about you?"
If they were talking in riddles and codes, he might as well give her a good one. "New job. Fresh start. Actually, I've been wondering why I got into this business in the first place." He saw that his words weren't lost on her, but that she was doing that damn over-thinking thing again, trying to decipher exactly what he meant, when all he really meant was that he missed her. Terribly.
It wasn't as if he had just hopped into the car with Boyd without a second thought. Sure, he might have acted nonchalant about going under again for an undetermined amount of time, but he had been weighing the options of following his passion for his job or Andy for such a long time now that it was one of the main reasons he wasn't sleeping well anymore. But when the opportunity had arisen, he had been in such an emotionally charged and vulnerable state, with Andy almost dying (again) and then them almost kissing, but her backing away, that he had acted rather, and regrettably, rashly.
That last part had him sounding like a girl, which he wasn't at all pleased with. But, still going down that touchy-feeling emotional path, he had missed her so, so, so much it had been almost unbearable. Constantly thinking about where she was on her beat, who she was partnered with, what she was wearing at that exact moment under her uniform. Typical stuff.
The dreams had been his only solace, and even then they had given him more grief than comfort. His dreams with McNally in the starring role had started long, long ago, but to have them and not see her or touch her the next day had driven him just a little crazy, which he guessed fit his J.D. persona alright.
"What business is that?"
"Oh, nothing as interesting as insurance, that's for sure." He could sit here all night, with his face in his hand, just watching her.
"Nothing is." She shook her head slightly as she smiled, that genuine, beautiful, blindingly breathtaking Andy McNally smile that he had grown to crave in the past two years. Scratch that. He could sit here all night, with his face in his hand, just watching her smile. He shook his head, noticing too late that he was mimicking her movements, and couldn't help but feel like an idiot for giving this - for giving her, up.
God, he had missed her so much.
His lovely little bubble of him and his McNally and the alcohol that was warming his whole body was abruptly burst when she told him she had to go. No.
"Yeah, you got to find a place to put your head down for the rest of the night. Not here." He knew she was smart enough to catch his meaning, but added that steely glint in his eyes as he said it to make sure she understood. The last thing he wanted was to find her several hours later lying half-naked on a flea-infested bed after being stabbed several times in the abdomen.
Okay, so maybe he was overreacting, but over protectiveness or not, the Alpine was not a place for a single woman (or two women together, which was only slightly better) to stay.
He was rewarded with an equally steely gaze and a single nod in affirmation that she indeed got his meaning.
Nash and Brennan walked over to the table and said something of unimportance. He didn't pay attention, focusing all of his attention on the brunette in front of him, knowing full well that this was going to be the last chance he got to see her in at least a couple of months.
Boyd was such a bastard.
"J.D., it was nice to meet you. Maybe I'll see you around sometime." Her words, and her smile, cut him deep, deeper than he would have liked.
"Yeah, you never know." He hadn't meant it to come out so sharply, but right now he would have taken not seeing her at all rather than seeing her for such a brief moment only to have her disappear out of his life again.
He watched her retreating form until she was out of his line of sight.
It hadn't been difficult for J.D. to get back into the swing of conversation with Brennan. For Sam, it was a different story, but for J.D., Candice was just another hot woman who had entered and exited his life like many others before her. She wasn't Andy McNally, the only woman in the world as far as Sam Swarek was concerned.
Just Candice.
"Hey, look who's back," Brennan said with a tilt of his head, and when Sam saw her for the second time, he was instantly filled with dread.
"Hey," she said. Her voice didn't sound normal, did it?
"Hey," he responded.
Either something had happened to her, or Nash, or both of them. Maybe she was high out of her mind after having to take some of the drugs in order to maintain her cover. Were her pupils dilated? Were her hands shaking? He couldn't tell, willing her closer so he could discreetly check her visible vitals.
She looked fine, was acting normal - apart from the blatant disregard for protocol by coming back in here - and his dread, while still acute, subsided a bit.
"Um, I'm going to be on a plane in a couple of hours, back to Appleton, and I'll be gone, out of your life, so if you're not doing anything in the next couple hours, maybe..." she trailed off, and for a second all he could focus on were her lips.
Had she just propositioned him, here, in the Alpine, with both of them under aliases?
His mind began running rampant with illicit images that he had only previously dreamed of, and his mouth went completely dry. Swallowing hard, very, very hard, he cleared his throat.
Yes. Yes, he wanted to make love to her. Yes, he wanted to take her back to his place and simply revel in and experience the sensations he had gotten a preview of all those months ago and that had been driving him desperate with need ever since. Yes, he wanted her. Badly. So, so so badly.
He cursed Brennan and Boyd, not for the first time.
"I'm - I'm with my boss." He had never hated himself as much as he did at that moment.
He saw the light and giddiness drain out of her eyes, her smile disappear, the flush of her cheeks go cold. No. No, no, no, no. But he had to continue. He couldn't jeopardize this operation, not when it had been underway for close to a year. No matter how much he didn't want to continue, he had to. And it pissed him off.
"And I wouldn't want you to miss your flight." Another thought had dawned on him as he spoke those words - Nash obviously wasn't with her, and it was quite late in the evening, and she was a woman - a very attractive, beautiful one - and these weren't the best parts of town.
She needed to get back to the station, pronto.
"Okay. Then I'm gone." And she turned and walked away, and he wanted, needed, to call out to her, to rush after her, but she had already turned to leave, and he couldn't abandon his current position, and he was so furious and confused and strung out that he thought maybe Brennan had slipped him some rocks after all.
He watched her until she pushed open the door - aggressively - and walked out. Out of his life. For how long, he didn't know. Too long, though - that he did know.
Turning back to the bar, he tried to school his features, but was becoming more and more irate at the little chuckles coming from Brennan.
"We have business, you and me," his boss said, gesturing between them.
He nodded his head with a fake smile, that J.D. one that he had so perfectly practiced in these past weeks. "Yes, we do." No big deal. The love of his life hadn't just walked out the door after he had turned her down. His one object of obsession hadn't just exited with his denial ringing in her ears. No big deal.
"We can catch up on that business tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that." Brennan had that smile on his face that Sam had come to know was a good facial expression, not like the smile-sneer that would usually accompany a threat or a disappointment. "A woman like that doesn't knock on your door every day."
There were two things running through his mind at that moment. One, he had the sudden urge to go all European on Brennan and kiss him on the cheek - just an air kiss, to be safe, but a kiss nonetheless - and two, the irony was so poignant and the memories of her knocking on his door the night of the blackout still seared into his memory and senses that the smile he gave was the first one he hadn't had to fake with his boss.
Brennan had picked up the tab, shooing him off to go track down Candice the insurance agent, and he hadn't needed a second urging, practically tearing out of that seedy hellhole as fast as the maze of tables and people would let him.
The door was lighter than he remembered it being just hours ago, and then there she was, hunched up against the cold, her hair lit up by the neon sign behind her, and even from behind she looked so stunning he couldn't believe it.
He placed a hand on her shoulder - had she lost some weight since he had left? - and as she whirled around to face him he couldn't contain his giddiness.
"Let's go."
The cab ride to his place was short and quiet, nothing spoken between them, for nothing needed to be said. Arriving at the apartment, he had done a quick grounds check to make sure his cover team hadn't showed up unexpected, and then proceeded upstairs, where he also had to do a security check, this time switching off the audio and visual surveillance Boyd and his team had set up.
"So what, you can just turn the cameras off and they don't care?" The first words spoken in over fifteen minutes and those were it. It made him laugh.
"I've gotta have some kind of life, right?" he replied with a grin, taking the jacket she had just shed.
She smiled back - how he had missed that smile - "I guess."
Standing in front of him, in his apartment - J.D.'s apartment, but right now that didn't really matter - her fingers playing with her watch, and her expression one of nervousness and hopeful expectation, he thought she looked perfectly at home. In his home. With him.
"I'm going to call you a cab. It's going to take you back to the station, and you're going to get into your uniform." He didn't want her to leave. He didn't want her to leave at all, but he needed to give her an out right now, so that if for some reason she regretted this later on, there was no way she could place any blame on him.
She walked backwards, farther into the room, and he was acutely aware of her fingers undoing the bottom buttons of her blouse.
"No."
Never had a word had that much power over him. He swallowed hard as he slowly made his way over to her, his eyes studying her, his heart racing, pounding with the anticipation and nerves and raw sexual energy.
She scooted onto the table in the middle of the room, and he came and stood in between her legs, just watching her face, drinking in her presence and her closeness to him, wondering how on earth God could have made a creature as beautiful as her.
"If you don't leave now, there's no going back." That was his final out - he wasn't going to give any more to her, because he knew that as soon as he kissed her, as soon as he even touched her, he wasn't going to let her go until he had had her.
"I don't want to go back." Oh, thank Jesus. Her eyes were dancing now, and he knew his weren't dancing at all, because he could see her slowly grow serious as she took in the desire for her that was clearly written across his face.
In that moment, he had never wanted anything as much as he wanted her.
Moving closer, he placed his left hand on her side, feeling her solid body, and his right hand on her neck and cheek, caressing the soft skin that continually tempted him through all hours of the day.
He dipped his head down towards hers, breathing her in, the scent of cherry blossoms and lemon and Andy making something deep within him clench. Brushing his nose against hers, he lowered his lips slowly, so slowly, until finally he kissed her.
Just the mere touch and taste of her lips, though his kiss was a slow and shy one, was enough to elicit a groan from him. He needed more, he wanted more, and so when she didn't shy away when he ran his tongue over her lips to ask permission, he grabbed that opportunity to deepen the kiss, running his hands down her sides before the need to feel her closer to him swam to the forefront of his overstimulated senses and he laced his arms around her back, pulling her into him.
Her lips, her kiss, her everything was so much better than he had remembered from the night of the blackout. He kissed her like he was drowning, and never, ever wanted to stop, for she felt so good against him, and so natural and right.
Her hands were doing evil things to his shirt-clad torso, and the fabric between her fingers and his bare skin was now far too heavy and bulky for his liking, so he quickly shed the unwanted clothing. The look in her eyes as she followed the ridges of his stomach was enough to make him throw her against the table and have his way with her right then and there, but he settled with having her fingers flutter across the back of his neck, eliciting involuntary shivers from him.
Her neck was now his sole object of attention, that smooth, tanned neck that tempted him and taunted him each and every day in the patrol car and on the streets, and he had to bite back a smile when she whimpered as his lips paid homage to that delicious strip of skin. She tasted of honey and lemon and salt and he simply couldn't get enough of it, but the allure of her lips was now simply too great to be ignored, so he ghosted his kisses across her cheek before quickly giving attention to the other side of her neck, and finally kissed her again.
He hadn't been aware of his hands moving down her front, but was now very aware of the irritating fabric that was preventing him from seeing and feeling the rest of her. He quickly glanced at her face, her eyes close in what he hoped was the ecstasy he was feeling at the moment, and began to slowly unbutton her shirt, his fingers trembling slightly as they brushed against her bare skin, until he caught a glimpse of the black lace underneath and thought he would simply die from the beauty of her. He pulled the tails of her shirt to him so that she came along with them, and in that moment he was wrapped up in the continual fantasy he had of having her on their wedding night, so he did what any man who had just married the woman of his dreams would do - picked up his bride and carried her over the proverbial threshold.
The smile she gave him was again so beautiful, but he didn't want to see her smile at that moment, he wanted to kiss her, and so he did, again, as he carried her over to his bed.
He was momentarily disoriented when she broke off from his lips, only to have his lust turned up even higher, if that was possible, when she let down her hair and began to remove her shirt, two actions that he let her know he approved of very, very much by the low rumble he was sure she heard from the laughter in her eyes.
And then there she was, on his bed, topless, and God how he wanted her, and he kissed her slowly, savoring her taste and the feeling, marveling at how soft her cheek was as he caressed it, hell bent on kissing her like this until the world ended until she bit his lower lip in what he took as an impatient signal to hurry up his ministrations, which he happily acquiesced to.
And there was that neck of her again, tantalizing him, and he couldn't help himself from kissing down its long length, sinking his teeth gently into the skin just above her collarbone as if marking her as his own.
He didn't know how much longer he was going to be able to last as this exquisite woman writhed and moaned under him, but when he looked down at her, really looked at her, and saw her looking at him, his movements still at the perfection he was holding.
He had never, in his life, watched a woman as he made love to her - in all honesty, he had never made love to a woman before, for it had always been just sex, just instant gratification, but then again, Andy was not some instant gratification to be had and tossed away, and he was momentarily ashamed of himself as he trembled from the look and beauty on her face, the way her eyes were dark with need, the way her lips were swollen from his kisses, the way her cheeks and her neck and her chest were flushed with the most appealing blush he had ever seen.
She was beauty and perfection exemplified.
He exhaled heavily as she bucked her hips against his, and he simply couldn't take it anymore as he pulled her into him, never hating jeans more than he had now as his and hers both were the things constricting him from what he wanted, but he couldn't voice anything at that moment, so he kissed her, hard, to let her know exactly what he wanted from her.
His hands touched her entire body, marveling at the silkiness of her skin and the smoothness of her shoulders and stomach and the perfection that was her breasts and he knew right then, at that instant, like he had always known, that she was his.
He bit her neck again, this time a bit too hard for his liking, as she began exploring his erection with her fingers, and quickly soothed it with his tongue, wanting to make this last as long as possible.
That particular desire was tossed out the window as soon as he began unbuttoning her jeans and felt her satin underwear and completely came undone.
He supposed he should blame her really, as they lay together on his bed, both still breathing heavily, since she had just ruined any other woman for him, but he highly doubted he would ever have another woman after her, so he guessed he was lucky to spend the rest of his life with the perfection that was his Andy McNally.
This hadn't just been sex, he mused, as his fingers moved of their own accord, lazily drawing random patterns on her back, the feel of both her skin and the wet sheen of sweat that covered him as well making him second guess his rule of no after-sex cuddling. Andy seemed to make him make a lot of exceptions in his life when it came to her.
Every so often he would change his pressure to featherlight, which made her shiver, which in her made him laugh, and laughing while his partner shivered on his chest was something he couldn't believe he was just experiencing now.
He never wanted to leave this bed, never wanted to not feel the silkiness of her bare skin against his own. He had claimed her as his own tonight, and he was damned if he was going to let her get away this time.
"Do you think the universe has a plan - for us?" she asked. Another thing he had never done after sex - had philosophical discussions. He kind of liked this new tradition.
"Oh yeah, it was undoubtedly fate that brought you into that bar tonight." So maybe a philosophical discussion wasn't what they were having - more like a are-we-still-keeping-up-this-random-act-of-fate-tonight discussion. Whatever it was, he liked it.
"Okay, I might remember you saying something about it, but I didn't know you were going to be there!" He raised his eyebrows at her horrible attempt at lying. "I didn't!" The wrinkling of her nose reminded him once again of how doe-like she could be.
"I never thought I'd see anyone I knew at the Alpine, Andy, least of all you." Andy - he liked how that sounded coming out of his mouth far more than he should have.
"The one chance I get to be whoever I want to be, and I choose Candice who works in insurance." Her look of annoyance and disgust had him remembering his first undercover exercise with Jerry.
"I think it's funny. Don't tell anybody this, but my first time I was Ernie the Zamboni driver." Needless to say, that particular occupation and name hadn't gone over so well with the ladies.
He smiled broadly as he was rewarded with the laughter he was hoping to get, her eyes crinkling at the edges in the way he so dearly loved before she laid her head down on his chest to cover the rest of her giggles, causing him to tense up slightly as her lips placed a soft kiss on his shoulder.
He was doubly rewarded as she leaned forward to kiss him again, which he more than happily reciprocated. It wasn't a kiss of need or lust or desire, but rather a kiss of happiness, and he found he really, really enjoyed it.
"I gotta go." Even before she uttered those words he knew she was going to say them from the change of emotions in her eyes.
"We're being incredibly stupid." Those words were supposed to make him sober up and realize the severity of their actions, but he couldn't really bring himself to care when her fingers were running themselves so wonderfully through his chest hair.
"Yes we are. I can never come back here. Ever."
Her statement cut him deep, really, really deep. He knew from the expression on her face that she didn't like this arrangement at all, but what he was feeling was quickly turning into despair. He had waited two years for this opportunity, and when he finally had her, both metaphorically and literally in his arms, fate dealt them a card that he wanted to rip into tiny shreds.
He had known for the better part of those two years that Andy was it for him, that she was his one and only, his true love, all that wishy-washy Lifetime movie crap, but it was true. And now that he had made love to her, claimed her as his own - for God's sake, carried her bridal-style to his bed (something that he hoped to repeat on a very important date somewhere down the road) he didn't want to let her go.
At the very least, he wanted to have her again. Just once more, for memory's sake, to help him get through these long months ahead.
"Andy, you have to go." He knew that she also wanted to have one more go-around, evident through her current exploration of him under the sheets.
How he loved this woman.
"I know," was her reply, and then he kissed her again, not even asking permission before exploring her mouth again, and he quickly flipped her over so that he was on top, and pressed his mouth against her ear as he ran his hand down her stomach.
"Just one more time."