We kiss - and it is a great kiss. It's like an atomic bomb is going off inside my head and then reverberating right through my whole body. Kissing Kensi is blowing me away with the sheer wonder of it all. It's like I'm a little kid all over again, believing in magic because now I know that dreams really do come true, because here I am lying her on this sofa with Kensi in my arms, kissing her and feeling like I'm already halfway to heaven. You want the truth? Well, it's quite simple: she fills my heart with joy.
As kisses go (and I've kissed a few girls in my time, so I'm a pretty good judge) this one is epic. I have to confess that once or twice I've thought vaguely about kissing Kensi… Okay, I lied. I've spent hours thinking about kissing Kensi (and even longer fantasising about doing a whole lot more) in great detail, but the reality is so much better. Kissing Kensi is unbelievably good. She's soft and warm, and she's feisty and firey and she's just so damned alive and passionate. It's like there are electric sparks flying between us and what starts out soft and tentative gets deeper and more passionate, pulling me in until I'm lost in her sweetness. I don't want this kiss to ever end, but when she makes this little moan in the back of her throat, I have to pull away before I do something stupid. Nobody has ever got to me in the way that Kensi does.
Kensi smiles at me, a slow, slightly sleepy smile. I'm seeing a whole new side of her, a part of her she's kept hidden for a long time and I reach out to ease her hair back from her face. "That was even better that the last time. Our first time."
That was when I was sprawled on the sidewalk, bleeding merrily away. Truth be told, I was kind of pre-occupied with not dying when she kissed me back then, so I didn't do a whole lot to add to the process. So this time I'd been making up for a wasted opportunity.
"It was our only time," she corrects. "How about we make it three – just for luck?"
She gets no objections from me. Quite the contrary. Who in their right mind would get an invitation like that and turn it down. Kissing Kensi is like falling into this big pile of swansdown and just sinking into the sweetest softness you ever dreamt of. I feel so lucky loving her. I feel like I'm the luckiest man on earth when I'm kissing her and she's kissing me and it just feels like all my birthdays have come at once. Her tongue is like molten fire and I can feel the flames licking at me, burning me up inside. All of a sudden I just want her, I need her so badly and I pull her on top of me. And that's when I know that I'll never be able to get enough of Kensi, not if we live for another thousand years. She just has to smile at me to make my day, and when I look at her, lying on my chest and smiling at me with that wicked look on her lips, I wonder what else living is for, if it's not for moments like this.
Kensi's hair is falling forward, so that it's like two dark, silky curtains sweeping down on either side of my face, enclosing us in a secret, scented world nobody else can ever discover. I seem to be unconditionally hers – but I think I maybe always have been. It's just that I wouldn't admit it before. Maybe I was scared, wondering just who she was, because Kensi can seem like a new girl every day, always keeping me guessing, but that doesn't matter anymore. Nothing else matters now except this moment. It's like she's the drug I've been craving. All the rest doesn't bother me because I'm far too busy loving her. And then Kensi does this little shimmy with her hips that under other circumstances would have me groaning and begging for mercy. Well, I am kind of begging for mercy, but not in that way.
"Oh shit!" Yup, that got me right where it hurts. No, not there. Thank God. In my leg wound. The one I'd almost forgotten about during the last ten minutes or so.
Kensi leaps up, kind of like a cat that's had a pint of milk spilt right over it. You can tell I speak from experience, can't you? That really wasn't my fault and it wasn't like I'd done it on purpose anyway. II actually quite liked that cat, only it had been rubbing around my legs as I was preparing some oatmeal at a girlfriend's place a couple of years back. I was ignoring its increasing frantic meows, and the stupid beast decided to take matters into its own paws and kind of leapt up at me and tried to grab on. Luckily, I was wearing my jeans (even if I wasn't wearing a whole lot else) on account of the fact that hot oatmeal kind of splutters. I've never forgotten what happened to Al Green, which should be a warning to us all… Anyway, you couldn't exactly blame me for drenching the cat in milk, although my soon-to-be ex-girlfriend did. It wasn't that big a deal, given the milk was cold and anyway, what else are you supposed to do when you've got a cat that's not just sticking its claws into your junk but swinging its entire body weight from your scrotum? I thought I was quite restrained, given the extreme circumstances. Funnily enough, my girlfriend disagreed. Which was how I'd found myself standing outside her apartment at eight in the morning, wearing only the aforementioned jeans, nursing my junk and cursing all cats. Thanks, Al – without your example, that would have been even more embarrassing than it already was. Not that I said any of this to Kensi, on account of the fact I was trying not to scream like a little kid in the fun house at a county fair.
"Oh my God – I'm so sorry. Are you alright?" She was wringing her hands together and looking incredibly guilty.
Breathe deeply, Deeks. You can do this. "Just give me a minute." It wasn't her fault, after all.
Thirty seconds ago we were this close to taking that final step, and now she's standing there, and I'm lying here on the sofa, gasping for breath like a fish hauled out of the stream and wondering what the hell just happened. There are times when I am almost certain that somebody up there really doesn't like me, and today is definitely one of those times.
"I'm just so darn clumsy at times," she mourns.
"Kensi – stop hyperventilating. I'm fine." I check the leg of my jeans surreptitiously, just to make sure, but there's no blood. There is a God after all. The only thing is that my leg is aching like fun. It feels exactly like someone has whacked a baseball into my thigh, so hard that it's embedded itself right into my flesh.
"Really? You're sure?" She gives me a tentative smile and I realise that is all it takes. She just has to smile to blow my cares away.
"I'm sure."
I'm also sure she's the one; but then Kensi's always been the one. It just took me a while to realise that, because we'd left too much unsaid for too long and it kind of built up into this stupid barrier between us that we could work out how to knock down. If I'm truthful about things, I pretty much made my mind up at a glance when I saw Kensi for the very first time. There was just something there, like we had this connection, even if neither of us trusted the other at the time. Well, given that she was calling herself Tracey, and I was masquerading as Jason, can you blame me? With names like those, it sounded like we'd come straight off the set of some TV show back in the 1960s. So we started off, each one pretending to be someone else and it's taken us a while to work out exactly who we are and how we feel about things.
"You're too good at getting yourself all messed up without me adding to it," she says ruefully.
I'm so tempted to say she can kiss me better, but I don't want to push things, or ruin everything by saying the wrong thing. "We've all got to be good at something. Mine's getting into trouble." I'm also a dab hand at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and blowing things right out of the water, which is why I'm being so careful right now.
Kensi looks at me sideways. "I could help you there."
Okay, it looks like I didn't need to be quite so cautious after all. God, I love it when she talks like that. That's the thing about Kensi: she can be sophisticated and elegant, or she can get right down there in the dirt and scrap it out with the best of them. It's like being with a new girl every single day and that's incredibly exciting. I'm definitely excited and that's a fact. I kind of think Kensi's noticed that.
Now, you will notice that all the ingredients for a really interesting encounter are set in place, and I was kind of aware of that myself. It was like my version of all the planets coming into alignment and any moment now I was expecting to hear choirs of angels start to sing. Which shows you what I know. There was no celestial music for me, because it's at this moment that my stomach gives this unmistakable gurgle and Kensi immediately looks at her watch and does this little jump of surprise.
"It's nearly four. How did it get so late?"
Errr – maybe because we were kind of preoccupied and I wasn't exactly thinking too clearly? Funnily enough, when I'm getting it on, food is sort of the last thing on my mind. "Search me."
From the look on Kensi's face, she'd like to do just that, but sadly she restrains herself. There is such a thing as being too conscientious, you know. "You need to eat something. Don't think I didn't notice you've had to use a tighter notch in your belt. And even then they're hanging so low I can see the waistband of your boxers."
Funnily enough, the only notch I was thinking of was thinking of was the one I hoped to add to the bedpost. "So I dropped a couple of pounds? It's no big deal."
Kensi fixes me with a basilisk stare. It's quite incredible how long she can go without blinking. I must remember to check the Guinness Book of Records, because she could be a serious contender. "More like ten," she says. Who am I to disagree? She seems to have been studying my body in considerable detail and that gives me a hell of a kick.
5. Compliment.
Don't forget to give a nice compliment every now and then. "Love your sweater", "Your hair looks so good today" and "Have you lost weight?" are all good choices. Make up a new one everyday - by looking for the positive things in your mate, you will soon forget to see the flaws. And you will also make your partner's day!
"How about we order some takeout?" I suggest, as my stomach makes more protesting noises, like it thinks someone has cut my throat. Now I come to think about it, I'm starving. Takeout is good – well, actually normally it's pretty bad for you, on account of all the salt, MSG etc – but who cares right now? Takeout is quick and convenient, and you can eat from the boxes in bed – if you're that way inclined. Which I am – obviously. What's not to love about takeout?
"Or I could go get us some beer and burgers?" Kensi's trying not to smile, but her lips are starting to curve and it's official: like I said before, she just has to smile to make my day; my week; my month - or even my year. My leg is still sore but she just has to smile to blow my cares away.
I know where she's going with that suggestion, and I've got something to add. "And then we could watch America's Top Model?"
I'm joking, of course. After all, what self-respecting, red-blooded American male wants to watch a show about hot women, who spend half the time in their underwear? Of course I watch it - I just don't talk about it. But it's just that last year, Kensi got smacked pretty hard on the jaw during an op and I kind of went ballistic and swung at the guy, nearly knocking him into next week and smashing my own hand up in the process. Not that I cared much at the time. Nobody hits my partner and gets away with it: not then and not ever. Later on, I came round to her place, and we spent the evening together, watching her favourite show. Kensi normally has lousy taste in entertainment, but quite frankly I was so glad she was alive and in one piece that I would happily have sat and watched paint dry if that made her happy. The way things ended up, we actually had a pretty great evening. And that makes me hopeful that tonight might be even better. Who cares about seeing aspiring models in their underwear when I'm going to see Kensi model hers?
Sticking her chin out, Kensi rubs her jaw reflectively, and I know she's thinking about that evening too. "That's the best you can come up with?"
"Honey, just you wait till you see what I can come up." Come on – how could I possibly not say that? It was just too much temptation and I can never resist temptation. Why would I want to?
"Hold that thought – until I get back with the food." She drops a kiss on my lips and then turns to leave and my eyes are glued to her ass as she goes out. Kensi has the greatest ass. No, scrub that. Kensi is just the greatest, period.
I can hold that thought – at least I think I can. I've waited this long, after all so what's another few minutes? Our love was unintentional, but it's always been unconditional – it's just that it took us a bit of time to figure it all out. And we never really fought it anyway – we were just kind of in denial about it all. So we were slow learners? So what. We've got there now and I just want to keep going. So I can definitely hold that thought.
As I've got a bit of time to kill, and my leg is still doing that dull-throbbing, aching kind of thing, it seems like a good time to have a shower in the hope that maybe the hot water will sooth it a bit. Pain-pills are out of the question, as they tend to react badly with beer. I found that one out a long time ago (when I was in high school, if you really want to know) and the results were predictably messy. Anyway, beer works well as an anaesthetic, I've found, so I'll give the drugs a miss.
So I go and stand under the shower and let the water beat down on my head while I try to figure out how things can turn around so quickly and how my life has just gone from totally crappy to fucking great in the space of an hour. If it took me getting shot for both of us to finally realise what was blindingly obvious, then that's just fine. That's just the way things happen and I'm okay with that. I'm more than okay. I'm feeling better and more alive than I have done for months, maybe years.
Afterwards, I run the clippers over my beard. Now, I come in for a lot of teasing about my appearance – and it's mostly good-natured, I know that. Heck, Callen gets teased about being short and Sam gets a load of comments about his shiny chrome-dome, so I guess my facial hair is fair game. And we all tease Kensi about her tight jeans. Just like we all salivate over Kensi's tight jeans. But if you want the truth, I do actually care about what I look like. I just happen to like the way I look with a few days growth. Clean shaven and I run the risk of getting carded half the time. Any more than about a week's growth and I'm halfway to looking like a Viking ready to go on the rampage. So it's a fine line, and one I hope I'm negotiating with some success. My hair pretty much takes care of itself and does its own thing, which is fine by me.
So, I'm standing there in my robe, which is actually a pretty decent piece of clothing and in my favourite colour as well, mulling over whether or not I should bother to get dressed again, when fate steps in and sorts things out for me, in that I hear the front door opening. Yes, life is looking very sweet indeed and I'm just about to congratulate myself on being primed for the action that's going to follow, when I get smacked in the face by hubris once again. Because I can hear voices. Plural. As in more than one voice. And sadly, despite that blow to the head I took, I'm not hearing voices in my head, because these voices are getting louder. Great. Who the hell has chosen this time to come visiting? And why didn't Kensi just tell them to get lost?
"Look who I ran into at the burger bar," Kensi says, with enforced jollity. "Eric and Nell."
Under other circumstances, I might have been mildly curious as to why they were out together, but right now I really couldn't care less. I just want them to go. I try sending thought waves: go away. Go away now. GO AWAY. It doesn't work.
"And when we saw Kensi, I said to Eric that this would be a great chance to come over and see how you guys are doing," Nell informs me happily.
"Great idea. I'm fine." And Kensi's fine too, I think. We're both fine. If you really want to know the truth, Kensi is so fine it's just about blowing my mind, so how about you both just turn right around and get the hell out of Dodge?
Nell does not take the hint. "You're looking a lot better. Nice pecs, by the way."
It's one thing Kensi ogling my body (actually, it is something I'm going to actively encourage) but it's kind of different with Nell. For one thing, half the time she looks like she should still be in school, which makes the idea of her looking at me like that kind of weird, in a creepy sort of way. And for another, I've got this idea that Eric might have a thing for Nell, and the last thing I want him to think is that I'm making moves on her. If that makes sense. My brain is trying to come to terms with the fact that our romantic interlude is well and truly at an end and as my body is proving to be rather slow on the uptake, I'm kind of preoccupied. I grab the edges of my robe and pull them tightly together, all the while being acutely aware that I am entirely as God created me underneath. Which was fine when I thought it was just going to be me and Kensi, but it's kind of embarrassing when it comes to Nell.
So, there we all are, just standing there, and Kensi and I are avoiding looking at each other, Eric is shuffling from foot to foot (and trying not to cast too many envious glances at my surfboards stacked up in the corner) and only Nell has her normal eager expression on, completely oblivious to the fact that she's about as welcome as a fart in an elevator.
"That's a nice robe, Deeks. It suits you. It brings out the colour of your eyes."
I feel like a fly caught underneath a microscope. I am never going commando again. Have you got any idea how difficult it is to keep a robe firmly shut when you are balanced on a pair of crutches? "Thanks. Kensi bought it for me." Like I said, it is a nice robe. It suddenly occurs to me that Kensi didn't just grab the first one she saw: she choose it specially for me. It's been a long time since someone did something that thoughtful for me, which is maybe why I didn't fully appreciate the gesture at the time. I'm going to have to thank her properly, later on. Once Nell and Eric are gone.
6. Give.
Give little gifts as often as you can. You don't need to spend a mint to show you care - you can even make something. If you see something that reminds you of your sweetie, get it for them. Just remember that everyone love to receive things!
Why on earth can't Nell and Eric just get out of here so that Kensi can take her present off me and we can get back to where we were?
"We'd better eat these burgers before they get cold," Kensi says and it might just be my imagination, but I'm almost certain I detect a certain note of desperation in her voice. It's good to know we're on the same wavelength. It would be even nicer to know we were in the same bed.