I'm sorry to disappoint those of you who wanted an actual sex scene but I have a confession to make, I'm a teenage with no experience in that area, so I apologize for skipping straight to the morning after, and this is how I plan to write for the rest of the story, I hope it's not to much of a disappointment. But as always I would love to hear what you have to think, and unfortunately I own nothing.
When I woke up I was temporarily confused, it took me a minute to realize I was wrapped in Patrick Jane's arms. "You're still here." I smiled.
"You thought I would leave?" He frowned.
"I thought it might have been a dream." I whispered into his bare chest.
"And does Teresa have naughty dreams about me a lot?" He teased brushing the hair out of my face so he could see me blush. "And how do I compare?"
"Better." I could feel my cheeks burning, "Much better."
"You know I've had dreams about you to." He admitted pulling me if possible even closer to him.
"And?" I looked up into his eyes, he hair was more disheveled than usual, I had slept with Jane.
"Dreams never compare to reality." He assured I had slept with Jane, we were lying completely naked in my bed with the kids down the hall.
"Patrick?" I stared up at him and he smiled though I couldn't figure out why.
"You called me Patrick." He prompted reading the confusion on my face.
"Well it didn't seem appropriate to call you Jane." I answered and he just continued smiling.
"Is it because as Alyssa loves to point out it's a girls name?" He chuckled.
"No." I answered maybe a little to quickly, but that honestly wasn't the reason. "Jane is my coworker, and that would be against the rules. Oh God work what are we going to say at work, what are we going to tell them? Relationships are against the rules, is this a relationship? We slept together, the kids are down the hall. You're naked. Oh God." Everything was pouring out at once. "Was this a mistake, oh God their going to know the minute we get off the elevator."
"Teresa, shut up." He smirked, he had never told me to shut up before. That was my job to tell him when to stop talking. "They are not going to know, unless we tell them, and we will only do that when you want to. Second yes I sure hope this is a relationship because if not I will do everything in my power to make it one. Third no rules are being broken. I've checked three times, twice in the past year and nowhere does it say anything about who a consultant can or can not date."
"You checked three times?" I interrupted, "Why?"
"I wanted to make sure." He smiled.
"Three times?" I repeated, he remembered everything what would make him need to check and recheck something like that.
"I couldn't afford to be wrong." He answered, "As for your other two concerns the kids are still sleeping and yes neither of us have any clothes on." Just as he said that I felt something cold against my back and shivered out of instinct before realizing it was his wedding ring. He stopped and unwrapped his arm from my waist, he just stared at the ring face completely unreadable. "Do you want me to take it off?" He looked up at me still playing with the ring on his finger.
For so long I had told myself that ring was the only thing standing between the possibility of us, that wasn't true of course and I knew it. The ring was a symbol of his devotion to another women and as much as I wanted to say yes, that's not what happened when I opened my mouth. "No, it has to be your decision."
"If it makes you uncomfortable I will take it off." He repeated, he didn't volunteer to take it off and I knew he wasn't ready.
"Keep it on, the guys at work would be suspicious if you suddenly stopped wearing it." I reassured him, and he smiled wrapping his arms back around me.
"Thank you Teresa." He whispered leaning in, I could get used to waking up to Jane's kisses.
"What time is it?" I sighed after a couple minutes of just lying in each other's arms. Patrick groaned turning his head to read the clock on the nightstand.
"Six O three." He turned back to me.
"You should go, unless you want to wear the same suit to work or risk being late." I didn't want him to go, I just wanted to lie in bed together all morning.
"I have my out of town bag in the car." He answered. "And I'm sure my boss would understand if I was a little late." And I was showered in more kisses.
"She might, but if we don't get out of bed you have to explain why the girls are late to their kindergarten teacher." I smirked.
"Well it's better me than you, after the last time the two of you spoke." He teased, and I couldn't stop my self from slapping him, "Fine, I'll go get my clothes but the shower better be ready for me when I get back."
"You will wait your turn." I smiled wrapping myself in blankets as he climbed out of bed and slipped into his clothes from yesterday to run outside. "You didn't go for a run." I worried.
"I can live without it for one day." He slid into his shirt.
"Only one day?" I questioned.
"As many days as you would like." He smiled giving me a quick kiss before walking out. The bed was so cold with him gone, which made a shower sound that much more appealing. Only to get to the shower I had to get out of bed and I didn't have anything on, I knew it was irrational I was alone in my bedroom no one would see me, but that was besides the point. I leaned over the bed and reached for the nearest piece of clothing, Jane's jacket, good enough. I slipped into it and crossed the room to the bathroom, it was a lot harder to slip out of though it smelt like Jane, tea leaves and something else I couldn't quite place, it was just Jane.
I took my time in the shower relishing in the fact that Jane was mine, even if it was only for that one night he was mine. When I got out of the shower Patrick's overnight bag was sitting at the foot of my already made bed, Jane's suit from the day before lying on the bed minus the jacket that was still hanging on the bathroom door.
I hurried and got dressed and went to check on the kids, the nursery was empty so I had to assume Jane had taken care of getting Cass ready. Meanwhile down the hall I could hear the sounds of an early morning argument. Looking in the door all three appeared to be dressed and the argument had something to do with superpowers.
"Teeth brushed?" I interrupted I was answered with three nodding heads. "Can I go check your tooth brushes?"
"William didn't brush his teeth." Alyssa tattled.
"Did to." Liam cried.
"No you didn't." Emily added.
"All three of you to the bathroom please." I instructed, shuffling the kids down the hall to the bathroom where there sat three completely dry toothbrushes. "Up on the stools please." I directed passing out toothbrushes and distributing their bubblegum flavored toothpaste. I helped Liam and supervised the girls and before you know teeth brushing was done with minimal complaint. Next came hair brushing and then we were ready to go downstairs for breakfast.
Where Patrick had set the table and was in the process of pouring milk for the kids. "Good morning." He smiled lifting William into his seat and then handing me my coffee.
"What's in the pancakes today?" I couldn't help but grin when he kissed my cheek.
"Two types, peanut butter and banana or chocolate chip and banana." He placed the pancakes in the center of the table, his hand not so accidently brushing mine. "To much?"
"Not at all." I rolled my eyes realizing he was yet to make us normal pancakes, I was starting to wonder why we even had syrup.
"Did Patrick spend the night?" Emily asked, while I helped her cut her pancakes.
"How did you know Patrick hasn't been spending the night?" I frowned, he had left after tucking them in, then came back before they woke up.
"His car was gone the other night when I had my bad dream." Emily answered, "I thought you had a fight, and didn't want us to know."
"I thought you were fighting bad guys using your superpowers." Alyssa told Jane and I couldn't help but smile.
"I said no, cause he said you fight bad guys together and you were still in bed." Emily argued.
"No we didn't have a fight." I reassured, "And Patrick wasn't fighting bad guys by himself."
"Then why hasn't he spent the night?" Alyssa frowned.
"Teresa wanted to gather her thoughts." Jane supplied, the girls just kind of shrugged off the answer unsure of what it meant.
"Well are you going to be living with us again?" Emily questioned, and that caused Jane to look over at me, I guess this was my decision. We haven't even been on a real date wasn't that kind of a requirement before your boyfriend moved in with you. What if it didn't work? What was I worrying about Patrick and I had pretty much been living together anyway.
"Yes, Patrick was just thinking about moving his things out of the motel later today." I smiled, and Jane looked like a little kid in a candy shop. Far to soon we were expected to get the kids to school and we were expected to be at work. After buckling in the kids Jane pulled me into his arms for what I could only assume was a good bye kiss even though we would be seeing each other again in forty minutes. He pulled away only when he heard giggling from the back seat of the car.
"Gross." William giggled with his sisters.
"You didn't see anything." I blushed, "This is our little secret."
"Like the secret you made us keep when Patrick went away." Alyssa giggled.
"Yeah just like that secret." I smiled.
"Does this mean he knows that secret?" Emily wondered.
"No I haven't told him that secret yet." I blushed, Jane's arms were still wrapped around my waist.
"Oh I want to know that secret." He chuckled.
"You kissed him you have to tell him the secret." Alyssa kept giggling.
"Yeah Teresa you kissed me you have to tell me now." He smirked.
I made a huge show up turning back around to face him, and standing on my toes to whisper in his ear. "You really want to know the secret?"
"I really want to know." Jane smiled.
"I suppose I should tell you." I was going to drag this out. "I mean I did kiss you."
"That's true." He nodded.
"Well I don't really have a choice then." I was still whispering in his ear, "You see I may have mentioned to the girls how I really feel about you."
"Oh." Was Jane's only response.
"Yea you see I may have told them that I loved you." I whispered, before pulling back ever so slightly.
"Really." Jane chuckled, "And you weren't going to tell me this."
"You've never needed me to tell you things before." I reminded.
"Some things are better said out loud." He kissed me again before letting me go. "Have a nice day at work."
"Oh I'll try as long as my pain in the butt consultant doesn't try anything stupid." I returned watching him walk to his car. I couldn't help but smile all the way to the school, and when I got to work Jane was feigning sleep on his couch as if nothing had changed. I suppose it was a good thing he was such a good actor because I was as giddy as schoolgirl about the whole thing.
An hour later my office door opened and Jane stuck his head in. "Do you ever knock?"
"Are we back on this again." He chucked closing the door behind him.
"That better be a coffee behind your back Jane." He just smiled and didn't move. "If you don't have a coffee for me you better just turn around and leave." I tried again. He just smiled rocking on his heels. "What do you want Patrick?"
"Much better." He chuckled pulling the coffee from behind his back. "But I don't know if you need this your pretty jumpy as it is."
"Just give me the damn coffee." I tried really hard to sound mad at him. He just smiled and handed me the cup before lying himself out on my couch. "And excuse me for being the only one in a good mood today."
"The only one in a good mood?" Jane sat up again. "You think I'm not in a good mood."
"You sure have a weird way of showing it." I replied.
"I thought you didn't want people to know, I thought you wanted everything to look normal." He frowned, he was right of course. I suppose it was hard for me to be so happy and him to be so in control.
"Of course." I nodded, "I guess maybe I'm worried you think last night was a mistake."
"Teresa, you want to know how I feel?" He was looking me straight in the eyes again and I just nodded. "For the first time in nine years I feel like the happiest man in the entire world, and nothing that happens today is going to change that." Before I had a chance to respond there was a knock on the door and Cho stuck his head in.
"Am I interrupting something?" He looked from me to Jane and back again.
"Not at all." I indicated for him to come in further, "Jane was explaining some of the finer aspects of soccer since I learned last night I know very little about it." Since when did I lie to my co-workers, Jane was a horrible influence on me.
"Since when does Jane no anything about sports." Cho frowned apparently he was still thinking about what he had seen a couple weeks ago.
"My daughter played soccer for three years." Patrick looked at Cho and there was no mistaking the sadness in his eyes, but was it me or did it look forced. Apparently that was enough to convince Cho because he turned back to me.
"There was a double homicide about an hour out." He informed.
"Alright grab the other two and I'll take Jane in a second car in case I have to come back early." I nodded and Cho started for the door, but stopped and looked at Jane for a minute.
"Did you want to join us again tonight?" He asked, what was he talking about?
"Last week was bad enough, I would hate to intrude again." Jane shook his head with a sad smile.
"Well if you change your mind it's an open invitation." Cho shrugged before walking out.
"I think you spoke to soon." I turned to him.
"You think something as little as a double homicide would upset me today, you must really underestimate how happy I am to be with you." He smiled getting up from the couch.
"What did Cho mean when he asked if you wanted to join him tonight?" I wondered grabbing my badge and gun.
"I suppose I should explain that." He chuckled, "In the car on the way perhaps." He held the door open for me.
"Okay we're in the car explain." I ordered, pulling out of the CBI parking lot behind the rest of the team.
"You recall last Friday." He watched me.
"You mean when you looked like hell and put on quite a show for the team." I sighed.
"That would be the day." He smiled.
"So what does that have to do with anything?" I asked and he chuckled.
"Patience women, let me tell my story." He smirked.
"Well then tell it already." I insisted.
"Alright after I left your place last Thursday I went to bar that our coworkers just conveniently visit every Thursday night after work." He started.
"How come I didn't know that?" I frowned, they went to a bar together every week why was I left out.
"Because they're afraid of you, and it would be weird to drink with your boss." He shrugged, "Don't worry I was never invited either, but it's very interesting what you hear when people think you're asleep."
"Okay so you invited yourself to the bar, you said you weren't hung over though." I was going to ignore the fact that I wasn't invited to the bar for now.
"And I wasn't." Jane nodded, "I drank the appropriate amount for them to believe I was drunk with out actually getting drunk."
"Why?" I was still confused by Jane's motivation for the whole thing.
"Simple really people say things they wouldn't usually after they've had to much to drink, and I must say I put on quite a performance. My speech on how lonely I was, how my life had no purpose now that I had gotten my revenge, how I missed my family. I put a lot of emphasis on the lonely part." He chuckled, "You should have seen it quite the performance. Obviously parts of it were true, and the team was more than willing to accept what I was saying. They were especially convinced after insisting on driving me back to my motel and seeing the mess that I had made specifically for them. My suits were thrown over chairs, tables, the TV, along with multiple pictures of my family and empty beer bottles."
"Why do you want them to think you're so miserable?" I questioned his story was still lacking a motive.
"For you." He shrugged.
"For me?" I repeated.
"I needed to back track after Cho saw us kissing in your office because I knew that you wouldn't want the whole office to know when we did eventually get together. So now the team thinks I'm miserable and alone, and by no means involved with you at all." He explained and it started to make sense, only how far back had he been planning this what ever this was.
"You knew a week ago, the day after I kicked you out of my house, that you were going to come back and what sweep me off my feet?" I glanced over at him.
"I didn't know how or when but yes I knew I was going to do everything in my power to convince you that it would be okay for us to see each other in a more than friends and co-workers nature." He smiled, "Now obviously the hard part of that was waiting for you to admit to yourself you were ready to take the next step, and on more than one occasion I found that I just couldn't help myself, which only proved to set me back that much further."
"What was this some grand con for you, and I was your mark." I accused.
He took my hand in his and slowly brought it to his lips, his kiss was gentle on the top of my hand, "You always look at things in the worst possible way, could you not look at it as a man trying to get the courage to ask you out."
"A normal man would suggest dinner or a movie." I rolled my eyes.
"I said a long time ago I would never try to seduce you over a meal." He reminded.
"How long have you been planning this?" I needed to know, he brought my hand back to the center council where he continued to gently massage it with his thumb.
"That depends on what you mean by planning." He chuckled, still no straight answers with him. "I have had many plans nothing more than theories, ideas really, for a couple years now, but there were other forces involved. Once those other forces were taken care of my planning became much more serious."
"You've wanted to date me for years." I couldn't help but smile, all this time I thought he had only been thinking about his revenge, part of him was thinking about me.
"Why does that surprise you so much?" He was watching me again, and I couldn't help but glance at his wedding ring and he just nodded, "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what?" I turned to look at him for a minute.
"For everything, for not being strong enough." He shook his head and started playing with the ring on his finger, he was not about to pull away now, not after we had both confessed our desire to be together.
"I told you not to worry about that, I don't mind, I promise." I pulled his hand back into mine. "I've always thought it was kind of romantic how you were willing to kill to avenge your family, illegal, but kind of romantic, and you've been through a lot this year, and if your not ready yet I don't blame you. We'll take it one step at a time together."
"You're sweet." He chuckled, "But I think we skipped a couple crucial steps." I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye we were pulling off the interstate now almost to the crime scene.
"How so?" I questioned.
"Well I think we skipped the courting process and went straight to the kids, house, and sex. In that order." He smiled, and I couldn't help but grin to.
"What were the past eight years of dinners, long nights together, meaningful conversations, support when we most needed it." I wondered, "I think maybe we were dating and we didn't even know it."
"If that was dating and I were in your shoes I would have dumped me by now." He laughed, and so did I.
"I think I tried on a couple occasions, but you kept coming back." I returned, pulling up along side the team's car. "You better behave yourself." I warned opening the door.
"Well that is a curious demand, how do you want me to behave myself?" He questioned, "There is behaving myself in the form of in no way indicating that I want nothing more than to pull you into my arms and kiss you until the end of times."
"Stop there, that is what I mean by behaving yourself, anything else is on the table." I immediately regretted what I said just from the look on his face. "You do anything illegal, I will shoot you." I added just to be safe.
He was in fact surprisingly well behaved at the crime scene, insulting the minimal amount of people and pointing out many potentially useful pieces of evidence. I could get used to a new semi-well-behaved Jane, was it just me or was he staying incredibly close to me. No one else seemed to notice perhaps he was always this close and I had never taken the time to pay attention.
"I got to head back to get the kids, Jane you want to catch a ride with them?" I announced a little bit before two, we had processed the crime scene and talked to the victims family and the team was about to go talk to an ex boyfriend.
"I'll come with you, I'm bored here." He shrugged, of course he was.
"Really the ex boyfriend looks like a promising lead and you want to miss that." I frowned.
"Meh, he'll tell us he didn't do it, we'll say okay where were you, he won't have an alibi, we'll keep talking to him and find some reason to bring him in where he might confess or he might give us someone else's name either way you don't need me, I'd rather be asleep on my couch." He answered, and I suppose he had a point even if we both knew that wasn't the real reason why he wanted to come back with me.
"Fine whatever, but we aren't going straight to the office I need to get the kids." I sighed and he just nodded.
"Can we make a stop first?" he asked after driving in silence for a little bit.
"It better be a quick stop." I warned.
"I was just thinking that if you hadn't changed your mind we could run by my motel room." He smiled over at me, and I grinned, "To grab my things."
"I suppose we could squeeze that in." I gave an exaggerated sigh.
"I would say after, but the kids don't really need to see my horrible living conditions." He glanced over at me.
"But you're not embarrassed for me to see it." I teased him.
"Teresa you've seen my attic this isn't to different." He chuckled.
"I think you should go to the bar tonight." I changed topics.
"What?" He looked utterly confused.
"I mean if you were really that lonely wouldn't you be trying to find company." I reasoned.
"But they would also understand that I'm not the type of person to accept an invitation because it was offered out of pity." He argued, "Maybe I'll go next week." I just rolled my eyes I wasn't going to argue about this now. "You really don't want me in your house do you?"
"I can't wait to get you back to my house." I tried very hard to sound seductive, which I'll admit probably sounded ridiculous and Jane just smirked before leaning over the center council of the car to kiss my cheek. "You're all mine now."
"Finally." He chuckled leaning back in the passenger seat with my hand in his.